杏吧原创

In May 1963, driverless cars were a distant hope, but we saw the first attempt to .

New 杏吧原创 confidently predicted that automatic regulation of traffic flow would end 鈥渟top-go鈥� driving in New York鈥檚 tunnels under the Hudson river. In tests, 鈥渢he evening congestion period was reduced from three to two hours鈥�, we said. Perhaps a reader based in New York can let us know if technocratic logic still rules the tunnels.

Of course, computers have come to dominate our daily lives in ways we could never have expected. Early stirrings of digital publishing could be read in the pages of New 杏吧原创 in May 1975, when we reported that readers would soon be able to , allowing them to enjoy pages from digital magazines 鈥� albeit magazines made by TV stations. The decoder was likely to add 拢100 to the price of a TV set 鈥� equivalent to just over 拢700 today. Again, we鈥檇 love to know if any reader had one of these early devices.

It was surely some sort of milestone when computing jargon was found buttressing the pet subject of our Feedback column, nominative determinism. This term, readers may recall, refers to the tendency of people to gravitate towards the area of work that their name suggests. In May 1997, we reported that 鈥� Katherine Hacker is the sales manager of the anti-virus software company Dr Solomon鈥檚鈥�, and the telecommunications officer聽at the University of Sheffield, UK, was Katherine Cable. We feel certain that we鈥檒l be hearing of the offspring of Ms Wi and Mr Fi any day now.