In one oft-cited 1985 study, lawyers who searched a 350, 000-page library using conventional electronic techniques were convinced they found 75% of the evidence relevant to the case.

FORBES: The Data Explosion

These calculators are typical of the one-machine-one-job principle on which office mechanisation has so far proceeded, and it is a principle that some consider totally unsuited to electronic techniques.

ECONOMIST: The business world

Stanton McCandlish of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a pressure group, says he expects other governments to adopt geolocation and other similar techniques to balkanise the Internet in coming years.

ECONOMIST: Geography and the net