“So what brings you to attempt our methods instead of conceiving a child in the usual way.”

Anthony Johnson took a breath before laying out exactly why he and Linda had chosen this route, “We’ve been trying for a child for years.  No one could possibly want a baby as much as us.  It was so recently that we discovered that Linda couldn’t have children.  I am ashamed to say that I didn’t treat her too well, I was so upset, but then we also discovered that I couldn’t have children either.”

“And have you thought about adopting?”

It was Linda who spoke this time, “Well, the adoption agencies all said we were too old, that we had waited for too long.  They didn’t think it was right to give us a child at our age.  Also, when we thought about it we decided it wouldn’t be the same anyway.  We really want to see us in the child.  We want to know it is really our child.”

“So this is why you have come to us.  You will be glad to know that we never bar anyone from our technique on the grounds of age, no matter how advanced, but I would like to make sure you realise the commitment that raising a child can be.”

“Of course” said Anthony, “We are extremely committed in everything we do and we cannot even imagine such a thing as us ever leaving each other.  The efforts we have been through so far could have destroyed many relationships but it has just brought us closer together.”

“I suppose you are fully familiar with our technique?”

“Yes, of course” replied Linda, “You take samples of my DNA and samples of Anthony’s DNA and then blend them together just as it would be done in natural conception.  Is that right?”

“Well that is the most basic part of what we do but as the technique is very new and we don’t wish to gain any political objections to it we like to make sure that everything is given the best possible start.  This will mean that there will be a lengthy process of evaluation for both of you before we can give you a positive answer.”

“We are prepared to do anything,” said Anthony, “You really are our only hope.”

The tests turned out to be less arduous than Anthony and Linda had imagined but that was perhaps because they had already been put through so much in the years they had been trying for a child.  Eventually the evaluations had all been made and the couple were given a green light and were told they were to finally become parents.  They were even given a choice over which gender the child would be.  They decided on a boy.  They wanted to name it after Anthony’s grandfather Harold even though it was a somewhat old fashioned name for a boy nowadays.

The first time Anthony got to hold Harold in his arms he was filled with wonder.  He had often heard how parents found their children to be the most beautiful thing in the world and not really believed it, but there was something almost magical in how beautiful Harold looked to him.  He could see Linda’s features in his face blended with his own, he could even see hints of Harold’s deceased namesake.  Anthony laughed with joy and looked up to see Linda beaming at him.  This really was the happiest day of his life.  He didn’t think he would feel this way but he couldn’t hold it in and didn’t want to either.

Bringing up Harold turned out to be easier than they had thought.  Certainly they spent a lot of time with him and in fact most of their waking hours were spent playing with him and teaching him.  Perhaps it was because they had had to wait so long that they felt the need to be such attentive parents.  What made it easier was that the New Life Company helped them with so much beyond the conception.  Harold’s toys and clothing, his food and schooling were all covered by the company in exchange for a small monthly payment.  They really didn’t want these early children to fall into harm and did everything to ensure that they had a good life.

As the years passed there were so many milestones in little Hal’s life that Anthony and Linda faithfully recorded.  His first steps.  His first words.  He seemed to grow so fast.  Admittedly it was years but it just seemed amazing how a little boy could turn into a toddler  and soon be off to playschool.  It wasn’t long in Anthony and Linda’s eyes before he had started at primary school.  “He is growing up so fast” Anthony said to his wife as they waved him good bye at the school gate.  Linda didn’t say anything because she was trying to hide that she was snuffling in a handkerchief.

Every night they would take it in turns to read him bed time stories, bringing out the old favourites they had read to them when they were children themselves.  It warmed the couple’s heart to see him growing up as they had grown up all those decades before being read to by their own parents.  Often as Hal was falling asleep he would hug them and say “I love you mummy and daddy.”  When he did this it filled his parents with such warmth.

Anthony spent so much time with Hal that he began to neglect his business.  When it was a choice between watching his son playing baseball or acting in a school play against work he knew what he would choose and it wasn’t labouring over charts and numbers when he could be anywhere with his family.  Perhaps he should have considered how important his work was in supporting this new life that the New Life Company had given him.

One afternoon while Anthony and Linder were standing watching Hal’s team playing baseball the unthinkable happened. “Oh, there’s somebody at the door” said Linda, “I’ll get it, you keep watching the game.  You know Hal will be upset if you miss him getting a homerun.  I’ll be right back.”

A couple of minutes passed while Anthony enjoyed the game.  Hal came up to bat and looked over to his father smiling and waved.  When the ball was thrown Hal swung and gave it a good clean hit right to the edge of the park. “Oh, he has to get that home run after a hitting the ball like that.”  It certainly looked like he was going to.  Anthony was cheering his son on when suddenly everything disappeared.

