MIT is developing a search engine known as TEK or Time Equals Knowledge which focusses on the needs of people with slow and/or expensive Internet connections.

Someone using TEK e-mails a query to a central server in Boston. The TEK programme searches the net, filters the results to find the most suitable web pages, compresses them and e-mails the results back a day later.

The thinking behind TEK is that people in economically poor countries are short of money but rich in time, whereas people in the West are cash-rich but time-poor.

One way of balancing the digital divide is to create tools like TEK that allow payment for knowledge in time rather than cash.