A cursory glance at the menu will reveal one an only one option. Do not be distracted by the myriad toppings on the table in front of you, or the cheery staff trying to convince you cold noodles are the best choice. Do not get caught up in deciding how you’d like your noodles cooked, since Hakatatenjin will cook them to order. Do not spend forever debating whether you want the thin, somen-like noodles, or the slightly thicker spaghetti-esque noodles. Do not be afraid to pay the extra 50¥ it costs to dip that ladle into the vat of pickled eggs and call one your own.

Or rather, do. Do all of this. Do, because you are at Hakatatenjin Ramen in Shinjukugyoenmae and any carb coma you might induce can be averted by a long stroll in the massive park nearby. You are safe, so go ahead and put on those extra pickled ginger shreds, and go ahead and finish off those menma. You’re in good hands.

Hakatatenjin Ramen is serious black pork ramen for seriously hungry patrons. In a country where hundreds of noodle shops line nearly every street, it can be difficult to pick one out of the crowd. Hakatatenjin’s boisterous staff and dirty yellow awning are tell-tale signs that old-school quality is not far behind, something so often amiss when it comes to the more modern, vending machine ramen spots. Even harder to find is service like this, with a staff that will try to make you giggle no matter which language you speak, and a policy that will dish up more noodles when you’ve finished your first batch for the same price.

大きな地図で見る

Ah and the noodles are why you’re here, aren’t they? The thinner, chewier cousin of the dime a dozen ramen chains in Shinjuku come in a tangled mess, compacted into the bottom of a chipped, cereal bowl. But the soup packs a flavour stronger than any cocoa puff or lucky charm, and when all is said and done you may find yourself never wanting to leave. If only that thick soup with beads of fat swirling round the surface could stretch on forever you could call Hakatatenjin home, because for all intents and purposes, when you’re here, you are home.

Hakatatenjin Ramen（博多天神 ラーメン）
Nearest metro stop: Shinjukugyoenmae

Kamatama Udon-ya is an unassuming little shop halfway between Hase station and the daibutsu in Kamakura. Like so many small noodle joints in Japan, you’ve only got a handful of choices, and even less elbow room to boot. Still though, the smell alone is all you need to be assured of its quality, and even then, if the smell wasn’t enough, there’s the tray of flour-speckled udon clearly just made today, the flying hands behind the counter chopping minuscule green onions, and the faint sizzle that can only mean tempura-battered something or other. You will not be disappointed.

It may seem crass to us foreigners, but eating the face of Buddha in your noodle soup is pleasantly kitschy in Japan, and in Kamakura especially, mere minutes from the great metal Buddha, such a gimmick is fitting. The soup itself is far from gimmicky. Perhaps it’s just been too long since I’ve had a proper bowl of noodles, or that my American sensibilities are so easily impressed by the delights of properly prepared Japanese food, but in any case I may have come close to reaching nirvana in that very shop.

大きな地図で見る

The noodles are thick, but light, not dense like some fall varieties of udon tend to be, and of a completely un-uniform nature that points to their handmade authenticity. Your smiling buddha udon can be served hot or cold, depending on the season, in a scalding or a lukewarm dashi stock, depending on your preference. Alongside the standard noodles and broth is a large soy bean (Buddha’s third eye), a fried fishcake (his nose), and one of the tastiest cured eggs I think I’ve ever had: a hard boiled, just set mix of salt and age that one could only hope to duplicate. Needless to say, I licked the bowl clean.

1. Automatic Backups. The OS has an automatic backup utility built into it called Time Machine and it’s pretty slick. Always protected, all the time.

2. Easy data management. If you pay the mac store reps $89 they’ll migrate all your info over from your old computer to your new one. Once you go mac, you can use the built-in Migration Assistant to move your info from your old mac to the new one with the click of a button.

3. Macs require no maintenance. They don’t get viruses, they don’t require defragmenting, they don’t need security software, and every utility you need is already included in the software. The only thing you’ll need to buy is Microsoft Office. The OS doesn’t come with stupid trial software (called bloatware) and you’ll never have to reinstall your OS. No bluescreen of death, ever. They’re just a hell of a lot more stable and secure in general.

4. All the compatibility issues of yesteryear are no longer issues. Macs can read any PC-formatted drive, they can read any open file format (.doc, .xls, .pdf, anything you can think of). PCs on the other hand, can’t read mac-formatted drives. And if you really really needed to, the new macs are intel based, so you could install windows on your computer as a dual-boot (but really, why would you? OS X is so much better!). The mac store reps call it Boot Camp.

