So we’re here. Finally.

Actually, we arrived about 48 hours ago, after what seemed like a week of travelling. Hellish. But, of course, with hindsight completely worth it. Shinjuku is everything all the cliches say it is – Akira, Bladerunner and Neuromancer all rolled into one, but somehow weirder for not actually feeling that futuristic. Or at least, it’s a kind of retro futuristic, a reminder of the that 80′s cyberpunk vision that it inspired but never quite happened anywhere else. Like all sci-fi, they got some things wrong. Example? Well, it seems damn near impossible to find any public Wi-Fi round here. But why would you need it when everyone’s had 3G capable phones for over ten years?

Anyway, there’s another cliche about pictures and word counts…

I was procrastinating preparing to do some work today by clearing out my office/studio/spare room, when I found myself taking the above photo. I was emptying a drawer of the usual flotsam of modern life, when I realised it was subtly different. Maybe it’s because I’m weird, but instead of the usual collection of random badges, elastic bands, paperclips and the tops off lost biros, this little pile included:

• An old 3rd party Playstation memory card
• A Gunpey game cartridge for the Wonderswan, complete with protective slip case
• A weird Playstation cable tidy thing, that I was given at a Sony developers conference some years ago
• The cover for the network adaptor port on a black Nintendo Gamecube
• Protective covers for what I think are Dreamcast memory cards or VMUs (x3, various colours)

I don’t know why I took a photo of it. Possibly because it’s in someway a comment on how the minutiae of even the most mundane aspects of our lives have been changed by our reliance on consumerism and technology. Or something.

If you can actually use any of this shit then give me a shout.

If any of you have read the extract from my short story Paparazzi, you’ll remember a couple of the characters communicating with each other using something called a ‘Voice-Free Choker’ – a neck band that picks up nerve signals to the larynx and converts them into text or speech. Well, this morning I stumbled across this video at New Scientist of someone demonstrating what appears to be exactly that technology:

Of course I’m not really claiming to have thought this up – this system was developed by Texas Instruments – but the first I heard of the concept it was being touted by NASA to be built into the spacesuits for the probably-never-going-to-happen first manned Mars mission. The demo here shows it being used to make a phone-call, but I envisioned it being used for in game communications and for when privacy is needed in public spaces. Of course if it can convert ‘thoughts’ to speech it can also convert to text….handsfree SMS texting, anyone?

Very cool.