The future is now. Or at least it was, two Sundays ago, in Japan. That was when computers in 24 satellites reached their built-in time limit and reset their internal clocks to zero.
For most folks, it was a nonevent. But techies worldwide were holding their collective breath. That is because those satellites serve the Global Positioning System, the navigators in the sky that guide ships, planes and nearly 350,000 automobiles in Japan. There were concerns that some of those things would get lost or bump into other things they normally avoid. Fortunately, nothing bad happened. At least, nothing has been reported.
At 9 a.m. (Japanese time), all GPS systems that hadn't been repaired (a new chip would do the trick for older models) went blank. In Japan, about 95,000, roughly a quarter of the total, hadn't been fixed. And that was despite a year of warnings, mailings to registered owners by the GPS manufacturers and the offer of free chip replacements. Those same makers were inundated with phone calls last week.