Is design political?

Over at Core77, the Design Council’s Jennie Winhall has written a thought-provoking essay, “Is design political?”, looking at the links between design and politics, and how design can be used to shape behaviour for political ends:

BBC: Safe, secure and kitsch

Image from Sweet Dreams Security website
From the BBC, an interesting story looking at the work of Matthias Megyeri’s Sweet Dreams Security:
“A German artist is trying to change the way people think about security, by replacing barbed wire with heart-shaped metal, and pointed railings with animal shapes. Matthias Megyeri… considers symbols of threat and fear, such [...]

Philips: You MUST watch these adverts

Via Jack Yan’s excellent Persuader Blog, news of a patent application filed by Philips which would prevent television viewers either changing channel during commercial breaks, or fast-forwarding through the adverts when watching recorded shows.

BBspot – New Starforce DRM Uses CD Made from Plastic Explosives

From the always excellent BBspot: ‘New Starforce DRM Uses CD Made from Plastic Explosives’.
“Not only does this protect the software from being copied, but it also prevents the copier from ever copying anything again. If we’re lucky we’ll also take out his hacker brother and maybe a few pirate friends too,” said Starforce director [...]

The fight back: Defeating cartridge expiry

Via Boing Boing (& thanks too to Jeremy Tirrell for alerting me), a very useful piece of free software from the SSC Localization Group which allows the user to get round a variety of architectures of control designed into Epson printer cartridges, including:

Making a sleek piece from a pig’s ear

Dongle scrapyard