Do Japanese Dream of Electronic Sheep

In a society famous for its neon cities, long office hours, horrendous commutes, indulgence in even more methamphetamine abuse than an Australian roadtrain driver and cramming programmes for infant schoolchildren you may expect sleeping to be a problem.

You'd be right.

Its also big business, Matsushita (the mega-corp behind Panasonic, Technics and JVC) will be launching later this year a 'sleeping room package that consists of a plasma screen TV, a tricked-out bed and ambient sound recordings. This is expected to sell for about 20,000 GBP.

In the UK we have Big Brother...