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Last year, important internet cables connecting Europe to Asia were mysteriously severed, resulting in days of outages for millions of internet users. It was a stark reminder that, no matter how instantaneously our information seems to travel, it is, in fact, moving through cables on the bottom of the ocean. And, while the internet might seem like the cutting edge of technology, it's interesting to note that information has been traveling this way since the first telegraph cables were laid across the Atlantic ocean in the 19th century.

BBC News embarks on a unique project telling the story of international trade by tracking a shipping container around the world for a year.

Yesterday, at its headquarters in Paris, Unesco unveiled its first comprehensive and online database of the world's endangered tongues. According to its team of specialists, there are around 2,500 languages at risk, including more than 500 considered "critically endangered" and 199 which have fewer than 10 native speakers.

THE number of people going online has passed one billion for the first time, according to comScore, an online metrics company.

A simple but very user friendly distance calculator for figuring out carbon footprints of products based on distances travelled. [Submitted by Troy Bajardi]

THE Horn of Africa is one of the last populated bits of the planet without a proper connection to the world wide web. Instead of fibre-optic cable, which provides for cheap phone calls and YouTube-friendly surfing, its 200m or so people have had to rely on satellite links. This has kept international phone calls horribly overpriced and internet access equally extortionate and maddeningly slow.

Technology connects us more and more each day. Who are the most and least connected people in the world?

Starting next July, every person in Finland will have the right to a one-megabit broadband connection, says the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Finland is the world's first country to create laws guaranteeing broadband access.