5. These puppies are wicked fast. Scary fast. Snow Leopard, the OS is lightweight and the machines are so locktight. When you buy Apple, you’re buying a brand, yes, but you’re also buying a format. So everything Apple makes is custom built to work with everything else Apple makes. PCs are cobbled together by competing manufacturers and so you get driver problems and hardware incompatibility issues, but because Apple makes every component in their computers, it all works seamlessly inside that little silver case. This means it will all work seamlessly with your iPod too.

6. They last forever. I had a roommate that had her mac laptop STRUCK BY LIGHTNING and it still ran for four years. Mine is going on six years old and it still runs great. It just couldn’t keep up with the demands of HD video playback, a notoriously resource intensive codec and for work, I really need to be able to edit HD in real-time, without waiting around for stuff to render. I’ve converted my old mac into an entertainment system. I got a free OS upgrade, a free battery replacement, and lots of patient genius representatives that spent a good two hours trying to figure out why my USB bus suddenly stopped providing enough power to spin a 7200rpm drive (they fixed it, by the by).

7. Freebies. The Apple summer deal is going on, so if you buy this month or next you’ll get a lot of freebies. A free printer, a free iPod Touch, a rebate on MS Office, they do a lot of summer deals at the apple store and god damn if the iPod Touch isn’t a really fun little machine. Think of all the travel you do!

8. They’re incredibly usable. They’re just fun. They come standard with a lot of really fun features and you can do anything you want right of the bat really easily. You can make movies, download music from iTunes, stream netflix, record your own songs, make photobooks, all sorts of fun stuff. They’re pretty, they work well, and most importantly, they’re easy to use. The biggest thing you’ll have to learn how to deal with is using the command button (the cloverleaf) instead of the ctrl button. Other than that, almost everything else is the same nowadays.

9. Mac developers are awesome. We’re a passionate bunch, and the cocoa development group is incredibly dedicated to creating awesome, well-formed, elegant programmes and solutions. They’re so much out there that’s mac only and near-perfect software. The Panic team has some amazing applications, Daylite changed my life, and everything from Adobe to Skype is just so much prettier on a mac. The devloper base alone is reason to switch.

10. They’re cheaper. No joke. If you put a Sony Vaio, a Gateway, a Dell, and an Alienware PC with the exact same speeds and specs side by side, you’ll find Apple’s version is actually a better value. Sure you can’t get a mac for cheap, but you also can’t get a bad mac. I can find several $400 laptops that, pardon my french, blow chunks and are impossible to use. But even the $700 mac mini, the cheapest mac you can buy, runs like a dream. That’s what I call value.

There’s more too, the amazing possibilities it allows, the premiere software it offers, the de-facto status among creative professionals, but for now, 10 reasons are enough. You fanboys and girls out there, any other important reasons I’m forgetting?

Noodles undoubtedly make for the best late night food. Whether you had an amazing evening filled with romance and poetry or a night of drunken debauchery, the noodle joint is the place to round it all out. Never tried it? Well, when three meals aren’t enough to tide you over for the day’s activities, I find a bowl of some kind of hot noodles — pho in the spring, vermicelli in the summer, udon in the winter, and in this case, ramen all year round — will fill you up without leaving you heavy, satisfy your craving for salt, and comes in a formidably-sized bowl big enough to abate even the largest of grumblies. Simply put, noodles are the best late night snack around.

So when I was feeling peckish after seeing a live show and found myself in Bloosmbury, where did I decide to go but to the original Wagamama. Those familiar with both the UK and Boston will probably nod emphatically here, while the rest of you might be wondering what in the world Wagamama is, let alone how a chain of pan-asian-themed restaurants could win someone as die hard as I over. Surely Wagamama doesn’t live up to its expectations?

大きな地図で見る

Of course it does. Wagamama started in a basement, but the establishment could hardly be described in terms of peeling paint, yellowing light, or faux-anything usually associated with Asian look-alikes here in the states. Westernised Asian in England has a posh edge to it (a la Ping Pong, but more on that later), with minimal polished wood tables, recessed lighting, and exposed architectural elements. It manages to keep from smelling like a mix of floor cleaner and peanut oil as well, confirming my suspicions that Wagamama is using fresh vegetables and homemade stocks in their concoctions.

