For the month of August 2010, Yahoo’s network of sites beat out Google’s network of sites as the most popular online destinations in the US. Now, I realize Yahoo’s reach goes far and wide (not even including Flickr and del.icio.us) — but I can’t help but feel like I’m in a time warp every time something reminds me that Yahoo is still relevant.

Mozilla is the latest tech company to join the mobile wars. Well, with Google eating up Mozilla’s share of the web browser pie – and the mobile web becoming more and more crucial – it’s no wonder Mozilla is expanding to mobile phones. Still just in concept phase, but the Seabird is already looking pretty sleek.

China’s Brother Sharp resurfaces in the fashion world. Remember him? The homeless man in east China who was hailed as an accidental fashion icon a few months ago? Well, his influence hasn’t died down just yet… but I can’t be alone in thinking Derelicte from Zoolander, can I?

The creative brief: does it help or hinder the actual creative process? Jesmin Cheng put together a great research presentation with interviews from well-known agencies about how creative briefs can really inspire the team if done correctly. More agencies really need to see this presentation.

Hong Kong resident Gary Chang turns his tiny apartment into a transforming, sustainable living space. I think people in North America really take for granted just how much space we have over here. Super tiny homes are common in Asia’s busy urban centres and people over there just make do with what little space they have. Chang takes it a step further and brings the conveniences and luxuries of larger homes into his apartment. (For the record, my apartment in Japan was even smaller than Gary Chang’s. It was liveable and cozy, and I was satisfied.)

The battle between Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android mobile platforms has been heating up for the past couple of years. Both mobile operating systems have their pros and their cons, but when it comes down it, Apple fans could always play the industrial design card over any mobile phone running Android. The iPhone 4, for instance, has its highly publicized flaws, but who could turn it down when it’s so nice to look at? When it comes to technological devices, nobody could touch Apple’s industrial designs.

Unless, of course, you’re Italian design house Alessi, famous for designer household products and maker of beautiful things we don’t really need but really want anyway.

Enter: AlessiTAB, which out-designs even Apple’s iPad. Set for release in Italy this November, the AlessiTAB boasts a 10.1″ touchscreen, digital TV tuner, built-in WiFi, a webcam, and runs on Google’s Android 2.1 operating system. While the design of the AlessiTAB doesn’t allow it the portability of the iPad, the Stefano Giovannoni-designed tablet is as much a work of art as it is a light, functional computer for your designer kitchen surrounded by your other beautiful designer goods. (Keyword: designer.)

Check out more photos and details on the AlessiTab on Designboom.

Studying China’s ability to invest for the future doesn’t make me feel we have the wrong system. It makes me feel that we are abusing our right system. There is absolutely no reason our democracy should not be able to generate the kind of focus, legitimacy, unity and stick-to-it-iveness to do big things — democratically — that China does autocratically. We’ve done it before. But we’re not doing it now because too many of our poll-driven, toxically partisan, cable-TV-addicted, money-corrupted political class are more interested in what keeps them in power than what would again make America powerful, more interested in defeating each other than saving the country.

Thomas L. Friedman for The New York Times, on why we constantly compare China to every other country.

Nintendo admits that blowing old NES cartridges is useless as well as harmful to the cartridges. And yet, somehow, no matter the country or the culture, every kid born in the 80′s instinctively blew on cartridges as a DIY dust remover.

The first Asian Ken doll is a samurai. He’s Asian, so of course he is. We should just be grateful that Mattel didn’t choose the other stereotype of an accountant-by-day, computer programmer-by-night.

Western brands need to rethink their ‘premium pricing’ strategy in Japan, like, right now. Japanese consumers have gotten used to paying higher prices compared to shoppers in other places in the world — but as the success of super cheap retailers like H&M and Forever 21 in Tokyo illustrates, the time of premium pricing for imported goods has come to its end.

The Mini Cooper ad that demands your attention. Advertising and marketing is difficult because advertisers are forced to think out of the box to get noticed, but still need to make logical connections between their ideas and the actual product. This Mini advertisement does both. I love it.

A baby photo becomes an internet meme. When it comes to the web, nothing is sacred or safe from being reposted, retweeted, reblogged, and Photoshop’d to death. What I liked about this article is how cool both the father and the child (now 10 years old) are about the situation, despite some of the weird things done to the original baby photo.