South Korea is developing Busan as a world-class city specializing in digital content, with the latest ICON2009 hosted there by Busan IT Industry Promotion Agency (BIPA). Gamers, animation industry, other digital content and CG people from 15 countries were all there.

The lessons New Orleans learnt, and must learn, from Hurricane Katrina are important to all low-lying coastal cities in the time of climate change. This is a book review by local Sandy Rosenthal, Executive Director of New Orleans non-profit Levees.org, of Craig E. Colton’s book,”Perilous Place, Power Storms: Hurricane Protection in Coastal Louisiana” – a comparative study of the cities responses.

The Cleantech Open, is the world’s largest business competition created to find, fund and foster startup clean technology companies, and awards were announced for the annual Sustainability Award in San Francisco. Innovator Hydro-Volts of Seattle won, read on for more regional winners…

Electricity efficiency is the ‘low-hanging fruit’ of sustainability in cities, and LED street lights (and traffic lights) are one of the solutions appearing on the streets of cities like Ann Arbor, Michigan.

A simple idea, and sure to be a crowd-pleasing, exhibit at the Smithsonian. A history of the holiday season. Sometimes city branding opportunities can be straightforward.

Conroy opened CeBIT AusInnovate, with National Broadband Network for Australia. Then the detail – CSIRO & DSTO – the need not to kill innovation… highlights from CeBIT in Sydney.

Learn about innovaiton potential in Bucharest in Romania!

In this time of terrorism in Mumbai, let’s look at a positive Mumbai Success Story from a Creative Company.

A slideshow helpful in understanding the Mumbai Tragedy

Eyewitness account of Mumbai attacks in hotel

Use Social media to track the Mumbai attacks in real time with real people & real coverage, as well as commentary, including maps.

City of beauty. City of water. Check out these inspiring photos & tell us what you think of Venice.

Hotel design from a modern art hotel in Austria.

VIDEOS. Estonia. — Estonia is not a well known country.
This video might give you a sense of the creative spirit of this Baltic nation, across the gulf from Finland.
With its neighbour Latvia it once formed part of the powerful Soviet Union. Estonians are not Russians per se, and there are some tensions. Estonia still wears some of the scars of former communist countries.
But Estonia has a distinct identity. A sense of which is visible in the preceding video.
Technology focus.
Tallinn is a grand old city, capital of Estonia.
Tallinn also is famous …

VIDEOS. France. — Bordeaux is one of the global homes of wine.
Australian vitocultural innovation has brought new world practices to old-world Europe.
On the other hand, tradition is important, and Bordeaux is a blend of European tradition & innovation. Have a look, it’s an interesting video.
Climate change may also effect wine-growing regions & the massive wine industry.

COMMENT, NSW — Today the NSW government release the mini-budget. ABC have it here.
A patch/hatchet job to make up for years of fundamental neglect.
The 3 Amigos: Carr, Iemma, Costa.
Neglect under Bob Carr (especially), Morris Iemma & on to Nathan Rees.OK, Nathan hasn’t had a chance yet.
A special word goes to the spectacularly self-aggrandising Michael Costa. Costa managed to leave fingerprints 3 inches deep on several disastrous portfolios.
Infrastructure.
In an economic & property boom, no funding was spent on:
1) Transport
2) Schools
3) Infrastructure
4) Urban Planning
5) Roads
6) Energy infrastructure.
Wasted opportunity.
Property Developers.
Instead, the whole process …

REVIEWS, Adelaide – Australia is blessed with great airports by US, UK and in some cases, continental European standards.
Most Australian small airports are superior to most North American small airports. Although in larger airport terms, Boston’s Logan or SFO are superior to the large Sydney airport most international visitors experience.

One of Australia’s great smaller airports is the comfortable, practical Adelaide airport.
With crisp clean design lines, comfortable seating, work desk areas for non-lounge members and a good choice of food and shopping, Adelaide airport does it well.
Lounges at Adelaide
The Adelaide Qantas …

TRAVEL, Shanghai — This video shows the marvel of the Shanghai skyline.
A modern international city, there are ‘China issues’, but Shanghai is an amazing international city, a star on the rise. Also shown is the famous ‘the Bund’.
Shanghai is being watched by 2thinknow, as an emerging innovation city.
Another video here shows the great wonder of Shanghai’s skyline, but also greyness of the sky and the cost of that modernity.
China, we watch you with interest and awe.

TRAVEL, Boston — Boston is ranked 2nd in the world as an Innovation City, after Vienna, in the Global Innovation Review 2007.
The contribution of Harvard university and MIT to world knowledge and learning is barely measurable across the broad scope of all professions.
In addition Boston in New England, is one of the few cities in the USA where the food supply is adequate. Most US cities have a food supply that is below world best practice.
In truth, Boston, like San Francisco or New York is one of the American cities …

From London, to Singapore to Berlin and Melbourne a Ferris Wheel was the city ‘must-have’ in 2008. and yet, no city has ever branded itself by copying others so intensely – read why in this piece from the vault.