Argentine youth long for pricey high-tech gadgets

Buenos Aires

TEN-YEAR-OLD Cloe Barrios spent a year saving for an iPod, a struggle shared by many Argentine youth scrambling to keep up with technology despite economic woes that make such gadgets exorbitantly pricey.

The third-largest economy in Latin America, Argentina was one of the most plugged-in countries in the 1990s. But its high inflation, devalued currency and exchange controls have produced infrastructure failures and a dearth of technological gadgetry today.

Cloe, who bought her iPod with help from her mother and an aunt in France, is one of her generation's lucky ones, possessing a "toy" with the coveted Apple label. "There are only four of us in the class who have iPods," she said. "Six have cell phones and one has an iPhone but only because their mom lends it," …