The Crowd That Lingers

Tokyo: the crowd that lingers
 

Take the Keio Exit out of Shibuya Station and hang a sharp left and you’ll soon come across a crowd of spectators watching the monotonously addictive pachinko.

The everyday places that we linger will start to take on a new relevance with the widespread adoption of devices equipped with proximate wireless connectivity – Bluetooth, RFID, WiFi, …, when the simple act of lingering creates opportunities for meaningful data exchange. And we all know what data exchange leads to.

Right now it’s a long way from being seamless, but when it does it will change the sociability of spaces. For every culture, a pachinko parlour crowd.