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The Hundred-Buck PC
skreuzer writes "MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte has a plan to build a $100 PC for the developing world, which is supposedly going to have a 14-inch color screen and run on Linux, has the backing of AMD, Google, Motorola, Samsung, and News Corp. Apparently they're all getting mixed up in a joint-venture to produce the PC, which will be sold directly to governments only."
Americans will start buying their $100 PCs across the border?
fit in a Mac Mini?
How many mouse buttons does it have, dammit?
that you could already do that... mind you it'll probably be a 486 with 16Mb of RAM...
~/.sig: No such file or directory
as long as it was low power, and had a decent video output of some sort, even if it was just s-video. sounds like it would be ideal for a carputer. presumably any computers for the developing world will be low power, because of the problems with actually getting electricity... you want to be able to run it off a exercise bike or what have you.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I hate to say this, but with the exchange rates, $100 is well beyond an average third-world citizen's one year salary.
The hundred-buck PC
MIT's Nicholas Negroponte pushes a cheap PC for the rest of the world.
January 29, 2005
The founder and chairman of the MIT Media Lab wants to create a $100 portable computer for the developing world. Nicholas Negroponte, author of Being Digital and the Wiesner Professor of Media Technology at MIT, says he has obtained promises of support from a number of major companies, including Advanced Micro Devices, Google, Motorola, Samsung, and News Corp.
The low-cost computer will have a 14-inch color screen, AMD chips, and will run Linux software, Mr. Negroponte said during an interview Friday with Red Herring at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. AMD is separately working on a cheap desktop computer for emerging markets. It will be sold to governments for wide distribution.
Mr. Negroponte and his supporters are planning to create a company that would manufacture and market the new portable PCs, with MIT as one of the stakeholders. It is unclear precisely what role the other four companies will play, although Mr. Negroponte hopes News Corp. will help with satellite capacity.
An engineering prototype is nearly ready, with alpha units expected by year's end and real production around 18 months from now, he said. The portable PCs will be shipped directly to education ministries, with China first on the list. Only orders of 1 million or more units will be accepted.
Mr. Negroponte's idea is to develop educational software and have the portable personal computer replace textbooks in schools in much the same way that France's Minitel videotext terminal, which was developed by France Telecom in the 1980s, became a substitute for phone books.
Mr. Negroponte has been interested in developing computing in the developing world for some time. He and his wife have funded three schools in rural Cambodia, helping outfit them with regular laptops and broadband connections.
Major companies from Hewlett-Packard to Microsoft to Dupont, facing saturated markets in the richest industrial countries, have shown an interest in developing less expensive products to sell in low-income countries in south Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
I think there might be things that the developing world needs a little more than $100 computers.
Why am I not rapping? I am rapping with you in a way.
They could get more pep at a better price by buying second hand. And to tbe best of my knowledge, this is what they do.
How about LiMD (pronounced limdee)?
If this thing is only going to be sold to the government, you can bet it will get to a fraction of its intendend recepient and costs ten times as much. The reason the developing world is still developing is because of the government for god's sake. Who ever heard of a government, especially of a developing country, that wasn't up to its eyeballs in corruption and graft? The only people who stand to benefit from this are government cronies and the black market.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
Providing?
DRM?
With a cost that low, the PC itself becomes a commodity item. Heck, the whole system costs less than most kids' video cards. At that price point, it becomes impossible to justify hundreds (or thousnads) of dollars in OS and application licenses. Linux on the desktop will be driven more by this project than any other, if it is successful.
"Nothing is impossible for the man who refuses to listen to reason"
from october http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/22/185221 &tid=142&tid=137
This will go over big with the nearly 3 billion people (or about half the world's population) living on less than $2 a day.
I'm not putting down an honest effort here. I'm just suggesting there might be more important goals than trying to get everyone in the world a PC right now.
Chew: You Nexus, huh? I design your eyes.
Roy: Chew, if only you could see what I've seen with your eyes.
But would it not be even better to work a way to use our vast supply of old computers, many of which are being thrown out and face a recycling problem?
Take all the best linux hardware detection and auto-configuration software from the various distros -- kudzu and the like -- and make an installer that takes an old PC, and first tells you if the hardware in it can run linux decently, and if so, automatically installs it, otherwise redirects the PC to be recycled or sold for low power windows.
People would happily donate these PCs, possibly even running the linuxizing CD themselves, since perhaps they don't qualify for the donation tax deduction of the PC doesn't pass the test on the CD.
Yes, these machines might not be as fast as the bottom end AMD chip (Sempron 2000?) that will go into them, but not only are they semi-free, they solve a recycling problem at the same time.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Sell it for $150-200 e.g. in the US & Europe as well (thus even further increasing the economies of scale), and use the extra proceeds to cross-subsidize massive, direct sales to the people in even higher numbers and well below $100 in the developing countries. Hopefully a sufficiently large part of the value chain will also take place in these countries, so as not to overwhelm local manufacturers etc. there...
Let me know - P2/400, 288MB RAM, 40GB Drive, CDRW. It's worth about $100 bucks.
BUT BECAUSE OUR SOFTWARE FROM SEATTLE SUCKS DICK
You need a fucking Mongocomputer to run it.
India already made a cheap Simputer which is more like a powerful PDA for only $20.
I recall AMD wanting to do such a thing a few months ago. Have they given up? Are they instead focusing on this one? I haven't RTFA, so don't flame me.
A blog like any other.
Maybe, MIT should call the new computer the "VIC-10" and ask Shatner if he wants to do some ads for it. I wonder how the audience in Vietnam would feel if they see William Shatner being dubbed to speak Vietnamese?
...and this is like, what...the fourth time this particular business model has been run up the flag pole?
I worked at one of the principals 4 years ago when this 'idea' came through originally, and it didn't fly then, either.
I have a hard time beieving this will be possible. $100 is extremely cheap for a laptop type computer. Well I guess it would be more than $100 to purchase, but that still sounds insanely low. Sounds pretty cool if they could get it to work. Seems like they might be trying to have a diskless machine where everything is done through the web browser, since google is one of the companies supporting it.
Portland, North Dakota Puppies
By asking for at least a million units, you can bet your ass that some corrupt third-world government (aren't they all corrupt, in the third-world?) will gladly sell them on the gray market for $200...
And if it's a laptop, they could get away selling it at $500...
Without a connection to the internet, what good will this actually bring? What until they want to print something and the ink cost as much as the shiny new computer. Good effort though....
Acrylic Bubble Panels www.beyond7.com
Wouldn't it be more practical to introduce non- PC technologies?
seen it yesterday at engadget but i always look forward to repostings due to the higher caliber of comments one finds at /.
"which will be sold directly to governments only."
Ideally this should be an ARM based linux running machine, with maybe monochrome LCD with it, and minimum mechanical parts, meaning running off flash rather than harddrives.
It should have a power cable, not requiring a power adapter since that adds to the costs... a power-down IC with a power regulator IC should do the trick along with a fat capacitor. A modem or ethernet will certainly be a requirement, and will add to the costs. I wonder if in mass production 802.11b will be cheaper.
The GUI itself should be minimalistic, and I dont know if adding sound to it will be important. Remember this should be profitable at $99.
ARM SoC= $10
DRAM at 128MB = $20
flash at 128MB = $30
LCD = $30
everything else = $10
Last time I was checking the prices for such a computer, the LCD was the most expensive part, even in monochrome at 640x480. If they intend to bring that down to 320x200, the LCD cost wont drop significantly unless the size is also reduced. They could also reduce the flash, but thats removing alot, even though the kernel will be 2MB, glibc and busybox for a non-MMU machine will be 10mb. X, browsers etc will only take it to a maximum of 32MB, unless the browser has flash, real, quicktime etc. in which case its 64mb. Still having 128mb is reasonable for flash.
RAM is also very critical in running the system. 128mb is plenty of space but they can also live with 64mb. anything below that is choking the machine.
So with 64mb ram and 64mb flash, and 320x200 LCD, its still approaching $99 in BOM alone, which means the volume of production must be very high to make profits at $99...
To make it x86, add $30 extra, add more voltage, but that gives us much more applications, and the computer will sell in much greater numbers everywhere, and you dont have to lose money on hardware like the XBox.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
The article says it is a portable PC, so is this some form of laptop?
The textbook idea is awesome. My old highschool wanted to do this sort of thing a while back, but it was really expensive. But at $100 a pop, that would be cheaper than textbooks. Although you would still have to buy the text books, I would imagine Ebooks would be much cheaper, and it would allow smaller companies to get in on the text book market, since a much smaller investment is needed to make Ebooks.
Though, with the minimum order of 1 million, it would have to be a state wide deal. I hope this gets done rather soon and the US gets in on it.
Of course, all of this assumes they mean laptop by portable PC.
Maybe after this goes for a year or so, they will open the offer to the average guy and let you buy just one for some where around $200 to $300.
Well, those are my thoughts on the subject.
Hey, this is the slashdot crowd. If and when this product comes out, we'll have it disected and running as a media box in a few minutes. As for the intended purpose of it providing low cost computing power to the masses, they are missing the entire point. Aside from the fact that the poorest areas of the world lacking any type of consistant electricity, let alone bandwidth, what use is a computer when you are hungry? Sure, the ubergeeks out there consider bandwidth more of a necessity than hygiene (and it freaking show sometimes), but we need to remember it is still a luxury to people working on other issues, such as nutrition and shelter.
I think i saw a movie a lot like this idea this summer...something about a sales guy trying to build a $99 pc with a group of uber-nerds...can't remember the title though, and google isn't helping... Wasn't too good of a movie though...they made an OS with only 69 lines of code in the movie...
Have you seen the arrow?
If the computer had a reverse-osmosis subsystem, capable of providing clean drinking water, would that sell over there?
Does it have an integrated wave detector? 'Cause I hear those folks are just dying for one of those.
But, to reaffirm what others have said in this thread, this machine is being designed to be sold to governments, not to families.
This effort joing some other projects targeting cheap PCs at users in developing countries. For example, the PCtvt was recently proposed by Raj Reddy at CMU (an academic rivalry?).
But both efforts are predated by the Simputer, a low cost device that was designed to be shared by Indian villagers. Each user stores their data on a Smart Card, which is plugged into a single Simputer as it is shared by various members of the community.
