In the great pantheon of things unlikely to happen, this IBM idea ranks pretty highly, but that doesn't necessarily make it a bad one. Big Blue has applied for a patent covering a sophisticated new traffic lights system, which judges how long cars have to wait and sends them ominous-sounding "stop-engine notifications" when the pause is long enough to make switching off optimal. This is done by communicating with queuing vehicles and collecting their positional data, and subsequent start-engine notices are also distributed intelligent