In front of Anthony was a large man in a white shirt and a dark suit.  “Who are you?” He demanded.

“I tried to stop him” said Linda, “but he just forced his way past me.”

“I’m from the New Life Co” said the man. “You’ve fallen behind with your payments.  I have come to repossess this equipment.”

“What? you can’t do that.”  said Anthony.  “What about our family?”

“Don’t worry sir, your son or daughter will still be there on the hard drive when you wish to resume paying for our service.”

“I can’t afford to pay at the moment.  Can’t you give me a bit more time?”

“You have all the time in the world sir.  With a little less of it wasted playing computer games you should earn the money even quicker.”  And with that the man unplugged the virtual reality set and left Anthony and Linda to console each other gently sobbing at the abrupt manner in which their family had been broken up.

Amazon announced four physical products in total and left a lot of questions unanswered.  The prices they mentioned in their presentation were American so it will be interesting to discover what the prices and release dates will be when these new Kindles hit British shores.  The one that everyone was waiting for was the Kindle Fire, the new tablet they were promising to release.  Rumours had so far placed the price of the tablet as being $250 or $299 possibly including Amazon Prime for streaming movies and quick deliveries.  Shortly before the announcement was made Bloomberg revealed that the price was actually going to be a bargaintastic $199.

Although I do not have any specific information about the specs of the Fire I do know that it has a dual core processor and is lightning fast, particularly with respect to its internet performance.  Amazon are introducing something called Silk.  Sounding like it owes something to Operas tradition of compressing web pages Silk will use the Amazon servers to take a lot of the work out of downloading webpages.  Where pages used to nippily download as they were only 10KB in size has obviously changed over the years now that pages might be 630KB in size.  Silk should make the whole using of a tablet device a lot smoother.  Maybe the iPad may not necessarily be scared by the announcement of the Fire but other Android producers should certainly start worrying.

The devices that interested me of course were the new Kindles.  $149 for a new 3g touch model, $99 for a wifi touch model, and for those who are not ready for a touch model there is a $79 model.  The $79 model is very small and pocketable but despite still making use of buttons to change pages it does not have a physical keyboard.  It may be that there is still room for the old Kindle with a physical keyboard.  I am assuming that this one must use the directional buttons for entering text unless it has a touchscreen for that plus physical page changing buttons, this seems highly unlikely considering the lower price point.

Well I am reasonably happy myself, the lack of a keyboard on any of these devices makes me think my Kindle3 model is not so obsolete yet.  I would imagine they will keep it on the market as it is so radically different from the new models.  The new $79 device is apparently available on US Amazon today.  There is as yet no information about when it will be coming across the Atlantic to us though.

One thing that did disappoint me was that I heard no mention of the supposed book subscription service that many people have been talking about recently.  This was a big shame as now that I have my older Kindle I would have really loved it.  Another feature that I would have loved is something called Xray.  Where it previously used to be possible to see dictionary definitions of highlighted words on the page in Kindle the new Xray feature will allow you to see encyclopaedia entries as well.  Nothing was said about whether this would work on the older models of Kindle but one of the things they said that was there would be no necessity of a web connection in order to use this facility.  When you download a book Amazon will already have considered all the possible questions you may have about historical characters, happenings and locations.  In order to facilitate rapid retrieval of these facts they will be downloaded to your device with the book.  Unless they intend to release different versions of each download depending upon which generation of device you use this would suggest that an update will introduce this feature to older devices as well.  Fingers crossed.

Overall I was fairly impressed by the wealth of new devices and features Amazon introduced and really felt that they had a touch of the Apple about their presentation.  It is good to see that there is still magic like this in the world now that Big Steve has taken a back seat.  Bezos left enough questions unanswered to keep speculation going for a while.  What will battery life be like for his new tablet for instance.  When will we get them in Britain.  I look forward to discovering the answers but on the whole exciting as this has all been I am still now disappointed with the Kindle I bought today.  It may be an older generation but I think there is still a place for it in the Amazon lineup, I hope it continues beside its newer brethren.

“Good morning Mr Douglas. The doctors are almost ready for you. May I take your coat?”

“Yes thank you” I was grateful, with my artificial arm and my general poor health it was difficult slipping in and out of my coat. The receptionist helped me slide it off my shoulders and hung it in a cupboard behind her desk. “How long will I have to wait do you think?”

“Not long, about five minutes maybe, you can take a seat over there.” The receptionist motioned towards some leather sofas. There was no one else sitting there, I don’t suppose many candidates for the treatment simply walk in through the reception. The majority of customers were in even worse condition than me. I gradually made my way over to the seating area. It was not a great distance but I was not a fit man, even a casual walking pace had me so out of breath that I became dizzy. I had to pause a couple of times before I got there.