Nooface
In Search of the Post-PC Interface
I fail to see how limiting this project to governments is going to help in many cases.
Indy Media Watch-Proctologist of the Internet
Today's, over-powered (not just in terms of wattage) PCs are overkill for the typical consumer. The bottleneck in downloading pornography is not the rendering done by the processor; the bottleneck is the network. Depending on the size of the pornographic file, 384K DSL line is slow; a 56K line is a pain in the you know where.
The cynical side of me says that Dell, Samsung, and the other major PC makers will keep the $100 PC out of the developed markets like the USA in order to maintain the $600 price point that they are currently stealing from the consumers.
If and when this product comes out, we'll have it disected and running as a media box in a few minutes.
Speak for yourself. I personally plan to convert it into a (insert appropriate comment here):
1) Microwave oven
2) Toaster
3) Laser
4) Ham radio
5) Supercomputer
6) Digital alarm clock
7) Windows box
8) Brain for my football playing robot
9) Girlfriend/significant other
10) Etc
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
It doesn't mention which Linux vendors they are working with. Who are they going to partner with to patch KDE and Gnome to enforce the 3-application maximum limit, patch X to limit screen resolution, and patch the kernel to only allow 5 network sockets?
We've reached the Timex Sinclair pricepoint!
The price is 100$ for a PC that won't be produced for another 18 months.
So we are talking quite a bit of lead time, and for completely unknown specs.
Without knowing the hardware it is completely unknowable whether that will be a good value especiallly that far in the future.
LetterRip
I wonder if they will choose to go with the more obvious x86 based Geode or the very deserving MIPS solution, the Alchemy. Personally I would really love to see the Alchemy used.
The govern of Brazil is giving us a Computer that is called "PC Conectado" (Connected PC) for the poor population. The name of project is called Digital Inclusion
http://www.michel.eti.br
No offense, but I think any remotely organized village can save up 800 bucks in, say, 4 months and pony up for a computer.
I don't think it was the difference of $700 that has kept them from doing it 'till now.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
... looking at the apple mouse thread, some people here could probably justify having no mouse buttons on the mouse. "With 1 button, you dont have developers hiding evil menus in the interface, blah blah blah" Come on, you're backwards and you know it!
I think this must be really old news because those PCs seem to already be on their way to 3rd world countries, at least judging by the following email I got today:
You know what that means, don't you? That's right, they're buying 264,000 PCs!
It was possible all along to build a $100 PC--using Linux, that is.
But does AMD have enough fab capacity to provide the CPUs for such a potentially large volume of CPUs? It's great they're providing this for these countries/areas, but if it takes off, I would think AMD will have supply issues.
"I drank what?" -Socrates
I'd have to agree with your cynical side. It isn't going to happen here. PC makers will charge what they can get away with charging. Regardless of how much it actually costs them to build it. And right now, your average home PC user in developed countries sees a $600 computer as a heck of a deal.
www.DIYTVAntennas.com
Can you not decipher a simple english statement? The previous poster didn't say that a $100 price point was Commodore's idea. The previous poster said that the idea of setting an arbitrarily low price ($100 in this case) was Commodore's in the early-to-mid 1980s.
Here is a great leaked picture of the new sub 100$ computer:
Here
Several of the highest moderated comments are complaining about aspects of this project.
"$100 is more than a years salary for many third-worlders!"
"Selling to the governments only? But developing governments are especially corrupt!"
"Hmm... I'd like on of these for my car."
Okay. Well, here's the thing folks. This project isn't meant to be a personal computer to be installed in the hut of some starving family. This computer is something that developing governments can choose to buy cheaply and install in public locations or sell to third-party providers. Primary schools, libraries, vocational training centers--those kinds of things. Currently, many of these places need a completely out-of-reach IT budget of thousands of dollars (or else a patchwork of random donated PCs) to get set up at all. This project is a means to reduce that problem. It'll make it more likely that some 15 year old in rural Africa will at least have had access to a computer a couple times.
So quit complaining and pay attention.
What are they gonna contribute, a PointCast clone called "PropagandaCast"? Or maybe Pentagon-supplied spyware?
They could call it the Volkskomputer.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
...heck would developers want a $100 PC?? :-)
I raise this issue because, in the developed world, there is one sub-market into which PCs have not penetrated. That particular market is the one dominated by people at or near the poverty line. Many families in the housing projects of major cities have never owned a computer, and a $100 PC would actually be ideal for them. It would provide an opportunity for their children to obtain exposure to a technology that is as common as the TV or radio in rich, well-to-do families.
I agree.
Negroponte shouldn't be trying to make headlines with the dying horse that is the MIT Media Lab. Instead, he should be concentrating his scientific prowess on real solutions. I think the only way to make a dent in poverty is to develop a reliable reversible vasectomy for men.
About 99% of povery is caused by overpopulation, which boils down to too many people producing too many babies that they cannot support. The babies who are unlucky will be claimed by disease; those that are "lucky" and saved with (usually Western) medicines will only end up continuing the problem by the time they reach adolescence. The poor get poorer as a result of bad decisions that multiply their problems.
From an economic standpoint, it takes a LOT of money to raise a child from babyhood to adulthood; think in terms of the price of food per day, and multiply by 365 days per year multiplied by 14 years (just to reach adolescence). Now think of all of the land resources required to raise the food (chickens, cattle, and crops), and remember that these are also subject to the whims of weather and disease while causing large impacts on the environment. It also takes a lot of human time and energy to intervene in the actions of a child and make sure that it doesn't burn itself or try to eat something toxic or run in front of something that would kill it. A parent has to keep an eye on a child about 67% of the child's life (the other 33% of the time, the child is asleep) ; if not, the parent has to pay somebody else to keep an eye on the kid, which again causes economic hardship.
Sex abstinance would go a long way towards addressing the problem, but some people are stubborn and rebellious. In such cases, condom use is absolutely essential for protection against STDs, but the side effect is that in most Western countries, where contraceptives are available, the non-immigration populations are actually on the decline. This feeds into the rich-get-richer strategy. As people gain material wealth (due to saving money they didn't spend on unwanted kids) , they are less likely to have large families. But in poor countries, condum use is ignored by the male population, for whatever reason.
A reversible vasectomy wouldn't curb the STD problem for promiscuous people, but at least for people involved in a monogamous relationship, it would cut down on the chances of having an unwanted pregnancy. As people SAVE money instead of spending it to solve problems due to unwanted children, they become wealthier. The quality of life improves; one loaf of bread need only feed two people in the family, not four or eight. Population declines means a lowering of demand, and prices go down. In addition, the rate of consumption of the environment decreases.
Would Kirk have had a Tribble problem if the tribbles had been temporarily sterilized?
The iOreilly promises to be the first non-liberal computer. Its the un-PC PC.
I've just learned that to assist those in third world countries by providing them with a familiar pointing interface, the provided mouse will be shaped like an AK-47.
Touch screens are far inferior to mice (think of the amount of movement you have to do).
International pricing for the Amida Simputer is $300 USD for gray-scale, $480 USD for color, shipping extra. No modem. Amida Models and Pricing.
Does it come with utilities for third world citizens to develop viruses? What about Microsoft Phishing Scheme Professional?
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
Won't meet expectations.
Tried Gmail on a Pentium 2? Tried using Flash or DHTML-heavy sites? How about browsing the web with a 256 color, 640x480 display? Uck. The (commercial) web keeps getting heavier and heavier, and it's not just a bandwidth issue.
I've heard that only one could fit.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Everyone's complaining that a $100 PC is not the most important thing for people in third-world countries. Why don't I see you going to Africa and building an industry and a large farm instead of posting on Slashdot?
These people are doing some good: they're creating a computer priced so low that local governments can afford to buy even large numbers without much of a decision. And they're also pushing the limit of a price of a full-featured computer. If they keep working at it, they'll help to modernize the developing countries by introducing the people to computers, and they'll push the price even lower.
Meanwhile, you're posting on Slashdot (as am I, I admit, but I didn't make any pretention of wanting good for third-world denizens). You can't very well argue that they're doing something to harm the third world, and they're considerably helping parts of it, so why're you complaining?
Oh, and I've seen the $2/day figure quoted around here. It's reasonable to say that a month's wages in America can buy a high-quality computer. A month's wages at $2/day is about $60. Remember that this is the first wave of cheap computers for developing nations. They're already close to the same price point with respect to purchasing power, and they'll get to it very quickly.
Given that most customers use PCs almost exclusively for word processing, e-mail, and web surfing,
But, that's not what most people use their computers for! Read up on the The 80/20 Myth to get some idea what I mean.
True, 80% of computer use is what you specify - but what about the other 20%?
It's ALL OVER THE PLACE. CAD/CAM. Web design. Graphic arts. Video games. Taxes and book-keeping. Software engineering. Encoding MP3s. Playing DVDs, MP3s, DivX, MPG content. Building quilt patterns. Serving database content.
Just because you can satisfy 80% of the uses of a computer doesn't mean that you can satisfy 80% of the users out there with 80% of the applications. If they were to be sold, your 80% computers would leave 100% of its users 20% dis-satisfied.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
You've got a small vision of the future. The future touch pad will be customized for each finger so that each finger performs a different task.
I love my sig.
That's true, but would you want Nicholas Negroponte really determining how the world gets its vital necessities?
All kidding aside, though, while the point you make is a good one, one problem with this line of thinking is that it 'forces' or leads people to believe that they shouldn't do anything until the basics and only the basics are handled adequately for all.
Given the level of economic underdevelopment in the countries targeted by this campaign, I'd suggest just letting it go ('let anyone try to improve things if they see a way to do it') might prove to be a better approach in the long run.
========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
Let's get those developing nations pumping out the carbon too! Just what we need right now! GO CLIMATE CHANGE! /sarcasm.
So... $100 computers are not of more use to 3rd world countries than $200 computers?
Fascinating.
Although this is obviously a troll, I need to comment on one point:
"even the NexT computer by steve jobs had two buttons but BOTH were set to the same action by default for intuitive simplicity."
It is NOT intuitive for two buttons right next to each other to serve the same purpose.
That is all.
Well either it's them or IMDB being as IMDB has a pretty graphic to match their title I doubt it's them. Good find though, I'm off to blockbuster right now.
I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.
