Imagine Miss Internet beauty contests. Courtrooms with video-conferencing for faraway witnesses.
Computerized bus stops that monitor buses to tell impatient commuters when to expect a ride.
In tiny Singapore, the fascination with high-tech can border on the surreal, and it's as much a government effort as a public obsession. This micro-managed country seems well on its way. In 1991, the government unveiled its IT2000 plan, which aims to make vast reservoirs of electronic information and services available to all Singaporeans. Officials say 90 percent of the population can now access it. Today, about half of the world's hard disk drives and most of Apple's latest iMac computers are produced here, while a homegrown star, Creative Technology, produces about 60 percent of the world's PC sound cards.