That’s what I’m really here to write about anyway, the concoctions, which are salty without burning your tongue and manage to offer the unusual on a menu packed with crowd favorites (i.e., I ordered pretty faithful tsukemono, Japanese pickles most patrons haven’t even heard of). In Boston I had the yasai yakisoba and gyoza, which were delectable, though didn’t exactly reek of the street cart variety I had in mind. In London though, the miso ramen met all of my expectations. It was briny like the real deal, chock full of vegetables that came piled on top, requiring a bit of stirring to get you going, and had a healthy portion of wakame, or green seaweed in the proportions most westerners are afraid to dole out to an amateur. In search of a late-night bite, it really was everything I had hoped. Next time I’m in London, I will definitely check out some of the more off-the-beaten-path ramen joints, but with a reputation as big as Wagamama’s, can you blame me for giving the big boys a well-deserved shot?

I’ve been holding out on you. After living for almost a complete year in our nation’s capital, it’s fair to say I’ve picked my local haunts. I’ve found my favourites and denounced the competition, but while I’ve been frequenting the likes of my top sushi joint in Virginia for many moons now, I haven’t let you in on the secret. Don’t take it personally, I’m more than happy to share the wealth, and if I’ve been hesitant to say a peep, it’s because I’m ashamed. I’m embarrassed because I always order the same thing.

Granted, Momo in Old Town Alexandria is a sushi stop, and any cuisine as specific as sushi probably warrants staying on well-travelled territory, but nearly every nigiri to touch my chopsticks has tasted well above my expectations so it was only a matter of time before I discovered the rest of the menu. It’s a risky move; I mean, how likely are the chefs to be good at sashimi AND teriyaki, really? But when I had an extreme hankering for some thick wheaty udon, I knew Momo was my place to go.

Upon first glance the shop seems small and modest, with a fairly run of the mill menu and friendly staff leading you to cramped tables. The noise level is nonexistent and the location is ideal, just a few blocks from King Street in the heart of the neighbourhood. You can find Japanese fare like this almost anywhere (though Momo’s rice is on the more excellent side of the spectrum), yet I’m almost always wary to say yes to the udon option linger alone on the back of the menu next to kuro-age and edamame. This was Momo we were talking about though, not the Frying Fish or Bonsai, so I gave it a go, and, well, you saw the video.

Perfect noodles. Udon done right: soft and chewy but not rubbery, clear salty broth that wasn’t too briny, lots of vegetables that still had a bite to them, that classic spiral-accented radish that makes me feel like someone knows how it should go back there, and a serving size that didn’t wither me at the onset. It didn’t break any records, but Momo’s udon was solid. It was a good, dependable, hearty dish that warmed my belly. How much more can you ask of a soup?

That’s kind of Momo’s niche anyway. Solid food. Really dependable, fresh sushi. In a region with as much great seafood as we’ve here in the DC area, I was astounded by the sushi selection and while I’ve had many a delightful crab cake, I’ve had very few worthwhile chirashi. Is Momo the best sushi I’ve ever had? Unsurprisingly no, having lived in both Japan and Los Angeles. But should you discount it? Absolutely not. Momo is a great place with stellar service and quality sushi and, as I discovered tonight, homey udon to boot.

RIYL: Deadmau5, Danger, Andy Caldwell, Axwell, Phoenix

House music, true house music, seems to be one of those love it or hate it kind of genres adored by some clubgoers and ignored by the general populous. Yet you don’t always have to be at a serious electro show or Electric Daisy Carnival to get into the mood. There are a few artists out there spinning old-school house with finesse generally unrivaled in America at least.

While Europe boasts great legends like Tiesto and Sasha, there are a few contenders lurking stateside, and San Francisco’s own Kaskade is one of them. Just as brilliant live as he is on an album, his latest release The Grand is one of the smoothest house albums I’ve heard in a long time. It has a great progression of rhythms, changes every few measures to keep you from ever thinking it’s trance, and has its share of interesting instrumental samples.

Unfortunately The Grand isn’t the sort of album a 30 second sample will do justice. Kaskade’s mastery is not found in his hooks but rather in the build up he can create and sustain for minutes at a time in a totally un-frustrating way. It’s an album that requires a few tracks to get totally immersed in, despite opening with an unbelievably catchy lead. His style is still vocal-heavy and orchestral, but Kaskade seems to have picked up a few tricks from his work with Deadmau5 and drops in quite a bit of choppy bleeps that are still new territory for him. The Grand is chock full of collaborations and featured vocalists, but don’t worry, he keeps it well within the boundaries of the kind of panache and artistry you’d expect from the well-respected Kaskade sound. It doesn’t matter whether you’re heavily immersed in the scene or if this is your introduction to house, The Grand deserves your consideration.