I sat down to the left of a small table covered with magazines. It was a minute or so before I caught my breath and turned to look at them. I quickly discerned that they were the type of magazines that have obviously been made for the company to promote its products. More than the usual brochures, Grail-Tech had magazines featuring celebrities hobnobbing with recent customers. They all seemed to be in beautiful surroundings, rich looking mansions and beautiful gardens. This felt somewhat cheeky to me, I could have lived in surroundings like that if it hadn’t been for the prices that Grail-Tech charged.

I started leafing through a copy and realised that it mostly dealt with accessories, enhancements for the new bodies its customers went away with. I suppose for some of the wealthier customers maybe these would have been realistic, but my entire nest egg had been blown on the upload itself. As I browsed a questioning voice called out to me “Mr Douglas?”

“Yes,” I replied making an effort to rise from my chair.

An automaton male nurse stood there holding a wheelchair, “don’t bother getting up Mr Douglas. I am familiar with your condition.”

I smiled weakly and relaxed a little as the nurse wheeled the chair around to me. When he arrived he helped me up out of the chair and into the wheelchair, possibly the last chair I would ever sit in, in this body at least. The nurse, another automaton, it seemed a lot of jobs had been taken over by robots. It was a new world. Not like when I was a kid. As he wheeled me down the corridor he spoke of the necessity to sign a few more papers. I didn’t care really, my time was almost over, I just wanted to get on with it. At the end of the corridor he wheeled me into a large room.

Two tables lay next to each other on each was a large coffin like capsule. “Is it in there?” I asked almost excitedly.

“Yes Mr Douglas, would you like to take a look?”

I nodded enthusiastically and the nurse wheeled me over to one of the capsules which had an open lid. Inside was my pension fund in humanoid form, bearing a copy of my face. It was odd to look at it and think that soon I would be living inside that shell. “Thank you erm… I’m afraid I didn’t hear your name.” Automatons often had names nowadays it made them easier to tell apart.

“I never told it to you Mr Douglas, my name is Michael.”

“Thank you Michael, I’m ready for the procedure now.”

“Allow me to just fetch my colleague, we will get you to sign the final papers and the process should be over within half an hour.” I nodded assent and Michael left the room, leaving me sitting there beside my new body.

Less than a minute passed before Michael returned with a human companion. He had sallow unhealthy looking skin, an uncommonly thin man. I didn’t like the look of him, but I considered with my present health conditions I probably looked even worse. The man was carrying a bundle of papers, he gave me a smile and nod as he entered. “I just need a couple of signatures Mr Douglas and we’ll have you cleared of this terrible health condition before you know it.”

I smiled at the thought of this and accepted the pen with which to write my name. The sallow man turned the pages and pointed to the boxes he wanted signed. As soon as I had signed them all he thanked me and quickly left the room.

“Are you ready for the procedure now Mr Douglas” asked Michael.

“As ready as I’ll ever be Michael.” Michael slid his smooth carbon fibre arms beneath me and lifted me with his mechanical muscles, effortlessly placing me inside the empty capsule. He strapped a couple of thick heavy armbands around my biceps and attached an apparatus to my head before lowering the lid smoothly and slowly on its hydraulics.

I lay there in the dark waiting for the change to come. I felt a barely perceptible prick on my arm and within seconds darkness overwhelmed me.

Consciousness started to return to me. I felt bleary, where was I? Everything was dark. While I lay there I heard a hissing noise and a faint gleam of light touched my eyes. Before I could focus I heard the hissing again and the darkness returned.

I gradually felt my focus return and then I remembered I was being uploaded. How had it gone? I couldn’t wait to begin using my new body, to be fit and young, healthy and strong, or at least a good artificial simulation of it. I waited for Michael to come and let me out of the capsule.

A couple of minutes passed before I heard the hissing again. I opened my eyes and saw the capsule lid lifting. There was Michael and the sallow faced man looking down upon me. “Ah Michael,” I smiled, “it’s good to see you again.”

Michael ignored me and turned to the sallow faced man, “see I told you so” he said, “I don’t know what went wrong.”

I started at this. Something went wrong? What could it be? Come to think of it I didn’t feel better. The sallow faced man was looking down on me, he turned to Michael, “he has a prosthetic arm you idiot. You’ve delivered the sedative, but that is all. My balls will be on the line here. I’ll see you dismantled if this doesn’t get fixed.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked of Michael, but he simply ignored me.

