As the PC becomes stronger and more powerful with always on Internet connection, how will that impact the Digital Divide. Will it mean that everyone will be able to afford very cheap and powerful PCs and high speed wireless access, or will it mean that the "have" will have even greater always on connection to communications and information. This is an image that was provided as part of a keynote at 2003 E-learn conference in Washington, DC by Hermann Maurer, one of Europe's greatest technical thinker and science fiction writer, including Xperts: The Paradoppelganger of what the PC will look like by 2010.

Why is Digital Equity Important?

New information and communication technologies have been shrinking the world. Board band pipes can now pass a terabyte of data is 1,000 gigabytes about 5 hours of high quality DVD. In comparison a 56 K modem transfer rate would take 56 hours to down 1,000 gigabytes of information while Internet II is reported to have a transfer rate = 6 sec, according to the Internet II consortium.

Information and Communication is Power. The CISCO Networking Academy has developed a short video intended to open students' minds to ICT careers they can have as a result of CISCO Networking Academy training that does a good job to illustrate the power and reach of the Internet in all parts of the world’s economic, information and communication systems.

http://www.academynetspace.com/video.php

Meanwhile there is a direct correlation between Internet access and levels of both literacy and poverty. In 2005, only 13.9 percent of the world’s population has internet access according to the 2005 Internet World Stat. The World Bank says that

Two billion people live on less than two US dollars a day

Two thirds of the world's 840 million illiterate adults are women.

In a 2004 Benton Foundation study, it is reported that in the U.S. 78.6 percent of Americans went online in 2003 but for 80% of U.S. families with annual household income greater than $75,000 were on-line, compared with 25% of the poorest families with annual incomes under $25,000.

Immigrants and the digital divide

A look at the growing gap in computer and Internet access between young immigrants and non-immigrants.

Digital Equity in a Connected World

A Look at Digital Equity and Social Justice in a Partially Connection Global Community

“Digital equity is a social justice goal of ensuring that all students have access to information and communications technologies for learning regardless of:

–

- socioeconomic status,

– physical disability,

– language,

– race,

– gender, or

– any other characteristics that, have been linked with unequal treatment.”

G. Solomon 2002