For example, customer data could go into a relational database, linked to a non-relational database for unstructured data such as product reviews and recommendations.

FORBES: What You Need to Know About NoSQL Databases

Satellite linked to a national database, they tell officers if the prints belong to a convicted criminal.

BBC: Birmingham & Black Country

Square believes the future of payments isn't swiping a card but merely giving a cashier your name, which is stored within the company's database and linked to a credit card.

CNN: Square unveils a new countertop register

While the consultation is under way, work will progress on plans to establish a national collection of half a million DNA samples from adult volunteers in the UK. The anonymous DNA database would be linked to information from GPs about the volunteers' health and lifestyle.

BBC: Genetic data 'insurance fear'

The Payments Council - the trade body which looks after the nuts and bolts of UK payments systems - is working on a database of UK mobile numbers linked to bank accounts.

BBC: Mobile money - has its moment come?

All national web-portals on medicines would be linked to the EU's "Eudravigilance" database, which contains information about medicines and side effects.

BBC: New law to report adverse effects of medicines

This information was then linked to the National Death Index (yes, such a database really exists).

FORBES: The Smoking Gun: Women Catch Up To Men On Lung Cancer Risk

The most recent issue contained articles about using the Internet for education and about the EDGAR database of corporate information maintained by America's Securities and Exchange Commission, all electronically linked to the resources on the network that they describe.

ECONOMIST: From the archive