The sallow faced man looked at me with a barely disguised look of distaste on his face, “there’s nothing to worry about, we’ll have this all sorted out soon.”

Michael and the man drew away from me and I heard them take a couple of steps towards the other capsule. Once again I heard the hissing sound as the other capsules lid rose. When it did I heard a voice, similar to my voice, as though it was being played back on a tape recording. “This is excellent, I feel 100% better, no make that 200% better.”

“I’m afraid there’s been a problem Mr Douglas. It seems your body is still alive. We wanted to ask you what we should do. You have legal power of attorney now.”

“What? What have you done? I paid a lot of money for this procedure. I paid everything.” I heard my voice come from the other capsule.

“Bob!” I called to myself. It seemed strange to be calling my own name but I didn’t know what else to say. “What’s going on Bob?”

I saw my face looking over the edge of the capsule. There seemed something so wrong to see it now animated, looking down upon me. It spoke to me, “nothing to worry about Bob, it looks as though your transition into my body has been a little bit rough.”

“I’m still here” I wheezed.

My new face looked at the sallow faced man, “what can we do about this?”

The sallow faced man looked worried, “the law won’t allow both of you to remain active. That is why we have the procedures set out the way they are.”

“Well you know my decision” I heard myself say, “I came here to go away in a new body, not in that damaged dying carcass.”

“Should we terminate your old self then Sir?”

“I don’t think you have any choice, but I will certainly have words to say to your superiors.”

“Wait” I feebly called, “I’m not ready to go like this.”

“I’m sorry Mr Douglas Sir, but you have already signed the documents. Mr Douglas now has full power over what happens to his body” the sallow faced man said as he leaned over me.

I struggled weakly as the sallow faced man held my arm down. Michael passed a hypodermic needle to him which he brought down towards me. I tried to break free but my frail old body was too weak. “Please, no” I called out, but I felt the needle of the hypodermic break my skin, I felt the pain of whatever liquid it contained entering my muscle. Everything began to fade, I could struggle no longer, and then the darkness came again.

One of the factors that have made people think that Google’s acquisition of Motorola was a strange decision was the fact that this seems to place them in direct competition with many of the other phone companies who are using Android. This may have the effect of them turning away from Android and trying different operating systems or perhaps developing operating systems of their own. This quite rightly could damage Google’s place in the mobile OS world. There must be a very good reason why they would risk this. A company as large as Google does not get as big as it did without picking up this kind of knowledge from experience, or at least obtaining this kind of knowledge so as to maintain their position. The creation of what has been dubbed Googorola could possibly prove to be a very shrewd move for both companies involved.

It only occurred to me this morning when thinking about this deal exactly which patents it was that I think Google were most interested in.
Let me jog your memory: “Best smart phone”; “impressive features plus a unique accessory”; “unique and decidedly game changing”; finalist for laptops readers choice Best of CES 2011 award”; “Maximum Tech’s picks for the five coolest products of CES 2011″; “number one in the T3 hot 100″.
Ringing any bells yet?

Google isn’t just thinking about the future as in how to raise dividends for their stockholders next year. It says in their prospectus that they don’t want mere investors to constrain their freedom of action. That was after all the reason why HP had to ditch its hardware business last week. So much innovation is stifled by greedy investors worrying about their next pay cheque. Google is thinking far further ahead than that. That’s why only a minority of their shares have voting rights. Google isn’t thinking of the future in the way a business analyst does, Google is thinking of the future in the way it should do as a tech company. Google is thinking of the future the way Philip K Dick would or William Gibson would.

In my admittedly limited understanding of the situation I would say the decisive patents that Google is after are those surrounding the Motorola’s Atrix. Currently a finalist the T3 is innovation of the year, the Atrix is more than a phone. Google would be daft to start out in competition with all those other companies that use Android. Google’s move is far bolder than that though, Google is seeking to compete with the entire tech world. A mobile phone that can be turned into a computer by placing in a dock. This is the stuff of science fiction, this is real innovation. Google is making a play to take on the entire desktop market. The technology may not be there yet but it will be soon.

Motorola couldn’t have done on their own, they were almost doomed by poor performances in preceding years. The Atrix was failing, not because it was no good, but because Motorola was forced to price it far too highly for what it was. Motorola were set to go the same way that HP has in this last week. They had no choice but to put unrealistic prices on their products, prices that few would pay. Google on the other hand has money to burn. They are in the position where they can make a spectacular play for the future of computing. They have the money, they have the operating system, and now they have the patents and the hardware producing know-how. Personally I think this purchase will be the decision of the week that goes down in history.

