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Report: The digital divide Browse:   Related Search: Themes: · world-infostructure · global networks · global market · global info-rights Keywords: · information poverty · manipulation · government

WORLD-INFOSTRUCTURE > THE DIGITAL DIVIDE > AN ECONOMIC AND THEREFORE ...

An Economic and therefore Governmental Issue While the digital divide might bring up the idea that enterprises will be able to sell more and more computers during the next years another truth looks as if there was no hope for a certain percentage of the population to get out of their marginalization, their position of being "have nots". Studies show that the issue of different colors of skin play a role in this, but more than "racial" issues it is income, age and education that decides about the have and have nots. There exist ~ 103 million households in the USA. ~6 million do not even have telephone access. Why should they care about computers? The digital divide cuts the world into centers and peripheries, not into nations, as it runs through the boarder between the North and the South as well as through nations. http://www.digitaldivide.gov/ http://www.digitaldividenetwork.org/ http://www.pbs.org/digitaldivide/ http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-344552.html http://racerelations.about.com/newsissues/racerelations/msubdigdivide.htm http://www.techweek.com/articles/11-1-99/divide.htm http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/net2/falling.html The most different institutions with various interests in their background work in that field; not rarely paid by governments, which are interested in inhabitants, connected to the net and economy. see also: http://www.washington.edu/wto/digital/ Searching information about the digital divide one will find informations saying that it is growing all the time whereas other studies suggest the contrary, like this one http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-341054.html browse Report: The digital divide -1   Definition 0   An Economic and therefore Governmental Issue +1   The North against the South?  INDEX CARD     RESEARCH MATRIX  Invention According to the WIPO an invention is a "... novel idea which permits in practice the solution of a specific problem in the field of technology." Concerning its protection by law the idea "... must be new in the sense that is has not already been published or publicly used; it must be non-obvious in the sense that it would not have occurred to any specialist in the particular industrial field, had such a specialist been asked to find a solution to the particular problem; and it must be capable of industrial application in the sense that it can be industrially manufactured or used." Protection can be obtained through a patent (granted by a government office) and typically is limited to 20 years.