Edith M. Lederer

Associated Press

In this March 12, 2019, file photo, English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, delivers a speech during an event at the CERN in Meyrin near Geneva, Switzerland, marking 30 years of World Wide Web. Berners-Lee said Thursday, June 11, 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates “the gross inequality” of a world where almost half the population is unable to connect, telling a high-level U.N. meeting “our number one focus must be to close the digital divide.”

Inventor of Web Decries 'Inequality' of Internet

Some 3.5 billion people have missed out on the “lifeline” the internet has provided during the coronavirus crisis, he says.

Moderator Femi Oke, left, Jack Ma, second left, Melinda Gates, and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, participate in a live conversation on digital cooperation.

$20 Phones to Help Connect Half the World

The panel, which includes Melinda Gates and Jack Ma, sees access to technology as a great equalizer, with applications that could include preventing famine.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is photographed during an interview at United Nations headquarters on Tuesday, May 7, 2019. Guterres said the world has to change, not in small incremental ways but in big “transformative” ways into a green economy with electric vehicles and “clean cities” because the alternative “would mean a catastrophic situation for the whole world.”

UN Warns of Warming 'Disaster'

He says the world must dramatically change the way it fuels factories, vehicles and homes.

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Nuclear Plant Hack Threat Grows

A nightmare attack on a nuclear power plant's computer system could cause the uncontrolled release of radiation.