It is 2030 and your electric VW has developed an annoying habit of pulling to the right. A few years back, when your last petrol car started doing something similar, a local mechanic in overalls spent half an hour wrestling underneath it with a torque wrench and a few muttered expletives. Today, you link to the car’s control system from your tablet at the breakfast table and talk through an online portal to a VW technician in Hyderabad. Sure enough, it’s a software glitch. A patch is sent over the internet, and the repair is done.
假設現在是2030年,你的大眾(VW)電動汽車有個煩人的毛病,它習慣向右偏。回想幾年前,當你的最後一輛汽油車開始出現類似問題時,一位穿著工作服的本地維修工罵罵咧咧地拿著一把扳手在車子底下忙活了半個鐘頭。而今天,你可以在早餐桌上用平板電腦連接到汽車的控制系統,並通過門戶網站與海得拉巴(Hyderabad)的一位大眾技術人員交談。果然,這是一個軟體故障。通過網路發送一個補丁,維修就完成了。