Word: designers
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...Walkman wasn't a giant leap forward in engineering: magnetic cassette technology had been around since 1963, when the Netherlands-based electronics firm Philips first created it for use by secretaries and journalists. Sony, who by that point had become experts in bringing well-designed, miniaturized electronics to market (they debuted their first transistor radio in 1955), made a series of moderately successful portable cassette recorders. But the introduction of pre-recorded music tapes in the late 1960s opened a whole new market. People still chose to listen to vinyl records over cassettes at home, but the compact size...
...offers a series of intuitive fixes for this growing problem: buckle down on speed limits, reduce drunk driving and tighten seat-belt laws. With pedestrians, cyclists and other "vulnerable road users" accounting for 46% of all traffic deaths, the report concludes that more research on road planning and design is needed as well. A scourge as lethal as many contagious diseases, car crashes are just as preventable. There's plenty of work left to be done...
...most prized Indian sari styles - Banarasi and Kanjeevaram silks - are also facing new competition. Depending on the intricacy of design, it takes 15 to 30 days to weave one of these saris, which sell for $50 to $60. A Banarasi silk weaver, Abdul Basit Ansari, 37, has been working for the past 20 years weaving these garments, which come from the holy city of Varanasi. "The industry is facing lots of difficulties," he says. "This is primarily because the sale of fake Banarasi saris made in power looms has been picking up and also because of the sale of cheap...
...similar initiative is taking place at Traffic, the Middle East's only contemporary-design gallery and store, and the brainchild of Dubai native Rami Farook. Here too, a growing group of regional unknowns is struggling to gain attention. Annual design competitions have confirmed Farook's earliest suspicions that the expertise not only exists in Dubai, but can also hold its own against the imported competition. Farook put his faith to the test earlier this year, when he initiated Traffic's manufacturing division - producers of the city's first range of locally designed furniture...
...brand-new Dubai Culture and Arts Authority (DCAA), meanwhile, is overseeing the implementation of new museums and the development of the city's art and design talent. At the forefront of its agenda is building affordable housing and creating part-time employment for artists, as well as devising a feasible grant system. The authority is also a driver of the U.A.E.'s participation at the Venice Biennale. In a bid to create a fresh image for the seven-member federation, DCAA director Dr. Lamees Hamdan gave Berlin-based curator Tirdad Zolghadr carte blanche to fashion an 800-sq-m pavilion...