The International Herald Tribune recently reported on the study "Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use," conducted by the U.N. and Vodafone foundations.

While cynics may argue that the Vodafone group has a keen interest in seeing mobile phone usage increase in developing countries, the study offers many inspiring stories of how activists and development experts in the field are using mobile technologies in innovative ways.

A recent Economist piece, Bringing the Poor Online, details the challenges of expanding Internet access in developing countries. The success of mobile phones in these countries, it notes, is difficult to repeat with Internet access due to a number of costs mobile-phone carriers don’t have to face.

From India, the International Herald Tribune reports how a new site called Babajob.com is taking social networking one step further by using online networks to help connect people in Bangalore to jobs, even if the job-seekers lack access to technology.

Speedtest.net is a Web site that tests how fast your broadband connection uploads and downloads information, and is worth trying. It is very easy to use — just click on the recommended spot on the map and it will test your connection, then compare your results to state, national, and international averages.

In the middle of all the hoo-ha about the iPhone, T-Mobile announced a new service called T-Mobile HotSpot @Home that could save you hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year. How so? According to this story in the New York Times:

"If you’re willing to pay $10 a month on top of a regular T-Mobile voice plan, you get a special cellphone. When you’re out and about, it works like any other phone; calls eat up your monthly minutes as usual.