Brazil has its millions of landless peasants and growing ranks of homeless families in the big cities, but there is an even bigger less group out there that wants more - the 'PC-less'.
Companies are turning creative wheels to give Brazilians without personal computers alternative ways to access the Net and bring about a technological revolution in a nation of 170 million people but only 10.5 million PCs.
Latin America's largest country is already home to half of the region's cybersurfers, but only 6 per cent of its people are regular Internet users. A survey by Jupiter Communications showed that 52 per cent of Brazilians who have not yet ventured onto the Internet say cheaper PCs would be the biggest incentive to log on.
The government is working to develop a minimalist low-cost PC and offer credit lines for potential low-income buyers. But, in the meantime, the PC-less can learn the cyber ropes at the gas station or in the bakery.
One of the pioneers in the new wave of popular platforms is Telemar, the fixed-line phone operator for Rio de Janeiro and the Northeast of Brazil. It has taken public telephone booths, called 'Orelhao' or 'Big Ear', and put computer screens in them, allowing access to the Internet with telephone cards.
The company has installed 30 Orelhao.netterminals in Rio, all of them in protected places to avoid vandalism. The company aims to have more than 3,000 installed by the end of the year in its operating area, which covers 16 states.
Another outlet for the PC-less is bakeries, where PopBancostarted installing terminals in December to offer Internet access to the 40 million Brazilians who buy bread and milk there every day. Of 100 terminals earmarked for a pilot program, 67 have already been installed in bakeries in Greater Sao Paulo, home to 16 million people.