I recently posted an entry about Chinese style after BusinessWeek posted an article on Shanghai Tang, and once again BW raises the international style issue. Only this time, they’re talking Central Europe. Rightly so. Some of the coolest stuff has for years come out of places like Zagreb, famous for its illustrators and animation. After the break-up of the Soviet Union and the splintering of the various states, Metropolis magazine carried the work architects from the region who were fusing so many influences they took the term “melting pot” and stretched it in ways the comfortable West hadn’t seen in a century. If there is any place to be looking for exciting new work – outside of China – it has to be Central Europe.

Read their short article (link), look at the accompanying slideshow (link), and be prepared for a wave of creativity. I can hardly wait.

(p.s. I went looking for the Istanbul-based design firm that was getting a bunch of press recently, but I’m coming up empty. Feel free to post a comment if you know the one I mean and I’ll update this post.)

Link to New York Times story (free registration required).

’nuff said.

via Future Feeder

{Image Copyright © 2005 The New York Times Company}

There’s an excellent article over on BusinessWeek called “The MySpace Generation” (link). Lots of relevance to my comment on an earlier post (link), but I have to admit that the part that got me smiling was when the article talks about “influencers” (see an older post – here – to understand why).

I’ve posted about “reputation” previously; including links to sites and video discussing the importance of reputation in a digitally-connected world (link). I’ve also posted about griefers; mainly of the virtual 3D space variety (link). Well, here’s an interesting bit of regular old character assassination courtesy of USAToday, “A false Wikipedia ‘biography’ ” (link); just the wikipedia and the good old 2D internet. Worth reading.

via C|Net

I’d like to post more about rapid-prototyping and desktop manufacturing, but the truth is there’s not much being said out there that I haven’t already discussed here. The concept and potential may still be seeping into the mainstream, but I’m watching the science and engineering now, and on those fronts things take time to develop… which is why in the meantime I spend so much time following topics I think are relevant and related.

I do, however, still find it interesting to see the Big Idea moving out into the mass consciousness. It’s not the same as with non-physical content: music, movies, etc. Watching mp3’s go from yielding maybe 10 hits on a websearch to Napster was like watching a crowd gather round a wrecked armored car hemorrhaging money. It’s been a frenzy. Understandably so. A song doesn’t have a physical presence, so downloading it off the internet doesn’t feel like theft to most people. I don’t believe the same will be true for digital files people can easily fabricate and hold in their hands. For that reason I’m especially interested in observing how the digital rights/piracy issue plays out when regular people realize their whole world is becoming replicable (*reBang*). What will they think when they finally realize their blue collar manufacturing job isn’t just in danger of the technology, but of the casual attitudes of people all around them? Suddenly, they all have a stake in the piracy issue (which of course was the point of my old “rocket launcher” post).

That said, via an entry over on WorldChanging.com (link), comes word of a short article on Salon called “Desktop Manufacturing” (link, registration or ad viewing required). Not much there, to be honest. More interesting are the comments of Jamais Cascio and assorted commentators. Be sure to read that one.