We often talk about ‘black box’ technologies in science and technology studies. The idea behind them is that so often we don’t really know what goes on inside a box, and the effects of such a box might as well be magic. Lots of clever people spend a lot of time trying to open these metaphorical boxes to help us make sense of the world around us.
Well, here’s a very literal manifestation of that idea.
If you’d like to find out what this particular black box is, and how it’s shaped our lives today, listen to me explaining to Rory Cellan-Jones on the BBC World Service programme Tech Tent.