Opened earlier this summer, and modelled on Japan's little local police stations, Columbia's koban is an attempt to prevent crime by tackling some of the things that cause it: broken families, children who stop going to school, the failureof communities to help people at the end of their tether.
The problem with many smart technologies is that their designers, in the quest to root out the imperfections of the human condition, seldom stop to ask how much frustration, failure and regret is required for happiness and achievement to retain any meaning.