Unsurprisingly, state bureaucracies oppose the computerisation of government records because they stand to lose from such openness.

ECONOMIST: When India wires up

Filipinos are fervently hoping that the computerisation of the vote-counting in May's presidential, congressional and local elections will solve the problem.

ECONOMIST: Elections in the Philippines

One possible pairing could be for the ID card to be linked to the computerisation of the NHS, acting as a smart medical card.

BBC: NEWS | Technology | Call for ID cards to get smart

He identifies, especially, the more transparent and efficient delivery of food rations to the poor, thanks to computerisation and the spread of ID cards.

ECONOMIST: Politics

In the wild, grooming is time-consuming and here computerisation certainly helps.

ECONOMIST: Even online, the neocortex is the limit

Modern computerisation projects, in contrast, tend to have far more in common with Babbage's ill-fated attempt to build a mechanical computer, which cost a fortune and was eventually abandoned.

ECONOMIST: Millennium issue

All of the measures he went on to outline are familiar ones - computerisation, more inspection, streamlined appointment and hospital admission systems, more investment on prevention of illness and cooperation between social services and health services.

BBC: NHS reform: Blair takes charge

That kind of thinking has led to the botched computerisation in Britain's National Health Service, where billions of pounds and millions of precious hours are spent on a system that at best will be substandard and at worst dangerously leaky with patients' private medical data.

ECONOMIST: Technology and the public sector

In its own unusual way, Vita Needle proves that by changing a little to accommodate an older workforce being more flexible about working hours, tolerating older people's technophobia (the fax machine has been accepted, but computerisation is still at least a year away) and, above all, stressing trust it is possible to gain a lot.

ECONOMIST: Can America��s workforce grow old gainfully?