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by westbywest 5144 days ago
A cell phone can indeed be the one and only relatively high-tech possession for a poor family in an impoverish region. Used cell phones and/or low-end handsets subsidized by the carrier help them proliferate.

Vaguely tangential, a UCLA professor developed a microscope attachment for a cell phone camera, to permit remote phlebotomy and other telemedicine in areas lacking facilities otherwise. http://www.engineer.ucla.edu/newsroom/featured-news/archive/...

A good overview of this style of tech innovation is the Smithsonian Institute's "Design for the Other 90%." http://archive.cooperhewitt.org/other90/other90.cooperhewitt...