In Part 2 of ReadMe's feature on Web visionary Steven Johnson, Johnson talks about his big plans for the humble hyperlink. For starters, he thinks it should get smart and grow some attitude.

Dirck Halstead, founder of digitaljournalist.org, on how digital technology is radically reshaping the role of the wartime photojournalist.

Why did Google buy Pyra, whose Blogger software launched a thousand weblogs? Could blogs, rich in connections to other sites, be the "killer app"?

Long a dark continent in the fiber-optic sense, Africa is scrambling to close the technology---and techno-literacy---gap. Intriguingly, almost half its information-technology students are women.

Screen-readers and Braille displays make computers accessible to the blind, but navigating the Web is still a challenge for the blind and the visually impaired.

The computer scientists at Groxis insist that scanning their eye-dazzling “knowledge maps”—a graphical alternative to the search results spat out by text-based search engines such as Google.com—is more intuitive than reading text. We’ve been visual animals since human evolution got going, they argue. But are we too word-centered to make the switch?

Still stuck in the Stone Age, on a Flintstones-speed Net connection? Upgrade to membership in The University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development’s warp-speed Internet2 Project. All it takes is a million bucks and plenty of fiber-optic pipe.