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And this technology is spreading. Immersive Labs, a company in Manhattan, has developed software for digital billboards using cameras to gauge the age range, sex and attention level of a passer-by. The smart signs, scheduled to roll out this month in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, deliver ads based on consumers' demographics. In other words, the system is smart enough to display, say, a Gillette ad to a male passer-by rather than an ad for Tampax.

Pop art colours juxtaposed against achromatic backdrop;Rajasthanijaali and hand-cut railings; earthy materials and rustic textures interspersed with contemporary fittings coalesce to furnish an eclectic and lived-in feel at the Gawande residence in Pune… Check it out!

Architecture and fashion have a long standing relationship; but actually incorporating the textile weave in a building façade is another thing. SPARK's 'pleated' and 'woven' façade for the award-winning mixed-use development Jing Mian Xin Cheng in Beijing demonstrates that depth of experience need not be forgotten despite the speed of the central city's expansion. 'Pleats' of perforated aluminium sheeting and a 'weave' of rippling windows resolve a variety of practical issues, while referencing a textile market that formerly operated on the site. Check it out here…

India's Ar. Sanjay Puri bags three coveted awards at the prestigious World Architecture Festival and the World Festival of Interiors - the largest annual festival and live awards programmes for the global architecture and design community. Read here...

'Chaos' and 'confinement': 'intense emotions' and 'intimacy' is the essence that characterizes the design of this bar and restaurant - Kinoya in Montreal, Canada.

Architects of Layers - Studio for Design and Architecture prove that an otherwise small apartment can provide one an ample opportunity to have areas that appear large and spacious. Check out ingenuity at the hands of this architect duo and do leave us your views...

Accessorising one's interior spaces involves an imaginative blend of comfort and style, form and function. Check out some spot pointers and leave us your views...

What is it about the black-and-white colour palette that at once attracts and holds fast to one's sensibilities? Check out Ar. Igor Sirotov's latest monochrome offering and leave us your views...

How does one treat an expansive home to be warm and visually appealing yet modest and uncluttered? Check out Studio Design Intervention's solution for this tropical home in Singapore and leave us your views...

Concrete design studio use post modernism and pastiche elements to recreate Asian street-food themed restaurant in Amsterdam. Check it out and tell us what you think of it…

What is it about wood and minimalism in Japanese architecture that intrigues while it is timeless? Check out this home by Ar. Masahiko Sato and leave us your views...

Ar. Masahiko Sato refurbishes an old concrete home in Japan by introducing warmth through wood and plenty of light. Check it out here and leave us your feedback…

Especially curated shows and loads of design-oriented and design-conscious outfits overwhelm one's senses to establish the London Design Festival as UK's strongest platform for newly established design talent. Check out the review and leave us your views...

Dynamism in form inculcates energy in functionality and active flow of human traffic in this new contemporary art museum in LA. Check it out here and leave us your comments…

I'm an admirer of Caitlin Flanagan's skills as a writer of prose, and I like that she likes to take on topics that others shy away from. But it's always bothered me that the Atlantic lets her write articles that, under guise of book reviewing or some such, make sweeping statements of social trends without any kind of empirical backing or even recognition of the possibility that assertions can be verified or not through data. Fortunately, for the first time ever this blog has an intern, Ryan McNeely, currently pursuing an MA at Princeton and conversant with research methods and facts in a way that Flanagan isn't. I asked him to poke around at her latest article which posits that very young teen girls are spearheading a cultural counterrevolution against a burgeoning hookup revolution. Not surprisingly, there seem to be some problems.

When I started writing this essay I thought to summarize my views of hyperconnectivity as they coalesced in the past year, in relation to the emergence of the polytopia project, however as my writing progressed, it appeared that the area that I wished to cover was getting wider and broader, deeper and larger than I had anticipated. I therefore decided to divide the paper into a number (unknown at present) of consecutive essays under the collective title of: the rise of the Cyber Unified Civilization. (please bear with me as I try to disentangle and re-entangle my thoughts on this fascinating topic.)

As the Pope ends his visit to Britain, historian Dr Thomas Dixon delves into the BBC's archive to explore the troubled relationship between religion and science. From the creationists of America to the physicists of the Large Hadron Collider, he traces the expansion of scientific knowledge and asks whether there is still room for God in the modern world.

Right now, according to a number of studies, we are losing about $100 billion every year because corporate America and the very wealthy are stashing their money in tax havens like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. We should be aware that in 2009, ExxonMobil made $19 billion in profits and not only did the company not pay anything in taxes, it got a $106 million refund from the IRS. We should also be aware that since 1997, we have almost tripled funding for the military. So if we are serious about reducing the deficit, those are things we need to look at-not at Social Security, not programs everyday Americans need.

"You can't sustain a democracy in an oligarchic state. The writers on Athenian democracy understood that 2000 years ago," says Chris Hedges, whose new book The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress explores the problems of a crumbling empire, inside and out. Chris joins Laura in studio for a conversation about the death of Bin Laden and the continuing concern over terrorism, the end of empathy in the U.S., and what avenues are left for progressives to fight back.  "The elites are not going to help us," he warns, "We're going to have to help ourselves."