He could demand pretty much anything he wanted at all but usually he was too busy to want anything. A couple of weeks ago he had downloaded the complete works of Saint Saens. He had been a fan of Saint Saens for over 95 years now but had always had something to do that kept him from listening to the collected works.

That is what Mr Wilkins was like. He was always busy, always doing something. He’d had a lot of advantages that had helped him make the most of his life. “Was” was an appropriate word. He hadn’t felt like doing anything since the morning after he had finished downloading the music. He remembered it. He had been planning to get up early, as usual, around six, put on some coffee and then settle back and begin enjoying his retirement. That morning when he was roused he didn’t feel like it.

He didn’t feel like doing much really. If his son, Jack, hadn’t come around to ask him favours he would have just sat in his morning room all day and done nothing. Jack had noticed that something was up.

“You’re very quiet today Dad,” Jack had said.

“Yes” replied Mr Wilkins.

“Is there anything wrong?”

“No” replied Mr Wilkins.

The conversation hadn’t developed much beyond that all day. Jack had left at the end of the day giving him a quizzical look as he did so.

Mr Wilkins spent the next day mostly in bed. He got up once or twice through the day to eat but there wasn’t really anything that he desired in the kitchen. He could’ve ordered a delivery but the food in the kitchen was sufficient to sustain him and besides, he didn’t really desire anything that he could order. It wasn’t that there wasn’t plenty on offer. Since the abolition of political borders across 75% of the world back in 2089 the takeaways and stores had been able to deliver pretty much anything that you wanted. Mr Wilkins however, did not want anything.

Jack came back the next day and expressed concern for his father’s welfare. Jack kept a careful eye on him for the rest of the week but his mood did not change. He just lived his day to day life following his daily routine but he seemed to have lost all the spark that had always defined who he was since he was a teenager.

Mr Wilkins had been James back then. He was still James now of course but his rapid rise through the ranks of business had seen that most people had looked up to him with respect and he had generally been referred to as Mr Wilkins.

The change in his life had come on his 15th birthday. His father came to him and told him. “I’ve got something special for you this year James.”

“What is it Dad?” He had asked.

His father smiled in a cryptic and seemingly sly manner. “I think it is best if you discover that for yourself. For now just carry on with your day like normal and we will discuss it at your birthday dinner.”

James was a little confused but he wasn’t really upset, he did not really wish for anything special, everyday was special when your father was one of the richest men in the world. The Wilkins Brand was well known everywhere in the world for the quality electronics it produced. It had pushed Microsoft under in 2052. Laughable that a company that sounded more like the name of an ironmonger’s shop was now the largest electronics brand in the world.

James had relaxed a little that day. After all it wasn’t always your birthday. By about midday he thought he had better hit the books though, his exams would be coming up in a few months and if he was to move into the family business as had always been his intention he would need to develop some serious skills. His father lived and breathed computers and gadgets and James wanted to carry on in the same field, it was his birth right, but like many kids he found it hard to concentrate and recall a great deal of academic knowledge.

Today was different though. In the good mood he was in on his birthday he was just flowing through the work effortlessly. He was having such a good time studying that he plain forgot about his birthday dinner and was surprised to see he had worked throughout the day. “How bizarre” he thought as he walked down to the dining room, a smile on his face. The smile didn’t last for long though.

“So, how has your birthday been so far?” his dad asked him.

James thought this was a strange question as he had been inside his room all day, not really doing birthday things, but he didn’t mind answering. “Actually it’s been pretty good. I’ve been making mincemeat of my studies.”

“I thought you would do.”

“Why’s that?” James asked.

“It’s your gift.”

James was confused again, “What do you mean?”

“We have been working on cybernetic implants to enhance human cognition. While you were asleep last night I had a surgical team put one inside your brain.”

James felt the room spinning. It was as though everything became unreal. Shortly anger began to overwhelm the sense of surreality and James reacted furiously. “You treated me as a guinea pig on the eve of my birthday?”

The argument did not continue for long, James was too horrified by the revelation. It wasn’t long before he stormed out of the room. Despite his father’s protestations that it was a completely safe procedure and that the technology had been well tested and the operation had been done for his best interests James couldn’t shake the feeling that less than twenty four hours earlier surgical robots had been slicing into his brain with their lasers.

James thought he could never forgive his father for such an intrusion. Was the old man mad, or evil or what? In the end he came to forgive him fairly rapidly. The new circuits that had been introduced to his brain made everything exceptionally easy for him. His powers of recall were now incredible. Despite the terrible fury his father’s twisted idea of a birthday present had induced in him after a week of augmented excellence he was ready to forgive his father completely.