Would the Principality of Sealand qualify for purchases?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
With the number of perfectly good P3s and older P4s finding their way to thrift shops, why not spend the $100 on refurbishing machines that are still good but that we rich folks don't want, thus saving the landfill of toxic waste and providing poor people with real machines?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
"MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte has a plan to build a $100 PC [...] which is supposedly going to have a 14-inch color screen and run on Linux"
It turns out that Steve Ballmer was right. A $100 PC will indeed reduce Windows piracy, by running Linux. I'm sure Ballmer is very happy about this new project fulfilling his prophecy. This is a very good news for the developing developing developing world.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
...some places in the third World, it might be difficult to dance to. This because the Kerosene record player is not a very efficient Device...
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
I just hope that they don't constrain the system so that the underlying system is inaccessable, leaving only a friendly GUI that can do no more than browse the web edit email and word-process. Although of course it should be easy to use for the novice, it would be a shame to lock it up and prevent people from having a chance to learn some real computer science, be able to use the development tool-chain, write their own software, etc.
---
the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
I think the plan is for these things to be sold in 1st world countries, where millions of them would be sold.
I think that the third world benefits because they probably want to make them by exploiting / employing 3rd world labour.
1 - Cheap PC Sell Lots 2 - Build Money Goes To 3rd World 3 - Profit! (For at least the capitalists.
The touch pad of the future won't actually be a "touch" pad. Think more like a "gesture" pad. Buttons would be obsolete, practically.
Forget the monitor, plug the thing to a TV. Like many computers from the 1980s.
Circumcision is child abuse.
will the PC run Linux or will the PC run on Linux?
Unsupported by a commercial interest this will fail. It may make good copy but will, if it gets anywhere at all, develop into an unsupported technological deadend.
The 3rd world is a place where webtv would actually work. Stick a 200mhz ARM, 64mb, a modem and video out into a small box and build a service around it... then you're getting somewhere.
I like how people have to change the classic first post when the story already says it runs Linux, but damn, yours is genius. It makes me actually want to get one of these hundred-buck thingies so I can check.
...nope, I doubt it. Moving on.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Apple had a product called the e-mate about 7 years ago. It ran Newton OS and cost about Au$1000 back then.
I'm sure such a device would cost little over $100 to build today (maybe even half that). Maybe apple could be the saviour once more!
FYI, the monthly salary for a laborer in china is around 300rmb. That's about 25 dollars. That still puts it out of reach for the average peasant class family in china(yes I know these are being sold to governments).
Personally, I've pondered what would go into a super-cheapo PC for the poor.. Maybe a whole pc on a single chip, really no frills. Seems like the better way to get computers to the poor is to give incentive to donating those old Pentium class computers to the poor, though transporting them is more expensive than the computer itself. As I see it, getting computers to the 3rd world poor in any fashion will be an act of charity- ie, not terribly profitable.
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
Thoroughly agreed, this planet is seriously overpopulated, yet some people continue to want more and more people here, it sickens me.
We should have less than 1/3 of what we have now, then we MIGHT have a chance of survival in the REAL long run, not just 50-150 years.
Think about it.
Even though they are only selling it to the governments of developing countries, it is more likely than not that a developed country would have already established an organization within the government (i.e. through outsourcing or something like that). Hence they will access to the government's buying power/options. And they will have the revenue to purchase these PCs [unlike the actual government].
This will cause an increase in demand, which will result in a price increase.
So a $100 PC may actually end up being a $150 or $200 PC.
Sadly, this will make it even more out of reach for those developing countries.
Then again, I could be wrong. I'm no economist.
Some fool marked my informative AC post -1 for no reason other than being anti mac, so i posted it again here because most people do not browse for informative posts at -1.
i will probaby have to post it again because they think stifling free discourse is amusing prank.
=========
Touch pads in the future NEED to be "one button"!
The gui of the mac is for the far future when a placemat+screen unrolled on a table is the entire compujter.
The mac uses one mouse button for click drag double-click and the interface is well suited for finger driven touch pads.
Steve jobs mentioned this ages ago and so did I.
A two button or three 4 5 6 button interface is insane because you need to use multiple contact points on the pad.. the pad has no ability to read your goddamned mind to know WHICH finger you are using, at least for many many decades afterward with ultrasensitive fingerprint scanning.
so ONE mouse button is the future
even the NexT computer by steve jobs had two buttons but BOTH were set to the same action by default for intuitive simplicity.
what the hell is a right button? is it fair to left handed people? no.
the single mouse button is the BEST gui for the future and Macintosh once again leads the way
by the way, if a retard luddite wants to use command lines under OSX or attach a 3 button mouse they can
some products apple sells will not even funtion AT ALL with a two button mouse, not at all. For example the 15,000 dollar 3d rendering product SHAKE (pc price, osx price is only 10,000 dollars) has a cad modeller that cannot funtion at all under OSX with only 2 mouse buttons and apple laughs at the insanity of 2,3,4,5,6 button idiocy
that is why we need to not ruin GUIs with extra buttons
in the near future a flexi-mat computer WILL NEED to be one mouse button, so quit being retarded linux fanboys and think for a minute of the future.
There's this country, I live there, where a good amount of people don't even own PCs. They have socialized evil government computers in these evil socialized book-stealing places called libraries. In these evil factories of information, the computerless in my neighborhood (mostly the older crowd) get FREE internet access! They get to use the computers to do word processing too and get FREE evil government paper. They machines are usually booked in advance for these purposes.
Care to guess what hell-hole 3rd world bannana republic/tin horn dictatorship I live in where many people do not even own their own PC and have to resort to cheap and evil government machines at the local subsidized book-stealing centers which hurt the good people in the publishing industry
It's a mistake to associate the acquisition of knowledge with peace and goodwill. It's more likely the the acquisition of knowledge in the developing world will lead to more violence and oppression because the developing world didn't have to go through the experience of actually developing anything. We hand them technology will the expectation that great things will happen. Great things might happen but great doesn't equate to good.
Laws are for people with no friends.
Just because you can satisfy 80% of the uses of a computer doesn't mean that you can satisfy 80% of the users out there with 80% of the applications. If they were to be sold, your 80% computers would leave 100% of its users 20% dis-satisfied.
First of all, the article you reference is about software, and it's a mistake to try to transfer its argument to hardware.
Moreover, the logic doesn't apply when people are looking at a second (or third or fourth) computer. My high-compute needs are satisfied 100% by a 100% computer. However, most of the time (including now), I use a much less powerful machine for network apps like email, web, and of course ssh. I know many others like me, and they are not all computer geeks.
With one 100% computer and one 80% computer, I'm 100% satisfied at a cost significantly less than two 100% computers.
Of course you might ask "who would buy more than one computer," to which I would answer "the same people who buy more than one television."
Part of the problem, though, is that low-powered computers are available used in plentiful quantities. They might be worth buying new, however, if they consumed less electricity, made less noise, or were smaller than yesterday's 100% computers. Hence the Mac mini.
Luckily, there is very little reason to believe PC makers have successfully conspired to keep prices high. Computer hardware prices fall faster than pretty much every other sector. The $600 price you call stealing was an amazing bargain not so long ago.
what really matters - access to technology gives developing countries a chance to strengthen their economies and improve quality of life. This program won't solve the world's problems, but it is certainly a step in the right direction.
Taken from http://www.un.org/Docs/SG/ecodev.htm
"The ability of countries to participate in, benefit from and contribute to the rapid advances in science and technology can significantly influence their development. Hence, international cooperation efforts should be intensified and strengthened towards the developing countries' endogenous capacity-building in science and technology, including their capacity to utilize scientific and technological developments from abroad and to adapt them to suit local conditions. There is a need to promote, facilitate and finance, as appropriate, access to and transfer of environmentally sound technologies and the corresponding know-how, in particular to the developing countries on favourable terms, including on concessional and preferential terms, as mutually agreed, taking into account the need to protect intellectual property rights as well as the special needs of developing countries.
Promotion of science and technology for development calls for a clear definition of the respective roles in this area of the private sector, Governments and international organizations. The private sector plays a role in the productive application of science and technology and most commercially relevant technology is controlled by the private sector. Governments play a role in ensuring that there is a propitious environment for the development, access to, transfer, adaptation and application of environmentally sound technologies, and in providing appropriate regulatory frameworks and incentives for the development of scientific and technological capabilities. Promotion of science and technology for development also requires a labour force that has the professional and technical training necessary to utilize newly introduced technologies.
Developing countries should further advance their collective efforts in promoting technology research, training, development and dissemination, as well as facilitating the access and exchange through information and technology centres. This development calls for the continued and enhanced support from the international community through technical assistance and financing. The international community should also continue to promote the development of effective and mutually beneficial technological cooperation between countries with economies in transition and all other countries, including in the area of new and emerging technologies".
that you could already do that... mind you it'll probably be a 486 with 16Mb of RAM...
You know it's gonna have a Geode Processor.
But at $100 a pop, that would be cheaper than textbooks. Although you would still have to buy the text books, I would imagine Ebooks would be much cheaper
With modern Treacherous Computing techniques, electronic textbooks could be made pay-per-view. This would lead directly to the situation Richard Stallman described in a short story entitled "The Right to Read".
Of course, all of this assumes they mean laptop by portable PC.
Can't put a display into a $100 computer unless you're talking palmtop/GBA size. It might be something with TV output, like the $100 GameCube.
I'm suprised more people haven't seen this movie. It's really funny in a Revenge of the Nerds kinda way.
All those developing countries are just waiting to be exploited by capitalism over the internet.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
The other day I passed a rubbish skip at my local college filled to the top with Desktop computer units & VDUs, all identical - dozens of units. When I asked what was wrong with them I was told - nothing! They were just old machines, the college was buying new machines. From what I could gather these were units in the P100-250Mhz range, all usable by someone out there..
Having said that, ok $100 PCs are good - but again with the environment/pollution pressures, how far do we go? Remember each machine eats 200W+ of power - nice when we are trying to get everyone to cut back..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
You seem to be ill informed and somewhat simplistic, as most Americans are when discussing "the rest of the world". That's the price you pay for being a big, continental country that also happens to be the world's only superpower.
Listen: developing countries are not the same. Not really. There are some countries in subsaarian Africa, where needs are really dire and basic.
I'm from Brazil. I'm in Brazil now, and I never intend to leave it. It is a developing country also, but very different than subsaarian Africa. About 20% of the population (me included) enjoy all conforts and advances some 40% of Americans do (you all included). Hey, I'm a longtime Mac user.
