UNITED NATIONS (AP) — An independent U.N. panel is calling for much greater cooperation to bring digital technology to roughly half the world’s people, and a senior Google executive says mobile phones with internet access are being created to sell for about $20 to help make this possible.
Google Vice President Vinton Cerf said at a news conference after the panel’s report was officially launched Monday that “it’s going to cost a lot of money” to end the digital divide.
He said the costs of phones and communications must be driven down, or “we won’t succeed in getting the other 4.5 billion, or 3.5 billion people, online.”
But Cerf predicts that “we’re going to see the investment made primarily out of pure, simple incentive on the business side and demand on the consumer side.”
