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Bridging the Digital Divide With PCtvt?
maddu writes "Dr. Raj Reddy, a pioneering researcher in artificial intelligence and a
professor at Carnegie Mellon University, plans to unveil his new project, called the PCtvt, later this year - it's a $250 wirelessly
networked personal computer intended for the four billion people around
the world who live on less than $2,000 a year, according to the NYT (free reg. req.) He says his device can find a market in developing countries,
particularly those with large populations of people who cannot read,
because it can be controlled by a simple TV remote control and can
function as a television, telephone and videophone." We've previously covered the somewhat conceptually related Simputer.
Admittedly, my salary is much more, but let's say you make $40,000 a year. Would you be willing to spend $5000 on a computer?
... maybe they should spend their money on food and birth control? I mean, what good is the 'net when you have 8 kids hungry at home? Seriously, the net is a wonderful tool but it's not going to magically transform a shantytown into a utopia.
Don't talk rubbish... there is no way anyone who lives on less than $2000/year would even consider spending that kind of money on that kind of thing. There are more important things: food, clothing, housing, heating, health, education, transport... if you can afford to drop $250 on a 'luxury' like this, then you certainly aren't in that salary band.
Great. Now we only need to find a cheap way to bring power to everybody's hut...
Remember the year 2000? They promised us flying cars. They delivered the PT Cruiser...
It should be noted that in the eightees, a lot of people did, and those were a lot less useful then those we have now.
Note that a loan for $5,000 at 5% interest is about $20 per month. Would I pay that for a computer if I had to today on a $40K salary? The answer is HELL yes.
(Sorry screwed up the numbers in my first post. Should have realized they didn't make sense. Mod it down.)
No, but split that among 50 families in the village, and it becomes MUCH more palatable.
One challenge Mr. Reddy faced was in persuading Microsoft to offer a version of its Windows software for the project for far less than its commercial price. But Mr. Reddy said he eventually won the support of Craig Mundie, the chief technical officer and a senior strategist at Microsoft.
Strange that they wouldn't consider one of the free alternative OSs instead of going begging. Maybe Microsoft kicked in some research funds or something.
Considering cost is a *major* factor in this project, and every dollar counts, why the hell did he put Windows on it? Granted, he seems to have worked out a deal with Microsoft for a "reduced price, stripped" copy of Windows, still... $0 is always less than Windows.
In this case -- a controlled hardware environment -- Linux would have been perfect. And free (as in beer).
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
If the computer is perceived as a means to get ahead in the highly competative education market, many families will sacrifice then. I dont want to sound stereotypical, but many of the Asian cultures value education much more than Americans. People will pay a considewrable amount for private schools, Saturday schools, summer camps, etc.
Good grief, how long are you amortizing these loans? Even without interest, it takes 20 years to pay off $5000 at $20 month. Unless you meant $200/month which is closer to 2-3 years and more likely for a product with a 4 year useful life. 20 years on a car would be like financing a car over 40 years or more. It'd be completely destroyed and useless by the time you finished paying for it.
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
So, a person who makes less than $2,000 per year and may be illiterate is going to spend the equivalent of six weeks income on a wireless network PC. I don't think so. Or, is the plan to get governments and NGO's to buy it for people with the expectation that they will be motivated to learn how to use it. What's wrong with encouraging the spread of 'Internet cafes' in third world countries? That seems to be a model that is actually working. This sounds like the 'simputer' part II.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Umm...there's something seriously wrong here...
We start with:
Then, later on in the article:
Maybe it's just me, but $250 sounds like a lot more than 5% of $2000. I might be willing to pay 5 percent of my annual income to own something cool -- but 12.5%? I don't think so.
>It's a nice idea and it should be done, but he's not the one that's going to do it.
Yes, its all so clear.
Attention all good natured people. Please stop what you are doing. You will become utter and complete failures unless you are a Certified Professional Engineer. Forget about your hard work, lobbying and dedicating your life to helping others. Your lack the skills and specialized university-level degree to help others in any sort of worthwhile way.
Please, just give up. You are just embarssing the rest of us.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Stupid People + Information = Dangerous Stupid People
Stupid People + Education = Normal People
Stupid People + Education + Information = Exceptional People.
Information without understanding is like a gun with no ammo. These "unwashed masses" as they are called don't need information, they lack the skills to evaluate and understand information. They need education not an interactive TV to placate them....
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
And what exactly is the benefit of birth control to the head of a third world family? Remember, we're talking about subsistence farming here. So when you peddle birth control you're trying to sell someone on greater economic prosperity by denying him the only real way in his environment to materially increase his prosperity, more children.
In such an environment children are a resource, not an expense. Birth control is only attractive to a culture where children are an expense, not a resource. Until you materially bring up the overall level of prosperity in these cultures you cannot escape that simple economic reality.
So one is really as useless as the other, the only advantage to the internet appliance is it gives the illusion of greater prosperity, and a view to the wider world. But neither offering materially affects the root problem, until the fundamental inequities in the global distribution of wealth are addressed there is little hope to ending this situation.
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals
Slashdot has covered a number of stories that demonstrated the impact of good communications infrastructure in the "third world". Finding out what the real market rates are for your cash crop (instead of blindly trusting middlemen), getting your land title (instead of going through corrupt notaries), diagnosing diseases in your farm animals, communicating with relatives that are far away, education... the list goes on.
It's not up to this guy that came up with a cool idea to decide between giving people clean water or cheap TV/computers. If we are to treat third-world people as equals, we'll have to trust them to decide whether they want to spend money on this tool or on something else that's more important to them. To decide for them is rather paternalistic, no?
One last point - your pen1s enlArgement emails... we need help runnning this network, cause we're obviously overwhelmed. By inviting more people in, hopefully we'll find talented people- perhaps another Srinivasa Ramanujan?
Let's assume these people can handle most of their problems if we're not fucking with them, and that they may actually help us solve some of our problems.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"