Other 60 to 65% would also laugh, as I heartily did, at your worry about power supply or Internet connection. For them, broadband would not be easy to get, but nearly all can have a phone line. Some of those have a car, nearly all have fridges, ovens, TV sets. Some indeed have a computer. But many of those do not, and could not afford to pay US$ 500 for a computer (and here, brand computers like Dell's start at more like US$ 700).
But a $100 computer to them, offered by the government (no it is no more corrupt than the US - Enron, Watergate, someone?) in installments, and with arrangements with phone companies to offer cheap internet access, would be A REAL BOON. You know, common people's familiarity with technology would improve a lot, and consequently their chances to get better jobs with better pays and productivity.
Actually, the government IS presently making a program like that, but fault of Negroponte the price is more around US$ 400 for the computer with Linux and a large suite of open software. A US$ 100 computer would sure be a great improvement to that program.
By the way: hunger, lack of proper lodging, sanitation, etc. do affect less than 10% of the population. This is HUGE, and that's why Brazil is still a developing country. But this is not to say we are in a no-man's land scenario.
Glad to enlighten you. Cheers all!
PS/2 keyboards and mice are free. You can find them in dumpsters or get them at best buy for like $5 with a $5 mail in rebate. 14 inch VGA CRT monitors are better then free. Buisnesses will PAY you to pick them up and cart them off. For everything else $100 can get a functional barebones PC if you buy used. Maybe: a Socket 7 motherboard with a 500mhz AMD K6-2 (unless you are playing doom3, encrypting large files, or running a couple distributed clients in the background, 500mhz is enough cpu power) 256-512megs of PC-100 SDRAM (I know the prices for new SDRAM is worse then for new DDR....but you can find old ram if you look around) Simple video card that can do opengl (an ati rage 128 works great...you can buy one used for $5 and it will play quake3 at 30fps on a pentiumII system...and it does have linux drivers) cdrom (not DVD or R or RW)- practically free...I have a stack of functional cdrom drives sitting right next to me right... now pulled from comps found dumpster diving. A small IDE hard drive for saving files could be used... 1 gig maybe...the os should be knoppix on the cdrom to prevent users from fucking things up. Many of these parts/computers are just laying around with noone to use/buy them. The problem is, shipping them to Africa would cost more then they would sell for on ebay.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
I guess that many of you seem to be ill informed and somewhat simplistic, as most Americans are when discussing "the rest of the world". That's the price you pay for being a big, continental country that also happens to be the world's only superpower.
Listen: developing countries are not the same. Not really. There are some countries in subsaarian Africa, where needs are really dire and basic.
I'm from Brazil. I'm in Brazil now, and I never intend to leave it. It is a developing country also, but very different than subsaarian Africa. About 20% of the population (me included) enjoy all conforts and advances some 40% of Americans do (you all included). Hey, I'm a longtime Mac user.
Other 60 to 65% would also laugh, as I heartily did, at your worry about power supply or Internet connection. For them, broadband would not be easy to get, but nearly all can have a phone line. Some of those have a car, nearly all have fridges, ovens, TV sets. Some indeed have a computer. But many of those do not, and could not afford to pay US$ 500 for a computer (and here, brand computers like Dell's start at more like US$ 700).
But a $100 computer to them, offered by the government (no it is no more corrupt than the US - Enron, Watergate, someone?) in installments, and with arrangements with phone companies to offer cheap internet access, would be A REAL BOON. You know, common people's familiarity with technology would improve a lot, and consequently their chances to get better jobs with better pays and productivity.
Actually, the government IS presently making a program like that, but fault of Negroponte the price is more around US$ 400 for the computer with Linux and a large suite of open software. A US$ 100 computer would sure be a great improvement to that program.
By the way: hunger, lack of proper lodging, sanitation, etc. do affect less than 10% of the population. This is HUGE, and that's why Brazil is still a developing country. But this is not to say we are in a no-man's land scenario.
Glad to enlighten you. Cheers all!
I'm sure most Slashdot readers would like to gesture in your general direction with a certain finger right now.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0280674 It was a B movie they showed on HBO a lot a few years ago.
Well, I deem that many of you seem to be ill informed and somewhat simplistic, as most Americans are when discussing "the rest of the world". That's the price you pay for being a big, continental country that also happens to be the world's only superpower.
Listen: developing countries are not the same. Not really. There are some countries in subsaarian Africa, where needs are really dire and basic.
I'm from Brazil. I'm in Brazil now, and I never intend to leave it. It is a developing country also, but very different than subsaarian Africa. About 20% of the population (me included) enjoy all conforts and advances some 40% of Americans do (you all included). Hey, I'm a longtime Mac user.
Other 60 to 65% would also laugh, as I heartily did, at your worry about power supply or Internet connection. For them, broadband would not be easy to get, but nearly all can have a phone line. Some of those have a car, nearly all have fridges, ovens, TV sets. Some indeed have a computer. But many of those do not, and could not afford to pay US$ 500 for a computer (and here, brand computers like Dell's start at more like US$ 700).
But a $100 computer to them, offered by the government (no it is no more corrupt than the US - Enron, Halliburton, Watergate, someone?) in installments, and with arrangements with phone companies to offer cheap internet access, would be A REAL BOON. You know, common people's familiarity with technology would improve a lot, and consequently their chances to get better jobs with better pays and productivity.
Actually, the government IS presently making a program like that, but fault of Negroponte the price is more around US$ 400 for the computer with Linux and a large suite of open software. A US$ 100 computer would sure be a great improvement to that program.
By the way: hunger, lack of proper lodging, sanitation, etc. do affect less than 10% of the population. This is HUGE, and that's why Brazil is still a developing country. But this is not to say we are in a no-man's land scenario.
Glad to enlighten you. Cheers all!
except in Nebraska.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Reminds me of a movie where a guy asked for the PC99 project but didn't know it was a joke. Anyone know what that movie was called?
This idea has had more revivals than Frankenstein.
But there is always a deal-breaker, for some it is media play, for others it is photography, or games.
Farmers here in the West are surprisingly technical people, and treat farming as a science. One can't help but wonder how much better third world nations would be doing if they had access to some of that science and knowhow.
Oh yeah, it's the plot from The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest. There's just a $1 difference. What they tried to build was a $99 computer.
Man, these people watch waaay too many movies.
Having been born in a developing country or LDC in short, both governments and their people need computers and networking - badly. Not just ''toy'' PCs for ''games'', considering that massive government work is still executed in the ancient ''pen and paper style'' and actual document filing is so antiquated it involves actual file and cabinet and vaults for security. A building fire and..........
/.ers, Citizens in remote locations sometimes wait weeks if not months to ''get a document verified'' ;a birth certificate for example which if not faxed to some head office where computerized records are kept has to be sent by inter office mail and a response takes a similar channel and duration to get back.
There is a huge need to digitize government record keeping which would cut on ''labor'' costs for pushing paper thus reducing government budget spending on ridiculous tasks not to mention all the other benefits. FYI
There is a saying in my village that he who does not travel thinks his mother cooks best. This MIT thing is a top-down approach to address a conceived problem for which the designer and planners have little touch with. I wonder how many of those involved have visited a truely LDC country. It will only result in cheap and unworthy PC toys dumped all over LDCs without addresssing real needs. On one end are people looking at profits and at the other are ''carputers'' as the parent article puts it.
So for you slashdotters who think ''games and code'' when thinking of PC specs, let me point that in developing countries, its not a disaster waiting to happen but one in progress and there are no jokes here.
Governments in Developing countries need massive computing power to automate their operations and processes, they need huge networking to bring the systems together, training to run the systems and money to do it, before their citizens can surf the net. Think of that next time you surf for pr0n.
The Motherboard he mentions in his article is running at $185.00
Sans Memory or Hard Drive.
We are still at the $500.00 mark buddy.
I am from Missouri Show Me!
It isn't truly a $100 PC, as determined by the market. It is "$100" plus X amount of taxpayer input - charity basically - to make up the difference.
I'm also not convinced as to the necessity of this project. What do third-world citizens need advanced PCs for?
okay so what they have is 1 sunlight 2 people 3 not much else So this would need a "GeekDrop" we load 1 a 16 pack of geeks 2 a number of computers 3 a satlink module 4 the stuff to hook everything up 5 solar/bicyle generators onto a plane/convoy of trucks and go to the village result 1 the village gets info 2 most of the "save the children" charities would murder to be able to have the kid e-mail the sponser 3 geek jobs
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Why don't we have enforced abortions or simply euthanize the newborns instead? Don't need any medical breakthroughs for that. What good is a reversible vasectomy procedure unless you plan to make it mandatory on all males at an early age? If you leave it to choice the problem is no different than we have now.
Perhaps we can start with you then. What gives your parents the right to bring a child into this world when it's seriously overpopulated already? Apparently you feel it's everyone else's fault. You sicken me.
Increasing processor speeds have not done nearly as much to improve compile times as distcc and some cheap PCs. Why companies haven't recognized this and made the small investment (which pays for itself in no time), I'm not sure... but with such a low potential price tag, and no real need for extra peripherals (mouse, keyboard, monitor), surely this will start happening soon.
Instead of having people in third-world countries sitting around waiting for the red-cross to come and bail them out, maybe they'll be able to learn using online resources and solve their problems themselves. Maybe instead of needing food drops from more affluent nations, they can learn how to duplicate the "green revolution" that turned the American desert into fertile land.
Information is the single most transformative power in all of history. Better access to it, better facilities for sharing it, for collaborating in the generation of it -- these are what build civilizations.
Wipe it off,
Eat it again!
That must be about $30 in Germany, at today's rates
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Err the truth is inbetween. If 80% of applications used do not require a powerful computer, then the question is, is there a market segment which uses entirely these programs? The answer is an overwhelming yes. Now it's not a figure nearly as high as 80%, but it's certainly enough to support a product line. Also don't forget that if you have a low end product being bought by a company, the chance is VERY high that they'll buy their high end from you too. Heck, make some bundles too.
The developing world will still be living in the past if they try to "cover the basics" in old-fashioned ways before they try anything new. Look at India's nascent space program, either they can pour that money into feeding the countless poverty-stricken masses for a few more days or they can try to leapfrog ahead, and perhaps generate more innovation, jobs, and capital with which to solve those old problems in new ways.