Recommended Tracks:

“Angel On My Shoulder,” “Another Place,” “Saturday Night,” and “In My Arms”

I cleaned up this Christmas, taking home a ridiculously fancy rice maker, you know the kind that has all the bells and whistles: two timers, a computer chip that touts “fuzzy logic”, and, no joke, the ability to bake a cake. It even sings to you when your rice is ready, and I wish I was kidding. Short of mowing the lawn this thing can do everything and anything, including turn the girl that was addicted to pasta into the girl that eats rice with every meal.

I was always fairly hesitant to own a rice maker since I didn’t eat an overwhelming amount of rice, and even when I do it’s usually the boxed flavoured variety. Yet, I eat a lot of vegetables and often scramble to find something else to fill up my plate, something neutral, like a bread or a pasta or a potatoe. Then it dawned on me that perhaps I wasn’t eating much rice because making rice was such a hassle. My pans never heated evenly, so my rice never cooked perfectly, plus it took a hefty 55 minutes to get white rice sufficiently done, an hour and half for brown rice. Maybe, just maybe, if I didn’t have to maintain constant vigilance over a bubbling batch of rice, then perhaps I might eat more of it.

Dead on. I absolutely love rice in a way I never thought was possible, all because of a fancy machine. I have the timer set so my rice is ready when I walk through the door (and still kept toasty if I’m even hours late), and it takes me about ten minutes to saute up some veggies or heat up some leftovers (Korean-style soup is my current favourite). Some nights I’ll throw in some lentils, vegetable stock, and onions, set the menu to “mixed rice” and go to the gym. When I’m stretched and showered, I’ve a hot meal at the ready, no prep involved. It really is a modern wonder.

Let’s talk about congee (okayu or juk) for a second. The porridge setting. Experimenting with this setting has led me to a world of breakfast foods I didn’t even know I was missing. A bowl of rice porridge is like a blank canvas just waiting for whatever you want to add — miso and green onion for a savoury start to your day, dried cranberries and apricots with cashews and a drizzle of honey for a sweeter tooth, a few bits of cheese and fresh tomatoe make for good lunch, while coconut milk and pistachios or mango is a belly-warming dessert. Not into the rice part? You can also make steel-cut oatmeal with maple, oats in cream of asparagus soup with cracked black pepper, or even non-instant grits for my comrades in the south. It’s been an easy, cost-effective, super filling and very versatile option for me this winter. I’d highly recommend giving this setting a try.

I liken the rice maker to a fancy coffee maker. You can always drip coffee the old-fashioned way, and sure a $20 contraption will do the trick for your morning brew, but if you’re making coffee every day, why not invest in a nicer model, one that say, grinds the beans for you, or has a timer so your coffee is ready ten minutes after your alarm goes off? Why not have something that can brew espresso too if you’re in the mood for a double dose of caffeine? It’s the same with rice. Sure you can make it on a stovetop just fine, but you can also just press a button instead and have it be not only ready, but perfectly cooked every time. Curry taking a bit longer than expected to reduce? Your rice maker probably has a “keep warm” function that makes sure the rice is still nice and hot without overcooking it into a hard mass of starch. It’s brilliant, really. If you’ve been in debate over whether the micom/micro computer makers were worth the money, take it from me, they’re worth every penny.

Nong-Shim is a Korean food manufacturer known for their spicy instant noodles as well as a few varieties of shrimp crackers. When my local convenience store started carrying the brand along with the classic Japanese brands and the ever ubiquitous nissin cup-o-noodles, I thought I’d give their products a go to see if there was any validity to the “hot and spicy” promised on the packaging.

I picked up a few of the different offerings and started with the beef-flavoured cup (containing no actual beef, surprisingly) and I have to say, it’s much better than the atrocity I picked up last week: Maruchan’s Yakisoba. To begin with, the tiny cup holds a surprising amount of noodles, complete with lots of dried veggies, mostly green onions and mushrooms that rehydrated fully compared to the usual corn/carrot fare. You can see the sizable chunks in the pre-cooking shot below.

Generous flavour packet as well full of what was honestly a decently hot and spicy soup base. Sure it’s not tongue searing, but it certainly isn’t for the faint of heart and I personally find it pretty refreshing to have a bit of the good stuff in the instant noodle aisle. It was bright red, so from the get go I thought it promising.

