By Natasha Lomas, 9 April 2009 14:00
The seven wonders of the ancient world honoured the most remarkable constructions of antiquity, from the Great Pyramid of Giza to the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. So where are the tech world's marvels?
silicon.com's Natasha Lomas selects her seven modern wonders - from the city where sci-fi comes alive to the workplace that wilfully confuses work and play.
Tokyo: The city of electric dreams
High-tech enthusiasts will feel right at home in Tokyo - residents are renowned for their passionate love affair with technology, be it arcades and videogames or mobile phones. It rated number four in silicon.com's Tech Hotspots list last year and it's easy to understand why.
Then there's Tokyo's electronic district, Akihabara, shown here - an Aladdin's cave of high-tech eye candy where all manner of PC parts, electronics tools and new and used tech kit can be ogled, sifted through and acquired.
While gaming has created its own subculture spin-offs where gamers dress up as their favourite characters or hang out at the annual Tokyo Game Show, the popularity of mobile phone technology has spawned a cultural movement too: Keitai culture. This is much in evidence in Tokyo where use of mobiles as video players, email devices and wallets has been the norm for years - long before such ideas caught on in the West. 2D barcodes called QR codes can also be found peppered around the city and mobile users snap them to get info or download content.
Photo credit: heiwa4126, via Flickr under the following Creative Commons licence
Comments
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1. Mike McNamara
Excellent list and great to see Akihabara as the first one.
I was visit lucky to go there in 1967 as a very young 'techie' in the Royal Navy! I brought back a special radio valve for my father who was a radio ham.
I went again with the Navy, but in 1980 also worked there installing a color scanner at a printing company and came back with 'bits' for my first personal computer.
Fascinating place that still holds its magic today
2. Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond
Shocked to read:
"Pictured here is what is effectively the birth certificate of the internet - the first page of Berners-Lee's research proposal into Information Management which led to the creation of a world wide web. "
Having been a long-time reader of Silicon.com (ever since its birth), and having a lot of respect for Ms. Lomas, I am afraid to have to say that this time round, you're falling in the classic mistake of confusing the words "Internet" and "Web". Birth of Internet: late 60s. Birth of Web: late 80s. That's 20 years difference, sorry.