I never thought I'd agree with any form of trickle-down economics, but if the developing world chooses to operate at a medieval subsistence level they'll NEVER be anything more than poor and underfed. I think most progressive, honest leaders in these countries know that. In this case, benefits CAN "trickle down" in the form of improved agricultural science, health care etc.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Is that why I have tens of thousands of Samsung monitors littering my warehouse?
Someone hates these cans.
Of course, initiatives such as the Simputer should be part of the equation, to peacefully and beneficially co-exist with this larger "$100 PC"... much like the iPod and the Mac (or the PC and the Palmtop) can do today - and this device could truly become a kind of "Mac mini for the masses"...
As I said before, when the Solar PC was discussed on /., ThinkGeek would be an ideal initial outlet to generate "a Slashdot effect in development funding".
Offering it in every corner of the world at the same time (albeit with a slightly higher price in well-off parts of the world) would also help fight the risk of certain governments reselling the "aid hardware" back to users in developed countries, instead of giving it to their own peoples.
I wonder if this guy knows that SHAKE requires a 3-button mouse. It's the single-button mouse that it will not operate with.
Everyone, trade in your multi-button mice now, cuz the future is in roll-mat computers! Might as well trade in Linux too because only Mac users are the smart ones, despite getting confused over two buttons. Due to arrive in 4014, along with your own personal Rosie housebot.
Actually, it's gonna be the opposite. With Apple finally giving in to the cheap PC niche with the Mac mini, I'm quite sure they'll actually switch over to two-button before the end of the year too.
Oh and to the anonymous coward who seems to think that a touch-screen "roll-mat" computer can only respond to and understand the single-click, you probably have not used a Tablet PC before have you? Or are TabletPC and "Touch-Screen Roll-Mat" completely different technologies? And if so, wouldn't that make TabletPC more advanced, since it can somehow support multiple buttons? I don't think the future lies in less advanced technology.
Think a minute of the future </good-english>
When I was in south East asia I hooked tonnes of people up with E-Bay.
They made tonnes of money overnight. It was very rewarding.
I know that Americans are full of "bigger is better", but this is the limit. From the article: "Only orders of 1 million or more units will be accepted". As if there are no third world countries that can use less then a million $100 boxes!!
Probably the only countries that could absorb a million PCs in a single deal are China, India, Russia, USA (alphabetical order). Looking at the rates of literacy (USA rock bottom), this is probably also the order of "third-world-ness".
OK, back to the main topic. Aiming only for +1M$ deals, this can only result in deals with countries like China (from the article), the country that just bought IBMs PC division. If those folks in China can make all those ThinkPads, why would they need a "charity type" 100 bucks PC project.
Mind boggling....
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
Great, so if these run linux, every user will have to shell out a grand total of $799.
Stick a 200mhz ARM, 64mb, a modem and video out into a small box and build a service around it... then you're getting somewhere.
WTF does google have to do with building a $100 PC besides this being good publicity for them? Are they going to install Google Desktop Search on all the PCs or something? Stupid google...always trying to jump on the bandwagon.
Mandatory abortions and mandatory euthanization would be an unpalatable solution for many, and thus it is not a politically viable solution.
It is also impractical: EVERY time a woman got pregnant, she would have to undergo a surgical procedure, which takes up a doctor's time (and time is money) and incures risk (more chances of infection, scars on the body, etc). Furthermore, it is unreliable, since females undergo biological hormonal changes when they become pregnant, and for some this translates into an emotional fondness for their unborn which turns into reluctance to terminate the pregnancy. Thus the failure of "morning after pills", such as RU 48, since the woman has the option of letting it continue to term.
On the other hand a reversible vasectomy would be more politically acceptable and more economical. The male only has to undergo the surgical procedure ONCE, and then to reverse it, undergo one more procedure. It's more predictable, and reliable. No second guessing on the male's part whether or not an accidental pregnancy occurred, and no fear of submarine alimony lawsuits (where the father didn't realize the mother was pregnant).
True. In an idealized world, in Fantasy Country, it would be mandatory or automatic (sort of like circumcision), and then at a certain age (say, roughly 24), you could then be given the right to decide when you want your vasectomy reversed. Let's be truthful -- we're talking about guys here, and many guys DON'T want to have kids, or at least want to procrastinate as long as possible! My guess is that a large number would prefer to remain sterile and hold off as long as possible; the mandatory vasectomy would provide a great excuse. Can you imagine the conversation:
Wife: "Honey, I wanna have kids."
Husband: "I'm too tired to schedule the surgery. Let's go to the bedroom and practice. Several times."
If you are a Rich Country providing aid to the Impoverished Country, you could tie the aid with certain strings attached, eg the mandatory reversible vasectomy.
The "weird" thing about society today is that you have to take a test, get a license, and show proof of auto insurance to drive a car, but if you want to have a kid, BAZOOM!, you can do it without taking a test or attending a class or showing proof of anything. The smartest Einstein and the dumbest moron (such as myself) are on equal footing regarding the process of reproduction. Raising the child in a responsible environment is another story altogether.
what use is a computer when you are hungry?
Load up goatse. I guarantee you will lose your appetite.
..and this is the same observations and therefore advice I had for the lack of any credible warning system for the Tsunami, despite the fact it hit asia, the home of cheap labor, and even cheaper electronics. Most of these "developing nations" seem to have no problem supporting a military/industrial/politician/ generic fatcat class with all the latest expensive toys. One less jet fighter plane per nation would pay for a lot of simple basic computers and dedicated tsunami and earthquake warning radios, probably more than one per poor village. A few less tanks pays for some decent electrical generational facilities of the small scale and distributed nature. One less high muckety muck mercedes limo buys a lot of DC solar panels and simple DC charge controllers. One less governmental fatcat palace = a few radio station/cell/net setups. And so on and so forth.
It's not so much a technological problem or even an economic problem, it's a political problem, and the problem is that the global *two* class society is being pushed (from the top down obviously, from the folks with the guns and money and power) instead of the global *three* class heavy on the middle society like it should be.
in india there is already a project under development called the simputer by picopeta solutions.. which is based on a standard 2.4 linux kernel and runs off a 3oo mhx strong arm cpu..with a touchscreen and battery . many state governments have started to use it on a trail basis for stuff like data capture and so on.
.. subsidy and mass production should maybe get it down to $100...
there are plans to subsidize it so that it can be widely used in rural areas.it even has a nice speech to text feature for the local languages.
though it costs around 160$ right now
regards
Your sig contains inappropriate language. Please try again!
I intend to keep up my end of the bargain by not breeding, I suggest we all do the same.
I didn't ask to be born, I'm certainly not asking to die, but this continual trend of expanding humans have is illogical and dangerous.
and run on Linux.
Since when does hardware runs on the OS?
Did any of you actually read the article? It says "Mr. Negroponte's idea is to develop educational software and have the portable personal computer replace textbooks in schools" The computers aren't meant to surf the web. They're meant to be used for EDUCATION. I'm sure you all know how much textbooks cost. Then figure having to have a separate textbook for each subject. Now figure that in order for those to be useful they have to be replaced every few years. For the (approximate) cost of two regular textbooks you can provide a computer that can replace many, many textbooks for years to come. Is education one of the many things these countries need? Absolutely. Is this $100 computer a viable and more sensible replacement? Of course. These computers are aimed at a specific problem, and by helping with that problem you'll have access to working on -many- other problems that these countries face.
Look who's involved: Google and Linux. This looks like a back-door plan to make network computing finally happen in big numbers. These devices really don't need to do much more than boot into Firefox, and the apps will all run on Google's massive server network.
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In fact.. Why isn't this done already? I always wondered why there isn't a DC input on the power supplies to connect to DC output in the UPSs. what sense does it make to use an inverter (likely less than 50% effecient) to create AC power which must then be converted back to DC using transformers and a bridge (also likely less than 50% effecient), when a direct connection would immediately result in significant gains in the time availiable. On the case side, it's just a matter of splicing some wires and having an extra socket on the back - not a backbreaking expense. On the ups side, it might be a little more complicated: needs a multi-cell battery to get the voltages right, not sure if there are suppsoed to be independant 12v and 5v busses and if combining them would be problematic, but surely people who are serious about power management would be willing to pay a little extra for 4x increase in efficiency. If the cases were set up with care, selected drives and peripherals could be disabled under power outage situation.
Just something to think about: If my printer needs a separate power supply, why do computer manufacturers insist on putting the second (and sometimes first) most heat producing device IN the case?
\end{rant}
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Actually when you get right down to it, you don't need computers to manage anything. Need clean water? Simply divert the river/dig a well(s)/or create an aquaduct if you need water over a large area. Vaccinations? Setup a few shops in the most populated areas and work your way out, quit trying to save everyone at the same time (since you obviously won't succeed). They certainly don't need education when 99% of their futures and full-time jobs will be along the lines of 'farmer'.
At an early stage of development you don't need huge storage rooms full of paperwork, you don't need 'accountability' either. What good is a government if the people aren't going to follow it? People aren't going to follow you either unless you do things down on the ground that they can see, understand and trust. Giving them computers and tell them that a demographic will let them dig a well for a region 6 months later, assuming things go 'according to plan', does not win trust.
Nicaragua is the poorest country in Latin America, but I think cheap computers could help there. Being an American who married a Nicaraguan I've visited Nicaragua three times, spending about three weeks there each time. It is very poor. For instance, someone in my mother-in-law's neighborhood was killed over a computer. But that doesn't really tell the story because in a lot of ways people are happier there than here.
.. these were modern machines. You'd pay something like a dollar an hour to rent one (you might imagine I spent a non-trivial amount of time in the internet shop--"then internet" as they called it). Two dollars a day is pretty much market wages there. But there were plenty of people using the machines. I'm thinking I could go there, have a beefy server box running linux and some pretty cheap client boxes running a full gnome or KDE environment and do it cheaper than the competition, thus opening up the market for the middle and lower class Nicaraguans. Maybe this kind of box would work for that.
The thing I really want to say is the last time I was there I was _stunned_ by how many internet shops were in town. There was one every three to five blocks! I mean it was something like 7-11s here. You could pretty much find one at will. People were using them a lot to call the states, surf the net, look at videos, you name it. And I'm not talking 486 machines
Given the ability for this to compromise secure data held by foreign governments I don't see why the US government would see fit to help foot part of the bill on this venture. Given that this has already occurred with xerox machines in the past I doubt any government is going to be really thrilled about this deal.
