This article from the International Herald Tribute discusses how Denver is shutting down its centralised, high-tech baggage system that it build 10 years ago.

But the handoff in baggage handling also illuminates how much has changed in the years since Denver’s grand, if not grandiose, dream was first hatched in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Back then, the big mainframe doing it all from command central was the model of high technology. Today the very idea sounds like a quaint Cold War-era relic, engineers say, as decentralization and mobile computing technology have taken over just about everything.

Workers with hand-held scanners, checking baggage tag bar codes at every juncture of transit, will give managers far better information and control than could have been imagined back then, United officials said.

Relevance: An example on how technology is changing. Mobile devices using real people rather than an all-knowing central, computer system.

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