Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has just announced the formation of Internet.org, a group with the specific goal of helping make the internet available to the entire world. It's a partnership with a number of prominent technology companies — Facebook, Ericsson, Nokia, Qualcomm, and Samsung are among the founding members — that will join forces for a number of initiatives they hope will bring connectivity to the two-thirds of the globe that currently don't have an easy way to get online.
According to the press release announcing the initiative, Internet.org is taking aim at three specific challenges. Affordability, for which the founders will be developing cheaper means of access, including smartphones; data efficiency, in which they'll focus on compression and other techniques that will allow services to use less bandwidth; and access itself. For the latter, Internet.org's members will focus on developing business models that will incentivize companies of all types to provide cheaper, more plentiful internet access in the targeted regions.
Read more: The Verge
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