“Getting workers to do simple jobs in the 16th century was not much different from the 21st”

Why 16th century “networking” legislation still has an impact, and why the term AI is confusing to punters as well as a waste of natural resources

If you’ve read William Gibson’s visionary cyberpunk novels, you’ll remember the idea of the “oracle”. I won’t go into the back story, but this static unit was mounted low down in a wall, in a back alley, equipped with nothing more than a red laser that scanned the pre-millennial brickwork within line of sight. Now take a look at my picture below of an exterior mounted fibre termination box in a sparsely trafficked alleyway somewhere in the City of London. Disappointingly, there’s no scanning, baleful visible laser. Not even a power LED: modern fibre devices don’t all need electricity. Still, seeing it immediately made me think of Gibson’s universe. Putting this aside, there was something about the copious, overlapping loops of black exterior fibre, wrapped around and around the Openreach…

You're reading a preview of

PC Pro (Digital) - 1 Issue, December 2024

DiscountMags is a licensed distributor (not a publisher) of the above content and Publication through Zinio LLC. Accordingly, we have no editorial control over the Publications. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers or other information or content expressed or made available by third parties, including those made in Publications offered on our website, are those of the respective author(s) or publisher(s) and not of DiscountMags. DiscountMags does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, truthfulness, or usefulness of all or any portion of any publication or any services or offers made by third parties, nor will we be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on information contained in any Publication, or your use of services offered, or your acceptance of any offers made through the Service or the Publications. For content removal requests, please contact Zinio.