An orphaned 11 month old cougar cub plays at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom on April 26, 2007 in Vallejo, California. Three cougar cubs were given to the park from the Idaho Fish & Game in March after they were found motherless in the wild and it was determined that they would not survive in the wild. (Photo by David Paul Morris/Getty Images)

These photographs of hundreds of ducks following their leader down a river are truly mesmerizing. Rafeur Rahman of Bangladesh climbed a high bridge and saw hundreds of ducks apparently playing a game of follow the leader. More than 500 ducks live on the river, where the mosses and snails provide the perfect habitat. Here: Ducks in the river Baral in Bangladesh. (Photo by Rafeur Rahman/Caters News Agency)

The eighth annual Nipponbashi Street Festa stamped Osaka March 20, 2012 (Nipponbashi is Osaka’s geek district – much like Akihabara is for Tokyo). Cosplayers turned up in colourful outfits, dressing as characters from their favourite manga, anime, and video games. The street was closed to cars, and otaku flooded the streets, snapping pics, cosplaying, and hanging out.

A security exercise takes place along the River Thames on January 19, 2012 in London, England. The exercise including around 44 police officers, 94 military personnel, 15 boats and a Royal Navy Lynx helicopter was conducted by both the Metropolitan Police and the Royal Marines and designed to test their joint capability ahead of the 2012 London Olympic Games. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

William Gibson is not one of the authors that spits out novels like a machine – in his long and fruitful career he has only published 11 novels andof short stories and articles in the tens each. Still his impact on modern literature was huge – the “noir prophet” of the cyberpunk subgenre (that he was one of the pioneers of) has predicted the rise of reality television, virtual reality, video games and the internet. He is a Hugo and Nebula award winning science fiction writer, with a special eye for what the future might bring.