I know this isn't what you were talking about, but that Joel article was so stupid. Bloatware isn't about file size. It isn't about the cost of disks or how much memory you have. It's about paying Microsoft $800 for Word. Assuming you actually pay for software. Word has like 10,000 features (say). At $800/10000, you're paying 8c a feature. That's unreal! Unfortunately I only use about 100 of these features. Which means I'm paying $8/feature. That's still unreal value though right! Well no, cause all of us are paying something like that. If we organised ourselves 100% of us could share the cost for those 100 features we all want. 80% of us could share the cost for those random features we use occasionally. 50% of us could share the cost of the less popular features, and 10% of us could pay for the exotic and braindead features we thought were a good idea at the time. Instead, we all have to pay for features we don't want, shit we don't need, and stuff that is just annoying and crazy.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Everyone's complaining that a $100 PC is not the most important thing for people in third-world countries. Why don't I see you going to Africa and building an industry and a large farm instead of posting on Slashdot?
Non sequitur. Tu quoque fallacy to boot. Offering the analysis that a $100 PC is not important to impoverished third-worlders does not in any way constitute a burden on the analyser to implement something even more important in response. That is absurd on the face of it, and defies all reason. It's very concrete-bound thinking.
These people are doing some good: they're creating a computer priced so low that local governments can afford to buy even large numbers without much of a decision.
Uh, no... they're creating a computer using tax money funneled through governments, which is why despite its astoundingly low and incredibly appealing price, only the participating moneylaunderers may partake of the goods produced (which are valued at well over $100).
And they're also pushing the limit of a price of a full-featured computer.
Just like the Post Office is pushing the limit of the price of first-class mail... since they have a government-backed monopoly? Who cares how low of a price you can get, when you use taxes to cut the "actual" cost? It's dishonest bookkeeping, nothing more.
If they keep working at it, they'll help to modernize the developing countries by introducing the people to computers, and they'll push the price even lower.
I believe that's called a pipe dream. Sub-$100 computers have been in third-world countries for decades. 286s, 386s and even 486s. What's wrong with these computers? Why does a dirt farmer require the latest in modern hardware as his introduction to technology? And how is robbing the US' coffers to produce "cheap" PCs going to push the price in the legitimate market anywhere?
Meanwhile, you're posting on Slashdot (as am I, I admit, but I didn't make any pretention of wanting good for third-world denizens). You can't very well argue that they're doing something to harm the third world, and they're considerably helping parts of it, so why're you complaining?
Tu quoque again. It's irrelevant. You're making personal attacks on the character of the posters making statements you don't like, rather than addressing the content of the posts themselves. Instead of demonstrating why, in fact, a worm herder needs a Pentium IV and what he would use it to do, you just attempt to demean anyone bringing up the question. It's a slimy debate tactic, and I strongly question the wisdom of the moderators who validated your ugly and ignorant and fallacious response with positive mod points.
Remember that this is the first wave of cheap computers for developing nations.
You have no idea what you're talking about. First of all, cheap "computers" have existed for years in the form of PDAs and electronic organizers; Linux runs on a lot of these. Secondly, developing nations have had access to computers that you would consider outdated or obsolete since at least the late 1980s. This initiative isn't the first wave of anything. It's a dime-a-dozen profit milling operation organized by politicians which will benefit nobody but them in the long run. It isn't new, and it isn't revolutionary.
They're already close to the same price point with respect to purchasing power, and they'll get to it very quickly.
Too bad the $100 figure itself is conjured, invented, made up and fabricated, and relies on the infrastructure of a taxpayer base to even start to conceive of existing.
When private corporations come out with $100 computers -- besides PDAs and yesterday's news, that is -- let me know. (But don't bother to alert the village shaman, the last time we gave him a laptop he tried to augur it.)
This project, believe it or not, already exists, at least on some level. Give them a call, and see if you can open up a chapter near you.
FREE GEEK was founded in February 2000 (and incorporated as a 501(c)(3) in April 2000) to recycle computer technology and provide low and no-cost computing to individuals and not-for-profit and social change organizations in the community and throughout the world.
In the four years since its formation, Free Geek has recycled over 360 tons of electronic scrap and refurbished over 3,000 computer systems that are now in use by individuals and organizations in the community.
Free Geek does most of this work with volunteers (at any given time, about 200 are active). The volunteers disassemble the donated equipment and test the components, which are either recycled as electronic scrap or recycled into refurbished systems. These refurbished computers are then loaded with Open Source Software, such as GNU/Linux, Open Office, and other Free Software.
Not to plug myself, but I even mentioned Free Geek and the idea of recycling computers to third world nations so that they could use them as "the cheapest library one could ever build" to Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy when he came to my university for a round table discussion with other students. He thought it was a great idea (...so it must be?). [end shameless plug]
Hmm, I'm now pushing more for age 30 when the male has a right to decide when to reverse it, along with proof of a job, and proof of a wife ( or something like that), and then he has to pay a fairly substantial sum of money for the reversal operation to be done.
Some might argue "But doesn't this discriminate against the poor?"
Exactly the point. You shouldn't be having kids unless you are in the income bracket that could afford to raise it.
rambling idioitic nonsense here!
According to the World Bank's World Development Report per-capita annual income in the poorest developing countries was the equivalent of USD$330 per year back in 1990, and has been increasing (not by much, but it has been increasing) since then.
We have seen what News Corp has done to news (think Faux News). Do we really want them backing any sort of computer?
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
In India this would translate to
$100 with exchange rate of
$1 = 45 Rs.
4500 Rs.
650 million people in India don't get to eat 2 meals per day.
It for the monkeys.
Have your read Negroponte's magnum opus, _Being Digital_? Not content to pontificate wildly in the pages of Bubble-era _Wired_ magazine, he committed hundreds of pages of exactly wrong predictions and analyses to print. It seemed asinine at the time, but in retrospect it's really a howler. But he's still spinning his MIT punditry into brand-name gigs with major backers. Use your illusion, Nick!
--
make install -not war
but if this has enough processing power and can accept a network adapter it would work nicely as a highly customisable linux router.
Information technology, at least the software end of it, has an extremely low cost of training and participation. If developing nations can get access to serviceable computers and a connection to the network, perhaps they can bootstrap a small IT knowledge base in their populations. Unlike industrial manufacturing, world-class code can be written from huts with cheap computers and solar panels. It could be just the solution these nations need to lift themselves out of poverty. If they can reach knowledge on the network and learn by contributing, that's one step closer. We've had years to yammer about needing roads, bla bla bla. But this computer thing is something new. If even a small percentage of those exposed to the technology go on to learn to use it and create more of it, the effect could be dramatic.
I don't know if you've noticed, but the rest of the world has also discovered television. Everywhere I've been from the richest nations of the world to dirt-poor like Brazil and Thailand has TVs, even if it is an antenna on top of a dump. Everyone that could buy this PC (who's not so poor as to not give a rat's ass about a PC) has a TV.
Sure, it's crappy resolution, 60Hz (maybe even 50Hz) refresh rate, but it is a $0 part, color, probably 20". Those dollars are very much so needed on other things to have workable $100 computer. I'd go as far as to say it should be the only output. That'll make the GPU/gfx memory requirements fit for a $100 device anyway.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I wish that was true... With today's browsers (like mozilla and firefox) using up massive ammounts of CPU power, the bottleneck is often the CPU (or RAM).
I can easily open links (in new tabs/windows) fast enough to make Firefox unresponsive on my 1.2GHz system here.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
People talk like the internet was the savior, as if it automatically gave education. Knowing english, how much content is there actually on the internet? Can you read a guttenberg ebooks on your screen, I know I can't. What is really needed is some waterproof titanium+glass ebook readers, using e-ink, which can download books and interactive books wirelessly. Not only the third world, but also US and Europe need such device, it is crucial to having books which can easily be updated, and should you want to read a classic, not carrying a 1 pound book for a limited time. Perhaps a reflective keyboard could be incorporated, who knows, but one thing we can be certain, it will probably never happen.
the solution to this is obvious - bring back the commodore 64, the Performas, the Amiga 500s, the Mac Classics.
They are low power, and many include RF output to attach to any TV. Just stick a battery or a solar cell on it.
The big issue will be making a web-browser, or making other online services that are compatible with the limited power of old machines like the Commodore, and other old computers like Apple ][ and Mac Classics.
We have all these old computers that need recycling, available for free. They are capable of going online, at least for USENET and basic web tasks. If there were more light-weight sites designed to degrade for slower machines, they would work.
In the e-society session, everyone except me and a bright Intel VP thought politicians would solve all the problems, we thought engineers would. Then a man from Nigeria stood up. It took him 2 days to get to Kyoto. He said he appreciated everyone's enthusiam, but you know there are problems like where to get firewood. A major problem is smart people leaving the villages. In the Cambodian projects I know, political problems and human, ground level problems are like an axe taken to bright slashdotesque suggestions (I have offered plenty believe me), and the number of people working full time with insight into what it takes are very few.
I have been a volunteer helping a website that asks people to buy mosquito nets for Cambodia. It is very cheap to buy a net that can keep malaria away when you sleep. A couple days ago Sharon Stone raised a million dollars for these nets and that was a stunner. Wow. I think she said something like, "People are dying in your country now and that is not okay with me now" and started with a 10,000 bucks donation.
The ex-Newsweek journalist I have worked with on Cambodia (Bernard Krisher) has gotten companies and individuals to donate 10,000 dollars each to build a school with their name on it (matched by the World Bank). A little more for solar panels that could drive a computer. Negroponte's media lab has been involved in these projects too - in fact maybe it is all connected.
I think computing definitely is useful. But I think we need more people who know what is going on there. I feel that there are lots more technological solutions out there but not enough knowledgeable people networked together to converge on solving specific problems. For example you may remember the story about LAN on a motorcycle that drives through Cambodian villages to exchange email and maybe take someone to a hospital (Krisher's Motoman project). I have wondered if ham radio or satellite radio might not be better but am not trained in it, and the reality is it takes someone who is really tough to get things done. If it is done at a primitive level with minimal technology and a lot of stubbornness, people on the ground and some sponsorship, it has a chance at working it seems.