Packaging is sturdier than your average instant noodle cup, more plastic than styrofoam, and the paper is coat to keep the water and steam in. I noticed the difference when the noodles were completely plump and ready before my 3 minute timer was up. I quite enjoyed the taste, and especially liked that you could add less of the flavour if you were sensitive to spice or worried about the nutritional intake. It’s pretty easy to spot in the bright red and black graphics, though not often easy to find. Much more popular are the company’s shrimp and “vegetal” flavoured Kimchi bowls.

Price wise, all the Nong-Shim products seem to rank about the same as the upscale and fancier instant noodle bowls, on par with something like Kraft easy mac or Chef Boyardee, though to my taste buds, far tastier (about 1.50 at my local 7eleven). Health-wise the Shin Cup also on par with other instant noodles, complete with 65% of your daily sodium intake, though the Shin Cup also has 2g protein and 12g of fiber, and 0 trans fat if you’re counting. Surprising for a convenience food, actually.

Overall I rate the shin cup pretty highly. I look forward to giving their packets of Yeul Ramyon and the larger Kimchi-flavoured noodle bowl a try soon. I’ll be sure to share my findings. But first, I have some noodles to finish!

Today Apple announced the release of their newest mobile device, a tablet with the unfortunate name of iPad. Is it a neat device? Can it do cool things? Was huge step forward for netbooks and e-readers? Yes. Was it a bit of a letdown? Absolutely.

It’s slick, with that fancy interface familiar to iPhone and iPod Touch users, but with the added juice of a netbook. The tablet itself boasts a new chip I’m sure we’ll start seeing elsewhere, a ridiculous battery life of 10 hours, and finally answers that question of who wants to watch a movie on an eight centimeter screen. But for the company that made me reconsider digital convergence, the people that made me inseparable from my mobile phone, the design team that made me require more of my technology, the iPad was terribly disappointing.

While it’d be easy to say the iPad was overhyped (it was) or that it doesn’t tout any groundbreaking UI changes from the iPod Touch (it doesn’t), these aren’t the disappointments. To be honest, I applaud those choices. Apple doesn’t have to re-invent the wheel when they have an interface they know works, an impressive library of apps and games that already exist, and a landscape of other tablet products that, well, suck. In many ways, the iPad is a good move, and hopefully will get us moving in the right direction. Why the long face then? The truth is, the iPad is most disappointing because it isn’t for me. I’m not the market, and here’s why: sure it has a big touch screen, but the iPad doesn’t do anything my other devices don’t. It doesn’t even do something better than my other devices.

It’s supposed to fill that gap between the smartphone and the computer, right? Well (and this is why I used to hate digital convergence) it doesn’t fill that gap particularly well for people like me. It isn’t a suitable computer for me because 1) I can’t edit on it, 2) it has no input ports, 3) you can’t multitask, 4) the price point and AT&T contract don’t match my wallet or my fancy. But it isn’t a suitable mobile device for me either because A) I can’t put it in my pocket, B) the charge isn’t long enough for serious travel, C) it still requires a computer to add content, and D) I already have a device that can run the same apps, has the same 3G coverage, and fits in any purse. It doesn’t turn-by-turn navigate as well as an in-car GPS, it’s much harder to read and offers fewer books than the Kindle or the Nook, and is much too large to make a convenient phone call. So when I, an extended traveller who would love nothing more than an in-between device that let me stop worrying about laptop theft and international roaming charges, can’t see the point of owning one, you have to wonder with whom the appeal lies.

It isn’t supposed to be a computer, or a phone, or even an e-reader. That’s all well and good, and perhaps I’ve judged the iPad too quickly, but if that’s the case, then what exactly is it supposed to do? If you’re the business commuter who occasionally looks at a photo, might like to read a book or watch a movie, and really needs to edit spreadsheets, then the iPad is for you. Since Apple hasn’t given me a reason to need the iPad like I need my iPod, then it’s going to be up to the developers to provide the impetus. Perhaps this was Apple’s plan all along, since the app store has singlehandedly carried the iPhone through competition. In that regard, it isn’t a bad plan at all, but as it stands out-of-box, the iPad is for people like my father, like that girl that always takes the Red Line to the last station, and for the the grandparent that, when it isn’t masquerading as a digital picture frame, uses the iPad to play FIFA with their grandchildren. Maybe it does fill the gap between computer and phone for these people, maybe your answer to “do I really need another device?” is a resounding yes, and maybe mac developers will come out with a trillion different uses for this thing that deem it indispensable. All of this is possible, I don’t deny. Only, right now at least, the iPad doesn’t do much for me.

