digital divide | Social Signal

Over the past few years, as broadband reaches more and more communities and mobile Internet access extends its reach, the digital divide has receded into the background. Issues like net neutrality and intellectual property have taken centre stage and taken on new urgency.

But equal access to digital technologies is as important as ever. And this year, the folks behind OneWebDay want to remind us:

Sometimes the niftiest tools are the ones that have been around for the longest time.

I just came across Aptivate's loband, a wonderfully handy web service that's been around since 2004. Loband lets you see highly-simplified versions of web pages, stripping out the fancy formatting and hefty graphics that can slow down users who don't have broadband Internet connections - mobile users, for instance, or people in developing countries.