Wow, last month’s Wired contained a great article by David Corn on the reasons why more government documents aren’t published on the Web. I had forgotten about all those promises Newt Gingrich made in 1994 about Congress putting everything on the Web. The article is comprehensive and incredibly useful. The government is nowhere near where it need to be on this.
One of the coolest ideas that’s taking root is publicly available wireless LANs. People with high speed connections are allowing anyone with a wireless ethernet card to access their LAN and connect to the Internet, making it possible for people to get access to the Internet for free from wherever they are. Obviously lots more people have to participate to make this useful, but it could be really, really cool if it catches on.