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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.
No-Reg Link
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
"...it's a $250 wirelessly networked personal computer intended for the four billion people..."
Ah, well then. Your trillion dollars or mine?
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.
Instead of just reducing the prices further and thereby reducing margins for manufacturers, we are incuding them to fire more people, bringing down incomes on average and thus again starting off the cycle...
Increasing prices always bring increasing incomes....
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
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.)
http://west.cmu.edu/executive/pdc/projects/pctvt/p ctvt.htm
s to ries/2004031301820700.htm
/ ms id-423423,prtpage-1.cms
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2004/03/13/
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow
TruePunk | Games
No, but split that among 50 families in the village, and it becomes MUCH more palatable.
Why, oh why didn't he use linux, like the Simputer? Maybe Microsoft are supporting this to use as the next weapon in the battle to keep the developing world away from Free Operating Systems.
Mod parent up!
That a AI researcher and professor thinks that he has the best skills to create a mass-market product that requires extreme low cost high volume engineering skill. Engineers spend days figuring out how to save a couple of *cents* on a project like this.
It's a nice idea and it should be done, but he's not the one that's going to do it.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
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.
wirelessly networked personal computer intended for the four billion people around the world who live on less than $2,000 a year
great, 4 billion more idiots calling tech support.
What is slashdot?
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
A large part of the reason why the internet has been such a big and fast-growing success is because the propensity to get online has been linked to education and sophistication in the user base. If you put 500 million cavemen and -women in front of these nifty terminals, I think the best you could hope for is some kind of "infinite monkeys" outcome.
But maybe I'm wrong--if you put halfway intelligent people online, even if they're not all totally literate at the beginning, they will probably get a lot more opportunities and incentives to climb the education curve. I guess that must be where all of these "cheap terminals for the 3rd world" are going.
And now that I think about it, one of big concentrations of unleashed education, intellect, and technical sophistication on the Internet is Slashdot. You can make up your own punchline on that.
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]
intended for the four billion people around the world who live on less than $2,000 a year
Do these people even have electricity? Maybe we should be examining our priorities here... Clean drinking water for everyone, or email? I'd don't know about you guys, but I'd take food and water over 32 messages about increasing the size of my pen1s!
---
Those who can, do
Those who can't, teach
Those who don't know how, supervise
Guess what? Not everybody in the world needs to own their own PC. Not even every family. A village with 250 families could each kick in a buck, and share it.
Frankly, if you look at the impoverished, tribal, un-industrialized parts of the world, they have very little need for videophones or email. I doubt, given the choice, that many of these destitute tribes/villages would take the computer over say, a well or access to penicillin or hunting/farming supplies.
Why don't we get them some agriculture and other basic infrastructures in place?
Are eggheads really so self-absorbed that they think the biggest problem these people face is how to get their e-mail?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
It's not 1/8 of your salary unless you make $2000 a year. Four billion people may live on less than $2000 a year, but that doesn't mean that all those four billion have $1999 in yearly income. I'm sure that for many people, it's not an 1/8 of a year's salary, but 1/4, 1/2, or even more.
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.
Sorry Tom, but the internet is a very effective form of birth control. Just look around here.
There's definitely precedent.
"When I was in my first year of college, I told my father that I was going to own a 4K computer someday! And he said, 'Yeah, but they cost about as much as a house!' And I said, 'Well then, I'll live in an apartment.'" -- Steve Wozniak
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? ]=-
The article fails to mention that Raj Reddy was already on the Microsoft payroll. See this four year old MS article, or poke around where appropriate.
Making the world a better place, one psychotic episode at a time.
Having said that even though I think people in these places in this situation could afford it I'm not sure it will be largely successful. I do however think there will be takers.
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
targeting "particularly those with large populations of people who cannot read"
Hmmmm, and I always thought that's what AOL was for ?
Here's my 2 pence, they/someone should include software to help teach people along with TV, DVD player, and whatever internet browsing tools they feel these people "need"
What separates Mr. Reddy's approach from other efforts is his belief that even the world's poorest communities can become a profitable market for computers...
He's no saint...
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
Don't think Tech Support. Think 4 billion more PCs to 0wn and turn into spam-sending zombies. My inbox thanks you.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
This shows median salaries in India based on certification. The median salary for someone with a MSCE gets $4560 a year. Getting an MSCE is way above reading.
I couldn't find any sources on secretary salaries in India, but I bet its less than that and secretaries probably need to be very proficient in reading and other office skills including computer use(but not always). India seems like a prime target for this kind of product, lots of people making less than 2k a year, who can read and are probably interested in computers.
The solution to poverty and hunger isn't universal.
The poor guy you're speaking of, trying to make sand soup, needs a whole different level of help.
Not all "poor and hungry" are at that level. A few years ago, I had ocassion to ride my bike through Turkey a lot. Off in the hills near Adana. Came across many, many small villages. These guys had nothing BUT their farms. Little tiny village, one general store/meeting place/local bar. Usually, the only telephone in the village as well. Were they 'poor'? By local Turkish standards, yes. Hungry? Not really. But they were working like dogs, just trying to get their crop in and get a decent price for it.
These are the guys who could seriously benefit from this type of tool. Better disease protection for his crops. Better crop rotation. Better fertilization techniques. Better tractor maintenance. Better price for his crops. Bingo...more food left over to give to the guy who can't grow his own avocado.
Hell...I'm not a farmer. But give them more information, and let THEM figure out how to implement it.
the grand majority of those 4 billion people not only live on less than $2000 a year- they live on less than $365 a year (since the going wage at the bottom of the third world is $1/day)
Hmm... Can you see where you made a mistake? "Bottom" != "Grand Majority". There are a lot of people for which this device could be affordable. He says in the article that he is targeting people where the cost represents 5% of yearly income - perhaps roughly the same as the proportion of a normal computer cost to average annual income in the western world. Getting computers into the hands of more people can only be good for skills development and the future of these countries. Look at India or Pakistan's software industry, for example.