Harry Potter Impersonators

With the highly anticipated 7th Harry Potter being released, there has been a lot of press surrounding the book. One article I ran across in the New York Times gave me a few chuckles. If you are a Harry Potter Fan, you'll love the names Chinese Publishing Houses have come up with to knock of the genuine J.K. Rowling novels.

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As in some other countries, there are the unauthorized translations of real Harry Potter books, as well as books published under the imprint of major Chinese publishing houses, about which the publishers themselves say they have no knowledge. And there are the novels by budding Chinese writers hoping to piggyback on the success of the series — sometimes only to have their fake Potters copied by underground publishers who, naturally, pay them no royalties.

No one can say with any certainty what the full tally is, but there are easily a dozen unauthorized Harry Potter titles on the market here already, and that is counting only bound versions that are sold on street corners and can even be found in school libraries. Still more versions exist online.

These include “Harry Potter and the Half-Blooded Relative Prince,” a creation whose name in Chinese closely resembles the title of the genuine sixth book by Ms. Rowling, as well as pure inventions that include “Harry Potter and the Hiking Dragon,” “Harry Potter and the Chinese Empire,” “Harry Potter and the Young Heroes,” “Harry Potter and Leopard-Walk-Up-to-Dragon,” and “Harry Potter and the Big Funnel.”

Some borrow little more than the names of Ms. Rowling’s characters, lifting plots from other well-known authors, like J. R. R. Tolkien, or placing the famously British protagonist in plots lifted from well-known kung-fu epics and introducing new characters from Chinese literary classics like “Journey to the West.”

Here, the global Harry Potter publishing phenomenon has mutated into something altogether Chinese: a combination of remarkable imagination and startling industriousness, all placed in the service of counterfeiting, literary fraud and copyright violation.

Wang Lili, editor of the China Braille Publishing House, which published “Harry Potter and the Chinese Porcelain Doll” in 2002, one of the Chinese knockoffs, said: “We published the book out of a very common incentive. Harry Potter was so popular that we wanted to enjoy the fruits of its widely accepted publicity in China.”

Bono: A Brief History

GOOD Magazine came out with a great video on the rocker turned global advocate. Enjoy!

Bryant Park Summer Movies

This is what New York is all about.

The Blacker the Google...

...the more energy-efficient the screen.


Eco-tech blogger Mark Ontkush estimated a black version of Google would save 750 Megawatt-hours a year because black requires less energy to display than white.

So Toby Heap made Blackle.

Try it out!

FKBK

aka "For Kids, By Kids".

A funny parody by The Onion bringing awareness to the issue of Foreign Child Labor by such companies as Gap.

Breathe In, Breathe Out

The rhythms of the tides, sped up to match the rhythm of slow breathing. This beautiful work from Greenpeace's video campaign has a meditative quality and a quality message.

Kudos to my 'Ol Alma Mater

This article will be running in Business Week next week. Congratulations to Robert Sedlack, Paul Down, and the rest of the amazing professors within the Design Program at the University of Notre Dame.

Best Award-Winning Design Schools Around The World.

Next week we publish the annual International Design Excellence Awards winners (it used to be Industrial Design Excellence Awards) and they are an incredible collection of fascinating products, services, research, student work and concepts. The whole package goes up online on Thursday night, including those great charts showing which design firms and which companies won the most gold, silver and bronze awards in 2007 and from 2003 through 2007. Print goes on sale on Friday.

One new category of design winners this year is schools. The IDSA broke out the design schools attended by the students who won IDEA awards. In addition, three schools were actual clients--Carnegie Mellon, Delft University of Technology and Technische Univeriteit Eindhoven. The IDSA broke out the schools for 2007 and for 2003-2007. We won't have space for all of them in the magazine so I thought I'd put the list up now. They will also go online on Thursday.

Schools Given Recognition:

Carnegie Mellon
Cleveland Institute of Art
Daejin University (South Korea)
Delft Univ. of Technology (Netherlands)
Hfg Offenbach am Main (Germany)
Hong-ik University (South Korea)
Inst. Of Design-IIT
Kookmin University (South Korea)
Milwaukee Inst. Of Art & Design
Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts & Design (Germany)
Seoul National University (South Korea)
Shih Chien University (Taiwan)
Technische Universiteit Eindhoven - /d.search-labs (Netherlands)
Univ. of Cincinnati
Univ. of Notre Dame

...And Over 5 Years, Schools recieiving most awards

Art Center College of Design 9
San Francisco State Univ. 4
Univ. of Notre Dame 3
California College of the Arts 3

Now ponder these lists. Clearly Korean schools are beginning to produce first rate design students. Great talent is coming out of Europe as well. And talented design students are coming out of a whole range of schools in the US, including the University of Cincinnati (go Craig Vogel!, the Institute of Design in Chicago, the University of Notre Dame, the Cleveland Institute of Art and Carnegie Mellon, of course.

Now we've got to get the Royal College of Art to start entering it's terrific student projects into the IDEA contest.

Top 5 Killers at Monument

This is hilarious. Definitely a very creative way to promote products from San Francisco store Monument. Cool products, cooler promotional technique.

Top 5 things that could kill someone
Uploaded by sallyTVdotcom

HighTide Heels

Always be prepared.

Everything in Perspective

If you think you are having a bad day...
click here.

Rumor: Touch Screen iPods

The touch screen iPod is more of a "When" than an "If". There's no doubt that we'll see it eventually, but it could be as soon as next month if the information from Digitimes is correct. It claims that the Taiwanese manufacturer Wintek is churning out touch screens ready for an August release. Given the usual scarcity of Apple products at launch (yes, except the iPhone), a late summer release would give them time to ramp up production (and frenzied demand) in time for the holiday season. Digitimes fails to quote sources, but with all the speculation spinning around, there's got to be something from Apple next month, right?

via wired magazine

The Wind

Such a cute commercial.

Images That Changed The World

I came across PinGuy's Website where presently he is featuring (in)famous images that have had great impact on the world. It has to be one of the most emotionally provoking webpages I have scrolled through. Please take a moment and visit his website, it is immensely powerful. Please be aware, the images are extremely graphic, but the issues are definitely vital to be aware of and remembered.

In his own words, "Some people might be offended or upset by these images but this isn't my intention. I just want it to be thought provoking and enlightening, and for people to talk about the past and to never forget, because we need to learn from past events other wise we will keep repeating history."

To see the images, click here.

Time.com Photo Essays

I've become obsessed with Time.com's photo essays. They are highly educational, extremely intriguing and well photographed and researched. I've spent the entire morning going from one to the next. Showcasing present day and historical topics, I find it a good way to gain knowledge on issues you wouldn't usually think about.

If you find yourself with some time, take a moment and
click here.

Beijing 2008 Olympic Acuatic Center

The new Aquatics Center for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Australian architect group PTW, Arup and CCDI won an international competition to build the National Aquatics Center with a design that resembles a heavy-duty block of flavor-free Jell-O.

Daft Hands

Skip to about one minute in to this video...it's amazing what some people come up with.

Swarm Theory

How do the simple actions of individuals add up to the complex behavior of a group? For example, whereas one ant is incapable of complex thought, a colony of thousands (or hundreds of thousands) can solve some fairly elaborate problems.

I ran across an article on nationalgeographic.com talking about the swarm theory and how it can provide insights that can help humans manage complex systems, from truck routing to military robots. Though I'm not entirely interested in truck routing or military robots, it did raise some interesting questions that made me stop and...think.

If you are in a mood to reflect, take a moment and...click here