The most recent issue of the Economist has a special report (a series of articles) on the social impacts of wireless technology, which has undergone multipe rapid changes in recent years, especially in new services like mobile internet, email, text messaging, etc.

Check out the series at: http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10950394. The individual articles accessible in the navigation box on the right side of the page.

The lead article in the series notes: "Cumulatively, all of these changes amount to a historic merger, at long last, of two technologies that have already proved revolutionary in their own right. The mobile phone has changed the world by becoming ubiquitous in rich and poor countries alike. The internet has mostly touched rich countries, and rich people in poor countries, but has already changed the way people shop, bank, listen to music, read news and socialise. Now the mobile phone is on course to replace the PC as the primary device for getting online. According to the International Telecommunication Union, 3.3 billion people, more than half the world's population, now subscribe to a mobile-phone service (see chart 1), so the internet at last looks set to change the whole world."

The whole world? These rapid recent changes in mobile technology no doubt impact the lives, work and play of people with disabilities. But, how much and in which specific ways have mobile wireless technologies been felt by people with various disabilities?