U.S. Behind the Times in Future Stuffs?

Speaking of time in this new century, here’s an interesting piece over at a new blog in the Gawker empire that we’d never heard of up until just a couple of minutes ago, io9: “Is the US the Least Futuristic Country?” It concerns the growing trend of all the cool design and architecture (and robots) now coming almost exclusively from places other than the US. It raises some good points and plenty of interesting, sometimes funny links, but at the same time, is talking about Dubai and crazy robot inventions from Japan really saying that America is falling so far behind? That’s sort of like saying we’re kicking all kinds of ass in the restaurant industry because we’ve got the market cornered on clown-themed fast food chains.