That had been more than a hundred years ago and since then James had become addicted to just such improvements. When he had taken over the company he had adapted and built on the technology to create all sorts of fantastic advantages for himself. He had increased his speed, his perceptions, everything. The advantages he gave himself helped him massively within the business. His addiction to developing new cybernetic implants led to him giving up the managerial side of the business almost completely. He grew frustrated by the slowness and lack of ability of his development staff. It wasn’t their fault, although many of them did get implants of their own James was always one step ahead. Compared to normal people he was almost a superman.

It was his money and his passion for design that had created the technology that had kept him alive all these years. Whenever something failed he replaced it with an artificial patch as they came to be called. The company his father had left him grew, under his heightened abilities, to be a behemoth of business. There were few people that did not take advantage of at least one item of Wilson technology. Not only did Mr Wilkin’s company have enough money to almost buy the world but most of the people in the world were partly built by Mr Wilkin’s company.

A nurse stepped out of the doctor’s office. “The doctor will see you now Mr Wilkins” she said. Mr Wilkins stood wordlessly and made his way in. It wasn’t because he was impolite. Unlike many people who were brought up and lived with great wealth Mr Wilkins was very friendly with people from all walks of life, it was part of the massive energy he usually felt, but as I have mentioned, he wasn’t feeling himself.

The doctor smiled as Mr Wilkins entered the office, it was quite an honour to be visited by someone whose work had had such an extensive effect on medicine over the last century. “Do come in sir, I am so pleased to meet you.” As Mr Wilkins made his solemn wordless entrance the doctor realised his faux pas and the inappropriateness of his jovial greeting. “I’m sorry sir, I apologise for seeming bouyant, it is just I have always wanted to meet you but it seems you never need a doctor so I have never had the opportunity.”

“There is no need to apologise, I did not take offence” said Mr Wilkins as he took a seat beside the doctor’s desk.

“What is it that does eventually bring you into my office” asked the doctor.

Mr Wilkins explained what had been bothering him. It did not take long, there was not a great deal to say and Mr Wilkins was not in a mood for verbosity. The doctor made a couple of notes, asked a number of questions and ummed and aahed at appropriate moments. After hearing what Mr Wilkins had to say he performed a couple of on the spot tests and frowned.

“Everything seems to be in order” said the doctor. “All your remaining organic organs are functioning correctly, the mood enhancing adjustments that are made by your cybernetic implants seem to be functioning adequately. In fact they are working at maximum. You should be jumping with the stimulation you are receiving.” The doctor frowned before making a few notes on the epad he always carried with him.

A moment later a large distinguished looking nurse entered the room. “This is Paul” the doctor told Mr Wilkins. “He will conduct a couple of tests with some more specialised equipment to see if we can get to the root of the problem.” The doctor spoke next to Paul, “My instructions should be synced with your epad.”

“Of course doctor. If you could walk this way Mr Wilkins.” Paul opened the door that he had just walked through and waited for Mr Wilkins to slowly make his way out.

The tests did not take much more than thirty minutes. Although they were a particularly comprehensive set of diagnostic procedures the technology that was available in the clinic was very advanced and the scanners, sweepers and pokers quickly finished their task. Mr Wilkins made his way back to the doctor’s office where the doctor was gravely reading the results already on his epad.

When Mr Wilkins entered the office the doctor stood up and waited for him to take a seat. His demeanour showed none of the bubbliness that had embarrassed him so much when Mr Wilkins had first arrived. Mr Wilkins once again sat in the chair beside the desk.

“I am afraid I have some rather bad news for you” the doctor said with a grim expression on his face. “There is a very real reason why you have not been feeling your usual joie de vivre. In general your health is in excellent condition for a man of almost 150 but there is a certain complication that I believe may have a permanent effect on your mood.”

Mr Wilkins looked at the doctor with his expressionless eyes. He wished to have an explanation for his present lack of emotion and drive but was not really all that curious. He waited for the doctor to continue.

The doctor hastily looked down at his notes and blustered on with the diagnosis. “I have had to give this sort of news many times during my career but never under quite these circumstances” he said. “I am afraid I do not see you making a recovery as from our scans of your brain it would appear you are dead. Your cybernetic augmentations are continuing to see that your body is kept working but I am afraid there is no one home. There is a powerful computer operating inside your head but there is no one to give it instructions.”

“Is there anything that can be done?” asked Mr Wilkins.

“I am afraid not. You are no longer a living sentient human. The best you can hope for is that someone should load a program into your head that gives you some kind of direction but I think out of respect for the dead you should just let go.”

“I understand” said Mr Wilkins. “Can you please inform my next of kin.” And with that, Mr Wilkins left the office.

