Access to the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia will be free from mobile phones for Orange customers in Africa and the Middle East.

Jordan will coordinate a network linking researchers in seven Arab countries.

UNESCO has launched a website that will collect information on the status of open access to scientific information across the world.

Installing solar-powered charging stations in African villages could bring in a steady income for rural entrepreneurs, says a report.

Peru's One Laptop Per Child scheme is suffering because its teachers lack training and schools lack the Internet, a minister has said.

Improving the capacity of developing countries to use data from remote sensing and other sources is the remit of a new UN expert committee.

A report calls for a poverty-focused approach to developing information and communication technologies.

Part of the money that Paraguay is demanding from Brazil for its energy will be invested in more laptops for children, said president Lugo.

An IADB report says that giving computers to schoolchildren will not improve teaching without teacher-training and educational software.

Mobile phones can come to the aid of fishermen along coasts increasingly prone to storms due to climate change, say experts.

A few, well-maintained volcano monitors are better than an ambitious, unsustainable scheme, say seismologists.

Interactive software in their native language aims to strengthen the knowledge and cultural identity of children from two Mexican ethnic groups.

Satellite sensing and other technologies could help poor countries minimise environmental damage from aquaculture, says a report.

While international research is flourishing on how ICT can be used for development, African academics are publishing little on the subject.

Latin American and Caribbean governments have agreed on a plan to widen access to information and communication technologies by 2015.

Illiterate villagers in India and Uganda have flocked to have their questions answered on subjects ranging from farming to football.

Availability of scientific journals in Africa is rising, but academics and students are not keeping up, a report finds.

Google's free satellite image database aims to help researchers, but experts are sceptical of its value to the developing world.

A computer at home increases social equity and reduces the digital gap more than having the equipment only at school, a study says.

Wireless technologies could bring an era of cheap disease diagnosis to the developing world, said experts at a mobile health summit.