Today’s WSJ’s Mossberg column mentions a device, the only one on the market today, called the Mailbug, which is a text-only terminal for sending and receiving e-mail over a dial-up connection. Costing $125 plus $100/year service, it doesn’t permit exchange of photos (check out Presto and Celery) for that. There's also a hand-held device called PocketMail Composer for $99. The nearly complete absence of simple devices to enable the elderly to read and send e-mail is a testimony to the inability of vendors to approach the elderly with a product they could use. People who don’t want to deal with Vista, backups, reboots, and e-mail configuration. Only 19% of those 65 and older have broadband connections — but I am willing to bet that the other 81% have telephones.