"Vores øl" (Danish for "Our Beer") is an open source initiative from a group of students at the IT university in Copenhagen.

The product is a conceptual reaction against copyright laws and the recipe is available for anyone to copy and use.

So, why open the source-code of beer and not something that people are more likely to use? Who knows, but the inspiration seems to come from the classic Richard Stallman quote:

"Free software" is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of "free" as in "free speech", not as in "free beer".

• Our Beer Website

Not so long ago, Japan experienced its first collective internet-orchestrated suicides giving the local authorities reason to worry about online communication fora. Now, a love-story developed on an internet forum has found its way to print and become a best seller.

The story evolves around "Trainman" who seeks advice online on how to pursue the girl of his dreams. Trainman is an archetypical "otaku", Japanese for a geeky youth obsessed with aspects of pop culture such as comics, computer games or electronic widgets. He has no experience with women so, he goes to the forum to get advice from fellow geeks, who sometimes gives bad suggestions because they are inexperienced themselves.

It is unclear whether Trainman really exists - and if he does, whether he collects any royalties.

• Japantimes

This project by Indian designer Aparna Rao was inspired by her uncle's peculiar habit of asking people to do things for him that he can very well do himself, such as dialing the number on a landline telephone (while he only listens). This two meter long phone was made to express the unique way that her uncle uses a regular telephone; it requires two people to operate- one to dial and another to speak.

• Household Objects in the Act

The "Sony Ericcson Ring" by Tao Ma from Beijing won the The Sony-Ericsson Concept Phone Design Competition in China.

Slashphones.com offers a full view of all the concept phones from the Chinese students.

• www.slashphone.com

Commissioned by The European Union, Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas/OMA has designed a new European flag.

The barcode-like logo places all the colours of the national flags of EU nations in strips alongside each other, thereby adressing the nations' individuality and collectiveness in one image.

The flag is a part of an exhibition and symposium held in Brussel under the title 'Image of Europe', The exhibition is about the representation and perception of Europe and was organized by Koolhaas and developed under the joint sponsorship of the Dutch Presidency and the European Commission

Despite being more beautiful, meaningfull and dynamic than the current blue flag with yellow 12 stars (that remain unchanged regardless of EU enlargements because it's a symbol of 'perfection', no less), Koolhaas' conceptual flag has provoked an outcry of critisism.

• www.oma.nl

"Alert" is an artwork by Austrian artist Barbara Musil, who reprogrammed the alarm systems of ten
vehicles from the region of Cluj in Romania and replaced the alarm signal with songs and texts relating to the theme of "theft".

The work received an honorary mention at the Ars Electronica Festival 2004.

0.K. Centrum

OneTrees is an ongoing project by U.S. based artist/researcher Natalie Jeremijenko

In response to the often one-dimensional debates about genetic cloning (either pro or con) OneTrees examines the relation between individualism and authenticity through the cloning and growth of a tree(s).

OneTrees is actually one thousand tree(s), clones, micro-propagated in culture. In the spring of 2003 the clones was planted in public sites throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

Because the trees are genetically identical, they will render the social and environmental differences to which they are exposed. The tree(s) slow and consistent growth will record the experiences and contingencies that each public site provides. They will become a networked instrument that maps the micro climates of the Bay Area, connected not through the Internet, but through their biological material.

• www.onetrees.org