But I wonder about the physicist in Rhode Island (mentioned on slashdot?) I heard of who developed a new kind of antenna that could provide the same output as a massive tower. I know there is packet ham radio which can go around the world. Satellites are passing overhead all the time probably. But where is the discussion by the physicists, ham fanatics, solar power geeks, and satellite geeks? How to plug it in to participation by the people who know the ground and what works?
As it happens I think one issue that used to be a big worry (maybe no more) in Cambodia when I started 10 years ago was that radio use would draw fire from the military. Oh well. Is that still true? I doubt it.
So my conclusion. I think Sharon Stone is wonderful and anything that can have similar effects is good, provided the money is used well. So an English documentary on the conditions on the ground might be good, anything that makes it more transparent to the media-saturated world and gets visible to the people with resources and heart. Certainly open source, technology, and ad hoc networking is useful there. I also think more attention and support needs to be given to the people who are actually doing things, to help them, learn lessons, and accelerate aid. Networking might be useful to get people who have left the town to talk to peop
which is supposedly going to have a 14-inch color screen and run on Linux...
/. joke... Imagine a beowulf cluster of these. Seriously. A $100 node is pretty cheap. Well, then again, fast nodes are nice.
So the computer runs on linux? That's an interesting twist, because in my over $100 PC, Linux runs on the computer, not the other way around.
Now, to revisit an old
Will it fit in a Mac Mini?
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
As a tinpot dictator of some godforsaken hellhole I welcome this idea wholeheartedly.
1. Get grant from U.N. for computers 'to help educate the poor or my backward nation'.
2. Buy the $100 laptoppy edumacational thingies.
3. Sell them all on ebay to first world geeks to make picture frames out of.
4. Profit, for me to stick in my Swiss account!
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
100$ * 1 000 000 = 100 000 000$
Think about if the real developing countries have that much money...
Yeah, go to Zimbabwe and set up a farm. Oh wait, the locals decided to drive all the people who did that off their farms. And then they let the land lie fallow because they didn't know how to farm it and really showed no inclination to anyway.
So my point is even more basic. It is don't go assuming that just because you display outrage, that you know how to fix a problem. Africa has problems that aren't fixable with mere good intentions.
So don't lose sleep over it. If you can help, help. If you are a long way from the problem, let it lie.
Thats acctually not a bad thing really. They should sell the same machines in 1st and 2nd world countrys for $199. With the advertised benefit that like 50% of the profits go to make even more PC's for the 3rd World.
Hopefully there will be a way to alias that gesture to pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL on PCs.
Follow me
I have an iPAQ handheld running Familiar-Linux and you can get most software from the Debian project to run on it. See http://www.handhelds.org/.
Thus having 128MB RAM and 128MB flash is very luxury on a system like that without the need to develop new software or digging out old software that ran on an old 386.
Let's not forget Apple's other great success stories, like the Lisa personal computer and the Newton.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
I wonder how many of those involved have visited a truely LDC country. It will only result in cheap and unworthy PC toys dumped all over LDCs without addresssing real needs
AMD processors and 14 inch LCDs are not toys. From what I see, this machine is a thousand times more powerful than the original IBM PC that revolutionized the business world.
It won't play Doom III, but neither will Doom III lift a country out of poverty.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
and we all know that governmanets are so efficient that by the time it gets to the consumer it will cost them (or the tax payers) thousands...
Get your torrents...
Sounds like a very bad idea to me. Computers are all nice, and I sit in front of one all day, but I know that when my 7-year-old dauyghter does her "computer class" at school it's mostly just playing around. There is no way on earth that a PC can replace a book as a learning tool for most subjects. For $100 you could get at least 100 textbooks -- even in the US you can print a paperback for 50 cents in quanitity. Buy textbooks first. Computers later, and NEVER instead of.
I'd certainly pay for a low cost, low power unit with some simple video output. But I certainly want to stay away from the x86 architecture. It was fun while it lasted and is fun for some others now, but it's not on my list anymore. ARM or PPC is the way to go for now. ARM is low power so it may be easy to make ones where the batteries are charged by solar powered ones or bicycle power / cranking. Maybe an underclocked ARM would tolerate heat as well as save power.
Many developing nations have two kinds of weather: hot and very hot. Some have relative humidities of over 80% months at a time. Others have dust and low humidities below 10%. If he wants world-wide distribution the units better be able to handle upwards of +50 C (+40 C room temp +10 C from the device itself) and extreme high or low humidity and the fungus / corrosion / dust found in those conditions. Current options with extended temperature ranges usually cap out at less than 28 C, but tolerate cold better, so something new is needed.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
So what are the computers needed for? Basic office tasks? If so I have a dozen or so taking up space in my house that I don't want. They are superfluous to my needs, but they will all handle basic word processing at the very least. I don't want to throw them away because it seems wasteful to junk machines that still work, but I can't even give them away here (early PPC Macs, old SparcStations, P2 and earlier x86 boxes). Some of them are probably fast enough to handle most server tasks for a local government department, others could at least replace pens and typewriters. If it were possible to donate them to a developing country (or anyone else that would actually use them) then I would be more than willing to do so (and reclaim some floor space at the same time).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Hear, here. Well said.
/.)
(Another poster in this topic advocated the position that "they" don't need schools or primary education as they will all be farmers - I almost lost my temper. Good to see there is still common sense left on
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Okay, it's pretty clear that most people in "developing countries" can't even afford a $100 computer, and this thing needs to primarily be given away. After all, it's only being made available for purchase to governments, and you have to buy millions of the things at a time.
So, what are the odds that, once these things find their way into your average Joe Thirdworld's hands, they discover a lot of Americans would happily pay what in some cases far exceeds their own annual income for the little box that they aren't using?
"You want pay one-hundred US-dollar for computer?"
"Yeah."
-long pause- "One fifty?"
"Sure, fine."
Point is, geeks in the developed nations want these things, third world families do not. Third world families want money*, which Geeks frequently have. There's a mutually beneficial solution here which almost makes more sense than dumping millions of bargain computers on nations lacking the infrastructure to use them.
* - Strictly speaking, they want to survive. Money makes this significantly easier.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
"Depending on the size of the pornographic file, 384K DSL line is slow; a 56K line is a pain in the you know where."
No, I don't know where....the porn that tells me is only 12% finished coming down my 28.8 modem.
That is the way the whole world revolves. If a company brings out a unique product and it becomes a best seller, then it obviously attracts all the moths who try to replicate it and make a quick buck. For eg: in china, you can get anything and everything ... even (I dare say) a mac mini clone for a fraction of the original price. It will be a poor replica of the original ofcourse.
ravee
--
http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com
Linux Help
for all things on Linux
give rice farmer #23823829 a $100PC that'll teach him to read, write, manage his water and grain supplies, and you'll have a whole bunch of new industry happening in his neighborhood within a very short period of time
it should come as no surprise that so-called 'educated middle-class people' couldn't figure out what the hell a foreign farmer might do with a $100 PC, but it sure irks me that so far, all I've seen is "run Office" or "will it be fast enough to play games?"
d'uh. computers are far, far, far more productive than the average consumerican can even fathom, let alone realize
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
The computer can show videos of how to build solar desalinaziers so that people can build them...
FRA: STFU GTFO
The AK-47 is the "100$ PC" of assault rifles...
FRA: STFU GTFO
In another article on this $100 PC it is clear that the display will use a chip like the one in a protector and an LED as a light source. There will be a little pop-up tent so you have a rear-projection system. With this you really can make a very cheap portable that uses very little power. Remember also that all the chips will be cheaper in 2006 than now.
There are actually lots of ways in which computerising apparently subsistence-level communities makes more sense that it first appears.
Buying and selling and bartering are all doable in localised systems meaning not having to treck up to market everyday to see if it is worth it or the ability to exchange machinery with other farmers.
then there is the enhanced information coming into the village allowing for better decision making about crop types or weather.
Not to mention medical databases and the like.
So if we now scale up just a little to the township rather than the village, you can see how a mass produced yet functional computer would equip schools, surgeries, local civil service and so on.
And ideally still run games for that fun part too.
Why aren't such cheap machines being sold to people in developed countries? I'd buy one.
I'd rather not. It might make it diffcult for me to maintain my erection.
"sold to governments only"
By the time it gets in the hands of the people who need/want to use them, it will be a useful as a 5 pound block of cheese (except it won't be edable).
This MIT thing is a top-down approach to address a conceived problem for which the designer and planners have little touch with. I wonder how many of those involved have visited a truely LDC country. It will only result in cheap and unworthy PC toys dumped all over LDCs without addresssing real needs.
I don't see why this is necessarily so. If the things have a network card or an interface that can plug into a cell phone, you then have a terminal for your government services.
The thing to remember about computers are that they are protean machines. They can be calculators, filing machines, musical instruments, or gaming toys. True, these machines are not going to be up to snuff by todays standards. But speaking as somebody who lived and worked through the computerization of business in the 1980s, there is a huge difference between no computers and primitive computers. A computer which is about 1990 state of the art has considerable power, when put into the hands of somebody who has heretofore had no access. A 486 computer would have been an object practically beyond price in 1960.
One thing that will stand as a curiosity to future generations is why the PCs won out in the 1980s when the Mac was so much superior in almost every way. The lesson is that when you are buying enough computers to transform your society, price beats everything.
Cheap is good. The only unworthy computer is the one you can't afford.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If (say) 8 of these can serve the function of a school library, I'd say that meets a need that third world countries have. I don't think the idea here was low cost computing for the masses.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
...they operated at 320x240 (hey, I used to program one). PAL is 720x576, NTSC 640x480. Not quite 800x600, but I seem to remember it was bearable in the 80s. The biggest downside is the refresh rate. Now, I admit it wouldn't be great - but including a monitor that's significantly better would break the $100 limit by far.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
"instead of the global *three* class heavy on the middle society like it should be" Three classes? How is it exactly that you can justify the existance of the third class? You're just as bad as the tyrants in the phillipines---for all you care guys like me would be stuck in mercury pits making hats our entire lives for the fat cats in the first class until our nervous system dies!
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
You can't sell them to a developing nation either. It would cost more to ship them than it would to buy something smaller and send them that... At least in quantity. If you can come up with a way to deliver them personally, I'm sure someone will appreciate them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I would buy a sealed box pc every three or four years and use an external hard disk for non-os data, non-os executables.