The steampunk element of the exhibition was fairly minimal but then aren’t all old steam engines in essence steam punk anyway. There is certainly enough here to keep you occupied for a couple of hours at least. The museum is only open between 11 and 4 so they squeeze a lot into that limited time.

One of the highlights was watching an impossibly huge water pump in operation. Running over three extremely tall stories dozens of people gathered around to see the pump seesawing up and down making a bizarre noise that was reminiscent of the noise a TARDIS makes as it travels.

Talking of the TARDIS there were also a smattering of Doctor Who related steampunk models, but then it hardly seems like steampunk without some reference to popular sci-fi. There was a DW dalek, a Davros and of course the obligatory K9.

Aside from this there seemed to be something incredibly English about the whole affair. I don’t know whether the Victorian element of steampunk usually evokes such strong images of England during the empire. It seems to go hand in hand but steam was used throughout the world. I imagine that England being the seat of the industrial revolution may have something to do with this, as well as the image that the English have throughout the world as not yet having fully shaken off their Victorian history.

One of the most notable elements of Englishness was the tea duelling. Whereby two contestants sit opposite each other with a cup of tea and dunk a biscuit for 5 seconds before seeing who can hold their biscuit out of the tea for the longest before eating without it falling into a splodge or a splat. I heard this event beginning from the cafe and rushed out to observe. As I stood on the periphery of the main room waiting for something to happen I failed to realise that I was stood among the contestants due to begin. The next thing I knew I was taking part in the duelling without even knowing what was going on. All the same I made it to the final after three heats and narrowly missed winning as my biscuit fell upon the floor in the final seconds.

While I was there (Saturday) I noticed there seemed to be a lot of steampunk enthusiasts around wearing a fascinating array of Victorian style clothing and strange devices. Walking among them dressed all in white with a waxed moustache and beard I believe I also saw the writer Robert Rankin. I don’t know whether the other visitors are always so interesting but it certainly added something to the day.

The steampunk exhibition runs to the end of August I believe but of course the huge pumps and engines are always there because they are simply too huge to move. There is also a small garden above the museum that is a nice place to sit and relax. I sampled a few of their plums while I was in there uploading my photos. For only £9.50 for a year long ticket it seemed like quite a bargain if you are interested in seeing huge engines in operation. I would have liked to have seen a few traction engines as well but you can’t have everything.

It upsets me to write this because I really wanted to like the eye-fi. It was an item Ilusted after for weeks, eventually I begged it for a birthday present because I knew this would be something I would truly love that would make me think affectionately of the giver every time I used it. Alas it is merely an annoyance. My whole reason for getting it was the iOS compatibility whereby you could upload to your iPhone when out and about. This is sadly not all it is cracked up to be because it will attempt to upload every single last one of the hundred photos you have taken when you only wish to have one. It will also take five minutes to upload each one. You will be sitting there for so long that you could have walked home via a computer shop, bought a usb cable, plugged it into your computer, uploaded it all to flickr and walked back in the time it is uploading.

I spent an hour outside a museum trying to get to the one last photo I had taken. In this time it uploaded 37 pictures but hadn’t reached the one photo after which I hankered. In the end I ended up turning on my computer so I had something to do while it was uploading, whereupon the eye-fi card decided it was going to stop uploading to my iPhone and instead upload to my computer. This is partly because it had refused to upload to my iPhone in the first place until I turned on my mifi so my iPhone and computer were on the same network. However this should still not have happened as I had set my card to upload to the camera and the camera alone. Not the computer in preference. It is possible that this is merely me not knowing what I am doing but that brings me on to my next point.

The collaboration that saw the creation of the instructions was obviously between a pair of sociopaths whose inability to work together was caused by a mutual hatred only rivalled by their hatred for the eventual consumers of the product. I found it almost impossible to get this thing working in the first place. Once I had got it working I thought phew, thank god that’s over, not realising that I would go through the exact same misery of trying to work out what is going wrong on forums every time I use the device. Except I can’t do this because for some reason while it is transferring my pictures I cannot access the internet. That is the reason I am writing this, because while it is uploading the only programs are those installed on the computer, hence I am using open office instead of Chrome.

Having said this, I am now going to go and turn it off,it is threatening to start uploading movie files and I really would rather it stopped its uploading at some point today.

Of course I am ready to admit that I am wrong. I hope I am. However, I don’t think I am.

The new site, as you have probably guessed is geekrastinator.com. It is a site dedicated to doing something more interesting than watching television. There is a noticeably geeky leaning to the site because I am a noticeable geeky person. It is a site that also has procrastinational leanings, this is because I have officially had my amateur crastinating status revoked by the Olympic committee and am now officially a pro-crastinator. My thinking is that we have been tied to electrical sockets and phone lines for so long that now we have long lasting batteries and portable wifi dongles we have forgotten that we are allowed to leave the house. This site will be dedicated to reminding us to leave the house, unless it is raining, but I am working on that.

