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The National Broadband Plan has to be thought in terms of social progress, and keep in mind the true nature of the open Internet. David Stephen argues in favor of the National Broadband Plan but reminds that the FCC should not be focused in regulating only.

Interesting article touching on issues of the digital divide, and how technology can affect and help development. The article also discusses the effect that technology, particularly mobiles, is having on politics in India - particularly on enfranchising and mobilising the lower castes.

This is my final blog entry on the digital divide. It basically sums up my thoughts about the topic and looks at a recent initiative by the UN that will hopefully speed up the process of achieving the goal of global internet access by 2015.

This was another source used for my blog entry on aspects of the digital divide in the situation in Thailand. This gave a some context to my discussion and clarified the details of the damage done to major cities.

Contrary to the Obama-McCain 2008 campaign, where Internet users with liberal tendencies where more prone to follow their candidates via Twitter and other social media, the recent UK campaign shown the aparent leadership of Conservatives in political digital communications. They have double the Twitter followers than Labour. Do you think the digital divide between Democracts and Republicans in the US will shorten in the 2012 presidential campaign?

My most recent blog entry, looking at the implications of the increasing digital literacy among younger generations.

Almost four in five people around the world believe that access to the internet is a fundamental right, a poll for the BBC World Service suggests. The survey - of more than 27,000 adults across 26 countries - found strong support for net access on both sides of the digital divide.

This BBC article is based on a extensive survey conducted over 26 countries about people's attitudes towards internet access. Apparently it is now considered a fundamental human right, along with access to basic infrastructure like roads and water.

Conservative party in Britain have released their "Technology Manifesto" before the elections. This manifesto supports a new emergence of public access online. It really seems to be too good to be true. It also looks to increase the digital divide between nations when some countries are just trying to catch up.

This article discusses the topics of educators improving their skills on detecting the various forms of cyberbullying, follow-up prevention, and plans that address cyberbullies. It also notes that perhaps, some cyberbullying is not fully realised by the bullies themselves, as children may be unaware of how impactful their messages are. There is also the discussion of a digital divide between children and their parents with respect to how one conducts themselves online. Though, it is doubtful to claim that children are completely ignorant of their own actions on the Internet.

The increasing use of 'free' webmail services, and indeed full office suites, from online providers by business and governments means an increasing amount of funding for encryption and ad free internets. This potentially leads to a new digital divide. The corporate or private internet of the wealthy, and the hyper surveilled commercial internet of the many.

Pew study shows the African-American population is more inclined in Mobile Internet and especially Twitter whose awareness has raised significantly

D.Net, a not-for-profit research organisation has set up a program in Bangladesh called InfoLadies which involves women armed with netbooks, mobile phones to provide information gathered from the internet to villagers who would otherwise lack access to this information. The types of information provided typically cover hygiene, farming and childbirth. The program is an extension of the MobileLadies program which came before it. Another, more detailed article here: http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=99804 Can programs like this contribute to a decrease in the digital divide?

This article eloquently discusses the importance of the internet in our lives and addresses issues of the digital divide. Internet use has become so woven into everyday life that some technology experts say online access should be legally protected, even to the point of considering it a human right. ''It's a social inclusion question,'' said Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre executive director David Vaile

Following on from the BBC's survey of 27,000 people in 26 countries which resulted in 79% of adults regarding internet access as a human right, David Vaile from the Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre and Brett Solomons, formerly of GetUp and now AccessNow.org, have both put their weight behind this approach. Some countries already include internet access as a consumer legal right and other countries regard it as a human right.

Controversial! But the article summarises many of the difficulties of most opinions on this divide... does bad stuff justify bad laws? The second comment - re why do media exacerbate the situation? is also pertinent. The internet has changed power and social relations causing disequilibrium amongst existing controls and power structures and social norms. This marks a highly contested border dispute.

According to this article "word of mouth has become word of web." People are using digital technology to communicate important information such as social gatherings and recommendations about things such as new recipes - things that used to be transferred through offline word of mouth. The implication is that people without an online presence miss out, and the response of the Canadian (as well as the Australian) government is to inject millions of dollars into decreasing the 'digital divide' to encourage social participation through increased digital literacy.

After the class last night, I kept having a thoght that maybe our whole society structure is changing bcuase of the internet, the accessibility to the Internet. Money, education, perhaps are the main critaria to structure the society anymore.

Interesting interactive chart showing the number of Internet users in different countries from 1998 until 2008. Notice the discrepancies between developed and underdeveloped countries. Still skeptical of the digital divide?

Useful graphic created by the BBC which shows the spread of the internet from 1998-2008 across the world. Interesting to note the speed with which China and parts of South American grew. From 2001-2008 they moved from 0-5% usage - 26-30% usage.

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) scheme has been adopted in Uruguay and Panama, in a move that has received support from US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. The article also refers to the need for more laptops in disaster-affected Haiti, as well as Clinton's opinion on the Google China controversy.

The rise of the internet economy has occurred at a time when the gender gap is increasing in IT and ICT areas. A deeper look at the nature of internet architecture and whether "code is law" might help answer 'which came first? the gender or the tech?'.

Following on from ICANN's approval 6 months ago to start using non-Latin scripts for domain names, Egypst has introduced .misr (the Arabic name for Egypt). Depending on the browser and language packs installed, if a user mouses over a .misr link on a web page, they may see this in Arabic script. Will be interesting to see how this and forthcoming addtional non-Latin domain names impact on the language barrier aspect of the digital divide. Saudi Arabia and UAE have also set up their own new domain names - ".Al-Saudiah" and ".Emarat".

Six Months after the ICANN, approved the use of non-Latin domain names, Egypt launched "Misr" domain (the Arabic name for Egypt). A new perspective of Internet in the Arabic world.

It will be considered as a technical achievement in the history of the internet: the introduction of non-latin top level domain names. To date United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Russian Federation, and Egypt will now be able to view a complete domain name in arabic script. Western society probably failed to consider, until recently, the limiting effect of the internet's architecture for speakers of non-latin derived languages. In the same way technically disconnected rural communities form part of the digital divide, so to do inhabitants of countries that had no education in latin based languages. How does a browser support arabic script? The brower itself must support both the character sets of the language. Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari all support arabic script.