Gadget Reviews Japan World Cup 2022 Bid
This fortnight, Murphy Simmonds feels let down by Japan
Gadget Reviews: Japan World Cup 2022 Bid
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If you’re a fan of sporting endeavour, you will doubtless have noticed that the World Cup of Football is currently taking place. We don’t know much about it, but we do know that it’s a thrilling tournament held every 17 years on top of a mountain in which a group of nations who have historically bullied, invaded, occupied, pillaged and nuked each other join hands in the name of competitive sport.
It’s war, essentially, but without all that pesky death. Plus, instead of gaining land, citizens, diamond mines, spices and a lifetime of nightmares in which the eyes of the man whose head you crushed with your boot in a muddy trench stare deep into your bloodstained soul, the winning side just gets a big gold mug.
Given that we live in a shed, that our only friends are woodlice and that the last time we saw the sun was in 1987, when we burned so badly we needed a nutrient drip for the next three weeks, we’re not heavily into sport. We would just as gladly dangle our nether regions into a box full of angry ferrets as we would witness an incident of live footballing. Which isn’t to say we hate football. Just that we like ferrets.
But one thing has piqued our interest, and that’s the bid by Japan (see “nuked” above) to host the World Cup in 2022. Why? Because it’s Japan in 2022. At the current rate of technological progression, Britain in 2022 will be a country governed by Google in which everyone has internet installed in their brains. So imagine Japan! Given 12 years, the Japanese will probably have ditched typical human life altogether and uploaded all of their minds to a massive computer network. They’ll be floating around in the digital ether like millions of Lawnmower Men, existing as nothing more than clumps of quantum data. Why? Just because they can.
So the Japanese World Cup 2022 bid ought to be unbelievable. “We propose,” it should read, “to analyse the atomic composition of every player, vapourise their physical forms and upload the data to J-Net, where they will be reproduced as 100m giants who will play their matches in photorealistic, destructible digital representations of Tokyo, New York, London, Saturn etc. As the tournament progresses, the losing players will each be transferred into a small, Tamagotchi-style device and returned to their respective heads of state, who must feed, water and care for them daily to prevent an annoying beeping sound and, eventually, death.”
That’s how it ought to read. So what are they actually offering? 3D. 200 cameras. Mics under the pitch. And holograms.
Well whoop-de-doo, Japan. Whoop-de-bloody-doo. You’ve simply imagined the technology of today and upped the budget. If you were so set on underwhelming FIFA, why not just say you’ll host the World Cup in somebody’s backyard and broadcast it via pigeon? The only exciting bit is the holograms, and the last thing we want is a mini Wayne Rooney tonning it round our lounge. He’ll break stuff.
Thanks to that disappointment, we’re now pinning our hopes on a thrilling 2026 bid. Maybe North Korea, they’re mad. They could pledge to host it in space. Until then, we’ll have to make do with these ferrets.
Picture: www.flickr.com/people/taishi/
Posted on Wednesday 9th June 2010
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