In regards to narrowing the digital divide both locally, and globally, the Raspberry Pi [5] is something which stands out the most to me when considering implementations to reduce this cause of the digital divide. The Raspberry Pi is a small, credit card sized computer which has been developed to teach computer sciences effectively and cheaply. It can be obtained for a very fair price of less than £30, and can essentially be used as a fully functioning computer (with a few cheap add-ons). This is just one example of the many kinds of budget technologies which are available to the masses today in order to narrow the digital divide, as their availability encourages the use of technology without the premium price - something which may put off a large amount of people as they may not see the point, or they may not have great amounts of money to spend on technology.
Furthermore, geographical and economical aspects of the divide are both planned to be tackled by schemes proposed by the two major companies, Facebook and Google, to provide high speed internet all across the globe. Facebook plans to achieve this through the use of solar powered drones capable of flying days on end within the Earth's orbit. These drones, with slight modification can be used to provide an internet signal to even the most derelict of places from above the clouds [3]. Alternatively, Google intend to achieve the same goal through the use of weather balloons, and small antennae to pick up signals from these balloons [4]. Though both of these innovations work in different ways, essentially, they both are capable of achieving the same goal, which in itself tackles both the geographical aspects, and the economical aspects of the digital divide. This is because even those who may be considered to be in the most rural of locations, for example in a desert, or high on a mountain, they will still be able to access the internet. In addition to this, the availability of such service is intended to be rather cheap, so people in these rural areas wont have a piece of technology lying around that nobody has access to.
Furthermore, geographical and economical aspects of the divide are both planned to be tackled by schemes proposed by the two major companies, Facebook and Google, to provide high speed internet all across the globe. Facebook plans to achieve this through the use of solar powered drones capable of flying days on end within the Earth's orbit. These drones, with slight modification can be used to provide an internet signal to even the most derelict of places from above the clouds [3]. Alternatively, Google intend to achieve the same goal through the use of weather balloons, and small antennae to pick up signals from these balloons [4]. Though both of these innovations work in different ways, essentially, they both are capable of achieving the same goal, which in itself tackles both the geographical aspects, and the economical aspects of the digital divide. This is because even those who may be considered to be in the most rural of locations, for example in a desert, or high on a mountain, they will still be able to access the internet. In addition to this, the availability of such service is intended to be rather cheap, so people in these rural areas wont have a piece of technology lying around that nobody has access to.