One of the menu items on Geekrastinator is a link to this blog, or at least the most recent posts from it. So if you have read here before you will find that there is familiar sentiment there. The most important menu item is the Geekrastinator Calendar. It is the idea of the calendar that inspired me to make the site. I was reading facebook status updates one day when one of my friends stated she was travelling home from the MCM comic con in London. This was the first I had heard that there was a comic con in London that week. I had been sitting in London twiddling my thumbs, perhaps not literally but I was certainly so bored that I would have done had I thought of it. I vowed at that point that I would make an effort to inform myself and the world of events of a Geekrastinational nature. From thence was the Geekrastinator Calendar born.

So far I have not stuck rigidly to my resolution and sat here twiddling my thumbs while hundreds of naked people were riding bicycles through the city centre.  Admittedly this is not a particularly geeky thing to do but it did make me realise that I could have been somewhere else.  This has strengthened my resolve.  I don’t just intend that calendar to be limited to places that I can reach, having only a bicycle and living just outside Hounslow it probably wouldn’t be too interesting then.  I intend to make note of the most memorable happenings in the calendar.  E3, Comic Con, MWC, etc in the hope that one day we may all attend them and mingle with colourful and flamboyant characters, play cutting edge games, find first edition Batmans, and meet Brent Spiner, again and again and again it would appear.

The calendar will not just tell you where such events are it will also make hopefully helpful suggestions as to how to spend your time when you are not attending such events.  With this in mind, if you know of any otaku happenings anywhere in the world please keep me informed.  Also if you can think of anything that would fill a couple of hours time with worthwhile creativity please let me know.  I want to create an army of creators and experiencers as an antidote to couch potato mentality.  I have disposed of the television long ago.  My televisions serve only to play the occasional movie and xbox, ps3 or wii game, and even that is a rarity.  I am afraid I am most particularly laptop/internet otaku but there is a world out there.  I am heading into it, and I am taking you with me.  We can do this together.

You can find the site at www.geekrastinator.com

We are living in the future. You may say this is nonsense, that we can only logically be living in the present, but I maintain that we are living in the future. It is the future and not the present because although we act like it is the present, by which I mean the logical follow on from the past, this present does not follow on from the past. It breaks away from the past. The technologies that have sprung up in the past few decades have created a totally new dimension of thought that is not the logical conclusion to the political and economical past from which it has sprung. The new technology has created a new world. We have leapfrogged from pastoral serfdom, through industrial serfdom and now we are in a nexus. We are used to serfdom, surely that is the necessary order of things. Who says it is? Just because something has been one way for a long time does not mean it has to be that way. It was not that way before the serfdom and it will not be that way after the serfdom.

Well that sounds fairly reasonable but how will we know when the time after serfdom is approaching?

I suppose we will have to develop some kind of technology that will be so breathtakingly advanced compared to what came before that it must inevitably change the way the world works.

What sort of technology could create such a new paradigm?

Let me think. Hmmm. The sword?

no we need something mightier than that.

The printing press?

It’s a step in the right direction.

The camera?

I see potential in such a thing.

The typewriter?

It could certainly be utilised.

The silver screen?

hmmm, it could create a spectacle that would captivate millions, if only it were more accessible.

The computer?

You are beginning to get there, its almost what we are looking for but still very definitely tied to the work place.

What if we could combine a whole load of these things into a little box and then make it small enough to carry around in your pocket?

Surely you have lost your mind, be serious will you.

No really, I mean it I’ve got one here in my pocket.

Oh, in that case I think that might do the trick.

The mobile phone is your ticket to freedom. On a mobile phone you can write documents and publish blogs. You can type out an entire novel if you have the patience. You can take photos and edit them. People have published books of work created in this way. People have dedicated websites to such an art. You can shoot video and document your experiences and the places you go, the things you do. The problem is that people don’t go places, they don’t do things.

You have an office in your pocket now. You can go anywhere and do anything. In third world countries where there are not many computers people have based entire businesses upon what they can do with their mobile phone. In fact just the phone part of a mobile phone is enough for a clever user. Combine that phone part with 100000 applications that the phone can run and there is no telling what you can be capable of. All you need is an idea and the motivation to carry it through.

We are by evolution hunter gatherers. We have evolved to travel great distances in the open air. That is where we are at our best. We now have a tool that gives us the power of the office when we are in our native environment. We can embrace our evolution. We can accept our DNA. We can go out and be part of the world. We can hunt and gather information. It is the perfect meeting of man and machine.