From the editors.

At the turn of each new calendar year we are bombarded with media pronouncements on the supposed significance of the old one. We'd rather face forward.

In this issue we trek through Europe and Asia in our cover story, Digital Dragons, seeking the mathematical and metaphysical sources of the future. Sound wacky? It is. But as writer Jan Krikke points out, the common Western perception of Japan (and other parts of Asia) as somehow "futuristic" high-tech wonderlands has authentic ancient roots.

Attorney Glenn Newman checks in from the US with some sage and sometimes startling legal advice for foreign suppliers seeking to disseminate their products in Japan. If you're based over there and plan to sell anything here, take note--and take notes.

We get the inside dope and international scope on DoCoMo from two industry veterans with globespanning CVs. Why DoCoMo continues to rock Japan, and why others elsewhere continue to plunk along by comparison, is the subject of their feature, an edited excerpt from their just-published tome on the topic: Wireless Data Services.

The fortunes of Secom and Sony are suddenly headed in opposite directions--but we're heading down to Shikoku to catch the headbutts at the bullfights. Kansai columnist Dominic Al-Badri cruises around the island in search of youth and encounters a withering economy away from the tourists.

Our own future finds us welcoming author and editor Burritt Sabin. Leo Lewis remains our main man on every beat; Japan hand Sabin now anchors our newsroom. Don't look back.

--The Editors