We'll all be smartphone surfing in 2020

The Pew Internet & American Life Project­ (in partnership with Elon University), which surveys technology stakeholders and critics, says the mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the internet for most people by 2020. Voice recognition and touch interfaces will be used much more for browsing than they are today. [Imagining the Internet, PDF report]

Technology is keeping families in touch

A US survey - the Pew Internet report - says online and mobile technology isn't damaging family togetherness but is helping people stay in touch. Perhaps not many surprises, although the detail is interesting. [Report]

Mobile-only householders think differently

The Pew Research Center, which conducts public opinion polls, says leaving out households that don't have a fixed-line phone may cause an inaccurate result in polls. Their new study shows that organisations only conducting telephone interviews using fixed-line connections may end up with skewed results. Two years ago, researchers said mobile and fixed-line users had similar views... but the new report says "this assumption is increasingly questionable". It says having contacted Americans under 30 who only used mobiles, 62% were Democrats and 28% were Republicans. However fixed-phone users showed less separation: 54% Democrats and 36% Republicans. One of the reasons for the difference could be that fixed-line owners were more likely to be married and own their own homes, said Pew Research Center's director of survey research. [Source: Cellular-News.com]

Americans love their mobile phones

Pew Research, which provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world, has just released a new study that says the majority of all Americans are part of a wireless, mobile population. In a December 2007 survey they found that 58% of adult Americans had used a mobile phone or PDA for non-voice data activity - and 41% of adult Americans had logged onto the internet with a wireless laptop connection or a handheld device. Overall, this gave a total of 62% using digital mobile services. When asked how hard it would be to give up a specific type of technology, the majority said it would be their mobile phone, followed by the internet, TV, and fixed-line telephone. In 2o06, the number one technology was fixed-line phone, followed by TV and then mobile.