Tokyo Blog

Recently I’ve been noticing a few different ways in which the internet has been important. Last week, I went to Tachikawa in the Western suburbs of Tokyo. In order to find my way from the station to where I was going, I checked the place out beforehand on Google Maps. Furthermore, I opened Street View and ‘walked’ from the station and around the surrounding streets to get a feel for what the area looked like and any landmarks. When I stepped out of the station a few days later it was weird, because I recognised the location. Which makes perfect sense, because I already spent some time exploring a virtual version, albeit paused at last winter.

If your localisation of Google hasn’t got Street View yet, I’m sure it’s coming. Tokyo was one of the first to get it, and the amount of data that is required must be enormous. It’s really useful for navigating.

The other thing I noticed in a recent news story was the prevalence of the internet in a shocking child murder case in the UK. The case of Baby P involved the baby’s mother, his step father and a lodger. The three of whom have been repremanded over their likely involvement in the boy’s death. What happened though, is that underground news sites and unofficial sources leaked the names and addresses of the three on the internet, which eventually found their way onto popular social networking site facebook. An angry mob soon assembled in cyberspace ready to lynch the individuals responsible for the child’s death (which was horrific). The saddest thing for me is that the child’s death could have been prevented if it wasn’t for the negligence of the UK authorities.

The internet played a big part in exposing the identities and, as it so often does, put the power (of knowledge) back in the hands of the people - good or bad.