Cable and telephone companies can run all kinds of high-bandwidth wires to your neighborhood, but they're still constrained by old low-tech connections from their substation to your computer.

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And even if parents try to keep the old speech alive, their efforts can be doomed by films and computer games.

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For decades businesses have updated their computer networks by bolting fancy features like interactive Web sites onto old, brittle networks cluttered with arcane code.

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Washington (CNN) -- JetBlue Airways is apologizing for a "computer glitch" it blames for a family being told their 18-month-old daughter was on a government no-fly list.

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"The older you get the more you want to put the heating on but most old people don't have the access to a computer to see the deals which can stretch their money further, " she said.

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The salespeople earn a flat commission, so they have no incentive to try to stuff a customer who can only afford a four-year-old Hyundai into a one-year-old BMW. Their desks are designed so that they and their customers are on the same side of the computer screen.

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