Back to the Future

Canterbury University’s Andy Cockburn is leading a team of computer scientists in redesigning the back button function on computers. In a bid to up the popular button’s efficiency, Cockburn and co. have reprogrammed web browsers so that the current hierarchical stacking system of index pages is replaced by a chronological one. The team has been in talks with Microsoft and Netscape, but Cockburn isn’t expecting a revolution any time soon: “It would be a bold move to challenge the back button right now.”