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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.
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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.
If you reduce it too much, yes. However, there's a fine line between markup and market share. As you reduce your price, your share of the market goes up. However, reduce your price to far, and you can't support your business.
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...
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
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
Why, oh why didn't he use linux, like the Simputer?
Seriously. I mean, the runaway success of the Linux-powered Simputer is impossible to ignore.
That's why we're all posting to Slashdots from Simputers now, why most artificial hearts are Simputer-based, and why Keith Emerson traded in his Moog synthesizer for a bank of Simputers.
Stupidity is trying something that's been done before but expecting a different result.
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.
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
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.
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