Spain to have affordable broadband for all

Spain's government announced this week that it would require the country's Internet service providers to offer affordable broadband for all at a speed of at least 1 Mbps by 2011, CNET reports. Are we seeing a trend in Europe? Maybe. Last month Finland's minister of communications said everyone in Finland will have at least 1 Mbps connection by next July 1. Both Spanish and Finnish officials say they hope the fairly slow speed is "a starting point. And they believe network operators will increase speeds over time." Why doesn't the US do this? Well, there are slight differences in population. Finland has about 5.3 million people, Spain about 46 million, and the US about 304 million.

Net stimulates the brain: Study

A study presented this month at the Society for Neuroscience found that Internet training "could potentially enhance brain function and cognition in older adults," ScienceDaily.com reports. Researchers at University California, Los Angeles, worked with two groups of "neurologically normal volunteers between the ages of 55 and 78." Everything else being pretty equal, one group was made up of regular Internet users, the other had very little online experience. The latter group "performed Web searches while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans, which recorded the subtle brain-circuitry changes experienced during this activity." After training and just seven days of an hour a day of Web research over a period of two weeks, the newly Net-savvy group "were able to trigger key centers in the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning," displaying "brain activation patterns very similar to those seen in the group of savvy Internet users." Here's a host of coverage.