For those of us in the tech industry, it’s hard to believe that anyone isn’t online in one fashion or another. But if you look closely at your own family and friends, you will probably find someone who still doesn’t use the Internet regularly – or even at all. CNET has posted a great video about the 5 reasons people don’t use the Internet. If you want to better understand the remaining holdouts be sure to check it out.

Skype is jumping on the World Cup marketing bandwagon by offering free land-line phone calls for month in several countries across the globe. If you have friends or family in other parts of the world you may want to take advantage of this offer and save a few bucks on your international phone charges. Check out the countries available and the specifics of this deal at gizmodo.com

This upcoming summer, if you plan on taking a vacation or two, make sure you don’t find yourself with an armload of junk from with the name of the amusement park or oddities museum your kids made you visit. The “World Touristiness Map” may save you aggravation – and money – this summer by helping you avoid the most “touristy” places on the planet. This Google Maps mash-up has analyzed images from photo site Panoramio.com to help you avoid those places overcrowded by your fellow main. To find a great location that’s not overrun with khaki shorts and Hawaiian shirts take a look at this great use of Google Maps via Lifehacker.com.

I was surprised to learn that the iPhone is the fastest growing gaming platform in the world. Of course most of the games people are playing on the iPhone are digital versions of classic board, card, and strategy games and not the one’s you’ll find on your Xbox 360 or PS3. But the type of games you’ll find on the Nintendo DS or Playstation Portable are making their way to our mobile phones. Gaming blog Kotaku.com takes a look at what the upcoming iPhone 4 may mean for mobile gamers.

Engadget.com reports that LG mobile has confirmed that a 12 megapixel phone will soon be produced. Sony Ericsson was the first to demonstrate they could put a 12 megapixel camera in a phone, but LG is the first provider to officially announce one is coming. Don’t get too excited, though, as LG’s UK head of marketing, Jeremy Newing, admitted, “it’s important that people realize when taking 12mp images, they’ll be using huge amounts of data, and it will be more difficult to do things like send such files”. Plus, as lifehacker.com has pointed out, megapixel size is not directly proportional to picture quality. While you’re waiting for over an hour for your phone to send that picture of a daisy to your mom, don’t expect the end result to look nearly as good as your DSL with less megapixel resolution but far superior optics and sensors.

Despite all the hype, at $360 the upcoming Kindle 2 is still going to inhabit a very small niche market. Of the 50% of Americans who read books at all very few are ready to make a digital switch. Just like the visceral pleasure we experience from holding a newspaper keeps them in print, a fair amount of the literary class enjoy perusing a bookstore, reading back flaps and skimming contents. But for those who are ready to adopt the digital model, the Kindle itself, or even Sony’s $300 Reader Digital Book, are not the only game in town. A more affordable option may be Indigo’s Shortcovers – a digital ebook app that will run on iPhone, BlackBery, and Android operating systems – devices that many potential Kindle buyers already own. Shortcovers lets users read the first chapter of a book without charge with the option of buying additional chapters individually or the entire book at rates comparable to Kindle and Sony. The difference between Shortcovers and other ebook readers already available on many mobile platforms is the relationship Indigo has with publishers. Shortcovers will initially offer over 50,000 titles, only a third of which are public domain titles. Indigo will also offer news and magazine articles – ala Kindle. Until prices drop dramatically – which may depend on advances in thin displays – the Shortcovers model may make more inroads in popularizing digital formats than Amazon and Sony can only dream of.

Almost ten years ago I moved to the D.C. area for the second time and finally broke down and purchased my first cell phone. Once I arrived in my new home, all my business contacts, friends, and family knew my new cell number and used it exclusively. It wasn’t until many years later that I signed up for a VOIP line for my home. Perhaps most of you haven’t been without a landline that long – but in late 2008 how many of you still have a physical line to a local telco? Click to visit a TechCrunch.com and answer their poll ‘Do you still have a landline?’ and see where you fit in with the rest of the tech crowd.