Cell Phones Close the Telephonic Divide

Encouragingly tech-positive report from the usually Ludd-leaning WorldWatch Institute. Not to knock them - they generally do great work. Well, with the exception of their foray into transhuman bioethics with their "Beyond Cloning" issue of Worldwatch magazine which included every left-wing Luddite and Francis Fukuyama thrown in for good measure. But its great to see them paying attention to some of the upsides of technological progress, in this case the fact that cell phones are bringing telephone access to the world's poor. [BBC story here] According to their report, thirty African nations have more mobile than fixed-line phones, and one in five humans has a cell phone.