Is the online world as important to Internet users as the real world"

Large numbers of Internet users hold such strong views about their online communities that they compare the value of their online world to their real-world communities, according to the sixth annual survey of the impact of the Internet conducted by the USC-Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future.

On 28 November, Europe's largest online portal and ESA will produce the first-ever space web video chat when ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter responds to questions via the Internet live from the International Space Station.

For the first time the number of Internet users in the world exceeded one billion. The data is provided in the "Report Information Economy" issued by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Recharging your laptop computer - and also your cell phone and a variety of other gadgets - might one day be doable in the same convenient way many people now surf the Web: wirelessly.