"Few countries are as crazy about the Internet as Estonia, and no capital city can keep up with Tallinn on that count. All schools are connected to the Internet; more than 90 percent of all bank transactions are conducted online; and there are more mobile phones than residents. Tallinn's citizens pay for their parking tickets and their bus passes by sending text messages from their mobile phones. Time-consuming visits to public authorities are largely a thing of the past, too. Estonians can even obtain birth certificates via the Internet and request parental assistance payments from the government in the same way....
...Since last year, citizens have been able to comfortably elect their parliamentarians from behind their home computers. Parliamentary and town hall debates are now recorded without producing any paper trail, and every seat in parliament and town hall is equipped with a laptop. Citizens can contact their e-government at any time, at least in theory. And Estonian citizens and travelers alike can log onto the Internet via wireless Internet hot spots in public buildings, bars and cafés -- in most cases for free."
Update: More tech snippets as Ross Mayfield has dinner with Andrus Ansnip, PM of Estonia
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