Let me tell you about my views on the smartphone five years ago. Five years ago I was carrying around a rucksack everywhere I went that held my mobile, my palm pilot, my digital camera, my mp3 player, my TI-89 calculator, plus a paper agenda with my to-do lists, important documents, and maps, a 3.5″ hard drive and enclosure, a spindle of CDs for my car and a bundle of charging cables. Five years ago I toted around eight different objects on a daily basis with a combined weight of 8.5kg and still eschewed the idea of an all-in-one device.

Why? There were devices of that variety on the market, including the Blackberry and Palm Treo which dropped two years prior, many of which could have lightened my load, yet I was convinced none of them could do a series of combined tasks successfully. I required that the quality of my pictures, the features of my PDA, the speed of my data transfer, were maintained to the point that I ran the risk of back problems from a heavy bag in order to accommodate my digital needs.

It’s fairly insane to consider carrying around so many devices today, especially given my travel-heavy lifestyle, but at the time it was considered normal for tech-heads like me. It’s not because I was so gadget-lusty that I needed to try everything, and it’s not because I was so tight-fisted I wouldn’t go out and give the Treo a go, but it was that five years ago you couldn’t find a mobile device that did everything I needed it to. There was no device on the market that could give me cellular service, keep my calendar and contacts, take decent pictures, play most of my music, calculate differential equations, hold copies of my presentation, or store my data, let alone play videos, back itself up, or sync to my email account. Heck, there were hardly any internet-ready devices in the market at all five years ago.

Now there are numerous devices that perform multiple functions, and not only do them, but do them well. The camera on the Droid is better than my point and shoot camera was five years ago. 16GB of storage has never been so light or so sturdy as it is today. Cellular data coverage has become so popular you can use it as your primary source of the internet. These are equally insane times, but in a different way. People have finally jumped on the smartphone bandwagon, everyone keeps talking about digital convergence, and the projections that everything will move up to the cloud are in unanimous agreement.

Today, while rumours about the Apple tablet closing the gap into a single, everything device, I think people are too optimistic. It could be done, but the reality is that what I want in a device and what you want are going to be different, and both of us aren’t going to want a whole bunch of extras taking up system resources, adding bulk to the thing, and cluttering the interface. I still agree with my opinion five years ago: the all-in-one quality device will never exist. Just as you’ll never be able to grill steaks in a soup pot, the iPhone will never take pictures or videos as well a DSLR or an EX1 without ceasing to be an iPhone. The Nexus’s 3G coverage will not be as high-performing as a cable modem anytime soon. You still can’t watch TV on your phone on the bus. The Kindle can’t adequately display vivid National Geographic images. So yeah, devices are still specialised, but it’s okay. As much as I’d like it to be, my smartphone is not my computer, but it can do almost everything I need my computer for yet fits in my pocket and has a longer battery life. I can take pictures, edit them, and upload them to flickr. I can ad-hoc a live video broadcast that is automatically geotagged. I can ask this piece of metal for directions to “Roy’s Donut World” and it’ll get me there. I can play football with my mates or answer my work email from Amsterdam or write my own app for something that can fit in my pocket. That’s really incredible, and what’s more incredible is that none of it existed in a pretty, little, usable package five years ago.

The technology might have existed, but what’s really changed is the overlap between devices. Phones used to have atrocious calendar functions that didn’t sync to your desktop, but have you tried to get a PDA that doesn’t come with a network carrier contract? The old-school palm pilot of yesteryear has long since been swallowed up by more advanced smartphones. It’s not just smartphones that have evolved either. Canon’s new line of cameras can shoot full-size 1080p HD video and still function like the kind of quality still SLR camera you’d expect from the company. You can control your Sonos music system from your iPod touch and stream Netflix to your and your friend in a different city’s XBoxes.

It’s not just the devices that have evolved, but the way we use them. The ability to link up your social networks, to have the websites you read pushed to one location, to automate everything from file storage to television viewing is widely accessible. You can take a device that has great capability and customise it to meet your exact needs, without having to pull a linux and hand-code everything yourself. The idea isn’t to make one device to rule them all, because a gamer will never want the same things in a device that a business executive will. The idea is to increase the overlap and make everything play nice, so that instead of carrying around eight devices, you only need to carry one or two light, energy efficient, globally connected objects. If I’ve gone from a back-breaking rucksack to a single pocket’s worth of space and weight in five years, just think of where we’ll be in 2015.