21st Century Challenges

Domestic web connection joins holidays, mobile phones and fridge-freezer among necessities of modern life, Joseph Rowntree Foundation finds

Terry Wogan discusses the benefits and importance of tackling the high numbers of Britains who are not online.

A UK village which raised £37,000 to set up its own network offering 200 homes the super-fast broadband that BT could not deliver has been launched.

Labour plans to wire up UK homes with super-fast broadband have met with a mixed response. Experts want more details about what "super-fast broadband" means and how the plan would be implemented.

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.

Technology and society: Is it really helpful to talk about a new generation of “digital natives” who have grown up with the internet?

All householders would have a legal right to a high speed broadband connection under new plans being considered by the Government.

Three quarters of children admit secretly visiting social networking sites like Facebook and Bebo without their parents knowledge, according research by Professor Tanya Byron.

The Wiltshire town of Swindon is to become the first in the UK to provide free wireless internet access to all its residents. A "Wi-Fi mesh" would give blanket internet coverage for 186,000 citizens, the council said today.

Betty Parsons, an 80-year-old lady, tried out SimplicITy, a new system aimed at making it easier for older people to do key things such as emailing and web browsing on a computer.

In Denmark, the government has taken the bold step of allowing pupils full access to the internet during their final school year exams.

An ambitious new website that will open up government data to the public will launch in beta, or pilot, form in December. Data.gov.uk has been developed by Sir Tim Berners Lee, founder of the web, and Professor Nigel Shadbolt at the University of Southampton.

Finland has made broadband a 'legal right', leading experts to question whether the UK government is similarly committed.

As the Digital Inclusion Task Force's 'champion', web entrepreneur Martha Lane Fox is charged with taking the disconnected online. But is it the right solution?

Launch of National Information Literacy Awareness Month, which highlights the need for all Americans to be adept in the skills necessary to effectively navigate the Information Age. This new type of literacy also requires competency with communication technologies, including computers and mobile devices that can help in our day-to-day decisionmaking.

New Report Shows the Economic Benefit of Getting Everyone Online in the UK is GBP22billion

A new report for Digital Inclusion has found that four million people in the UK are not online, and that ten million have used the internet only a few times. The government's Digital Inclusion champion, Martha Lane Fox, and technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones, discuss the government's aims to get everyone online.

Rural businesses in "broadband deserts" are being denied vital internet services, Prince Charles has warned. He said isolated towns and villages were placed at a "severe disadvantage" by being in the "internet's slow lane".

England's World Cup qualifier in Ukraine on Saturday will be shown exclusively live to subscribers on the internet who will pay at least £4.99. All previously broadcast England matches have been available on TV

Businesses that lack the means to connect digitally with consumers, those with aged business operating models that seek to ‘box’ the consumer into an ‘arthritic’ framework and those unable to provide products and services that use ubiquitous and supportive technologies will find themselves left behind by this burgeoning consumer demand for digitally-based products and services.

A map to show how over 1 billion people around the world are connected to the net, but speed of access ranges from dial-up to fibre optic connections.

BT has announced a pilot of a new technology it hopes will allow UK homes currently not served by broadband to get access to faster speeds.

A leading light of Web 2.0 has challenged the technology industry to innovate using a treasure trove of data the US government is making public. Internet guru Tim O'Reilly said Government 2.0 as a platform would only truly work if businesses and developers created killer apps using the data.

The race is on to get as many British people online as possible by 2012, Martha Lane Fox has told the BBC. As the government's new Digital Champion she has been charged with getting millions online who are not yet connected to the internet.

The internet is becoming increasingly important in gaining employment

Broadband users are not getting the speeds they are paying for, according to the largest survey of its kind ever undertaken by telecoms regulator Ofcom. Nearly one fifth of UK broadband customers on an eight Megabit per second (Mbps) connection actually receive less than 2Mbps, it found.

Mobile broadband may be the key to faster web access in out-of-town areas but mobile operators' rivalries are holding it back

The digital divide must be tackled early in lifeIt is essential that all schoolchildren have the opportunity to learn IT skills

Though Gordon Brown may have trumpeted nationwide broadband access as essential for economic growth at the recent Digital Britain summit, a new Oxford University study suggests the barriers to creating a new digital Britain could lie in hearts and minds rather than cables and routers

A strategy to get the last third of unconnected Britons online is being drawn up, said Paul Murphy, minister for digital inclusion.

Digital Britain is an action plan to secure the UK’s place at the forefront of innovation, investment and quality in the digital and communications industries.