I just hit the ground in New York from a trip to Japan. My day job is, essentially, to find gadgets to show to people, so I figured that Japan would be the motherlode of new and interesting gear. And while there were certainly lots of fascinating bits to see, I was surprised to find how much of the hardware and technology was exactly the same as it is in the United States. Laptops, iPods, PDAs—this looked like Manhattan! The idea of a country filled end-to-end with unbelievable technological wonders is misleading. It may have been that way 20 years ago, but these days, the world has gotten small.

Fortunately, when it comes to gadgets, the hardware is only half of the equation. I tried to put together what it is, exactly, that makes Japan so different from the world of Western tech.

It's Not Polite to Stare
Now the Japanese don’t exactly hold fast to this. I had my fair share of stare-downs when walking around Shibuya, although with my blond hair and scraggly beard, I didn’t exactly fit in. But most of the time, it seemed that folks walked around with their noses in a cell phone (clamshells, mostly), either using the built-in GPS systems to navigate to one of the many hidden restaurants and shops, or to read news and browse the Web on their phones. And that’s pretty fantastic stuff—there are a couple of reasons why we can’t do that here yet—but think about it for a second.

It’s barely polite to use a cell phone to make a call in public in the United States, let alone walk around with one held up close to your face. Being absorbed in your gadgets is often seen as being antisocial, despite the fact that most people usually keep to themselves.
Not so in Japan, where it’s more polite to mind your own business (and not impose on anyone else) by occupying yourself with your phone. If you don’t have a phone in Japan, though, pretending to nod off is a perfectly viable alternative.

Of course, there is much to entertain yourself with on Japanese phones. They look a lot like the phones we have on our cellular networks, but manage to cram in features like high-quality video content, two-way video chat, music downloads, multi-megapixel cameras (optical zoom is coming soon), and digital wallet features that let you pay for subway rides and soft drinks just by waving your phone over a sensor.

Cell phones are one of the few areas where Japan has stayed way out in front of everyone else—an insular market with a high-speed 3G network entering its 4th year of service has bred a handset market that’s, well, 4 years ahead of everyone else’s.

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