It would be easy to recycle them because you could buy and sell them just like cars.
A 2004 sealed box pc would be incrementally slower than a 2005 sealed box pc.
Assuming you have a prescription for the 3rd world's political problems, you seem to have quickly forgotten how the upper class operates campaigns to divide and rule the uneducated poor politically and how this is facilitated by an economic and educational divide that is unfathomable by most in the 1st world.
While many people are very quick to prescribe democracy and capitalism for these ailing nations, you're about 20 years too late. While democracy and capitalism have certainly helped the majority of 3rd world countries who have adopted these institutions, democracy and capitalism aren't political and economic panaceas (even for 1st world countries) that automatically overcome crime, corruption and ignorance.
While you were correct to conclude the problems are heavily influenced by politics, you severely underestimate how economics, technology, and education contribute to the political problem. You *seemed* to conclude (you actually concluded very little) that focusing solely on a political fix will not only keep and persevere without an educated and vigilant public, but will also proliferate and mend all the other problems by default.
In conclusion, I disagree with you. I believe you are setting yourself up for failure if you try to fix the political problems of a developing country while ignoring its economic, technology, and education problems. Furthermore, I believe one couldn't possibly identify and understand the political problems of a country if they don't understand what's feeding it.
The point is that governments in many countries spend massive amounts of money on proprietary software and overkill hardware for what they need. The example from Brazil is perfect. It is not a third world country but the budget and available money are small compared to the US.
Yes, there are other goals that may be more important in these countries. Yet, by giving these governments the option to buy cheaper computers for their needs they will spend less than they currently are on IT and infrastructure. This means they would be able to reallocate the saved money towards more humanitarian based services or anything else they see as a priority.
And don't forget it. You even swiped the title. For shame! But I beat you by 25 minutes. Maybe someday you'll grow up and have your OWN opinions... ;)
Let me guess... you're a young, white, rich, suburban teenager living with your parents who has never travelled anywhere "uncomfortable."
completely incorrect.
Go back to claravoyance school.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
It's ALL OVER THE PLACE. CAD/CAM. Web design. Graphic arts. Video games. Taxes and book-keeping. Software engineering. Encoding MP3s. Playing DVDs, MP3s, DivX, MPG content. Building quilt patterns. Serving database content.
Please use examples that won't run acceptably on a PII. You can do all that on a PII. The catch is what software verison and speed. You can play dvds, divx and mp3s on a PII fine. You can encode mp3s fine as well just takes awhile. Video games work great on a PII. You can't play Warcraft III, but Warcraft II works just fine. Web design and graphic arts will work just fine. Notepad and dreamweaver 4 work great on a PII. Taxes and book-keeping work fine on a PI so don't get me started on that one. CAD/CAM will work, but you better stick to 2D and not 3D. Building quilt patterns. Come on wouldn't that just be a vector paint program or would it convert an image file to blocky sections? I can't believe that wouldn't run acceptablly on a PII. Software engineering will work fine on a PII. Linux and Win98 work on it. Serving database content is the only one that I'd say you shouldn't do with a PII. (But you can do it. Just not anything else.)
People with little money or resources, the world over, tend to have a shorter-term mindset than people with some security and long-term future at stake. So Africa, with a large proportion of the very poor, suffers from conning and stealing and power-grabbing and threats and violence.
TO ALL WHO WANT TO END TERRORISM:
The simplest way to end violence in the world is to make sure that everyone feels that they have a stake in the future:
* People need a legal system that promotes justice.
* They need enough food to keep from starving.
* They need vaccines against disfiguring illness and death.
*
The original poster seemingly has a bad case of inferiority complex... Having just set up a company in Poland I can assure you I didn't have to pass any envelopes except for those containing the official documents...
So, I would put it in a fairy-tale category. As for the Polish telco - sure, they can be nasty, as every former state-owned company can be. But there are usually alternatives in main cities. I live in Warsaw, and I can get a few alternative phone/internet solutions within a couple days.
So, let's keep the things in perspective...
This is a very strange feeling to read an earlier post with almost the same content and identical subject as mine. You will not feel the same way, because your post was earlier so you will never know whether I posted mine independently. I believe I have experienced something like this on Wikipedia having an edit conflict with someone who has made exactly the same edit as mine, at the same time. Truly frightening. I have only two explanations here: I was the one who really wrote the AC comment in question, and possibly the parent post as well (which would not be surprising considering the somewhat unusual conditions of my mind) or I might be not the only person here with such a brilliant sense of humour (much less plausible). In any case, the moderators should now moderate grandparent down as redundant and rightfully moderate the post linked in parent up, which they should have done in the first place, and which seems rather unlikely considering the fact that granparent post was moderated as Interesting twice. Please accept my sincere apologies, unless you are my alter ego, in which case please shut up, I need some sleep and the multiple personality disorder is really the last thing I need right now.
We can only hope.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
No I haven't "forgotten" about divide and conquer, nor bread and circuses to keep the people occuplied while the fatcats lord it over them and rip them off. I write about it constantly here, and have been here and other places for 40 years plus now. Way ahead of ya sport. My point is, even in the developing nations, they have the money for basic infrastructure, but luxuries for the richer controlling classes, both private and governmental, seem to come first, at the expense of everyone else. Now let that sink in first before ya get all knee jerked around. Read it as many times as you need to, to understand it. I can't make it any simpler. They claim no money for this or that, yet seem to have the money for new jet fighter airplanes and limosines and etc. Got it? It's true too and undeniable, pick any doofus nation you want, they have a bloated military. they have rich fatcats in limousines at the top of the political heap. THAT'S where the poorer folks infrastructure is sitting right now.
How noticing that makes me "insenstive" to peoples plight I really don't know. I am very sensitive to peoples plight, that's why I made my observations. I am "pro" a healthy strong and robust middle class as any nations primarily economic duty to develop. I am realistic enough to note that there will always be different economic classes, but I think with the right politics that this can be heavily skewed towards creation of the middle class, while dropping numbers of the very lowest class economically, by getting them the education and infrastructure they need, and paying for it via the extra loot the controller classes always seem to have and waste. I WANT those folks to have good educations and decent infrastructure, I was just pointing out where the money could come from. It exists there already, just not wisely spent in a lot of ways. And that's a political problem.
And just a FWIW, there are no pure capitalist or pure socialist governments or economies out there, they are all a blend of the two, just the ratios differ nation to nation. Again, just being realistic about it.. As to "what's feeding it", that's an EASY question to answer, it's called "greed", filthy stinking plain vanilla human greed. These technofeudalistic overlords here and there, developing nation or well established industrialized nation, are all rich as snot yet they want "more" all the time,and then more on top of that, and still more. And they get it, either by skewing the laws, or by avoiding them via transnational corporations, or by just being fascists thieves and just taking it. So guess who suffers, guess who doesn't have Tsuanmi warning systems or a cheap computer per village or no clean water or....that sort of thing? Anyone who ain't them, who ain't part of that filthy rich elite class, that's who.
And ya, I got a problem with that,a big problem, and it's political, and so do millions and millions more folks, all over the planet. Screwed generation after generation, while the fatcats buy fighter jets limousines and outfit their armies, usually used mostly to keep their populations in check more than for anything else. I have a political problem with waste, greed, liars, skunks, murderers and assorted other political weasels who refuse to do much for their own people and help keep them in serfdom forever, then turn around and blame some other nation or people for these problems. The "economic technological and educational" problems are EXACTLY what I am talking about, and if you follow the economic food chain upstream, it always leads to where those poor people don't get what they need with those three things, so that their various fatcats can have luxuries beyond belief and bloated militaries. If that ain't a political problem than I don't know what one is.
Okay, I know there are lots of cheap old boxen lying around that would work great in a third-world setting.
But problem number one is, the shipping to get them to a useful third-world setting is just way too expensive to be worth it. That is the main problem that I and a lot of others have come up against.
Problem number two is that those old boxen are power hogs, and the power in third-world environments is not enough and/or not reliable enough. Laptops work way better there, with their lower power requirements, built-in UPS, and greater portability where you can lock them in a hidden closet off hours.
The miniatureness of the mac mini, as some have pointed out, is useful for way more than just cuteness. I can't wait til they start showing up on the second-hand channels...
I bought one while in Dharwad, karnatika, India.
It was made by a company called Gold Leopard King, from China, is has a build in modem, cassette storage, TV out. and come with 100 games, and basic interpritor and crude Web/E-mail over the modem.
It's a really cheap design, keyboard and mouse/joystick are all passive switches. With a game cartridge like the old C64's on top though.
The only active electronic component in the whole thing was one chip in the cartridge!!!
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
Non sequitur. Tu quoque fallacy to boot.
Tu quoque again.
A hundred logical fallacies is not worth even one grain of rice for a person in a third world country.
You're making personal attacks on the character of the posters making statements you don't like
I don't care about the statements. In fact, I guess I agree with them; there are technically better ways to spend money than building computers. It's the posters that I don't like: they think they have some validity in telling people not to help. I may think there are better ways to spend money, but in that case I plan to do the spending.
I would be curious to see what flavor of linux they use or if they will use an entire distro built from scratch. And how do they plan on supporint this? Isn't it a little arrogan to have a 1 million minimum order restriction?
He who will not reason, is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not, is a slave. - William Drummond
haven't we seen this $100 dollar PC somewhere?
I specifically remember a story where a group of people made an $100 pc in response to Steve Ballmer's challenge with a 512mb flash card and Damn Small Linux distro.
Derive Politics
...you are being delibarately obtuse. You are asking a vague generalised question on "corruption" and how to deal with it and expecting a specific answer from me beyoind what I wrote in general terms. How in hell can anyone even attempt to answer such a vague question? Which specific corruption in which specific circumstance to which individual in which nation to do you want a possible answer to? How is anyone supposed to answer that unless you are willing to go down the list of 6 billion humans in a variety of nations and political situations?
Want a vague answer in general terms? If the corruption is so bad that you can't exist and the local political secret police are killing people and etc, then you physically fight back, armed resistance and take no prisoners because they certainly won't. That's one way of dealing with corruption. If the situation is less than that but still of an extreme nature you must seek to ally yourself with reformist elements and try to seize control of the government by any means and then try to not become corrupt yourself.. If it's less than that, you try to develop a political organization that can work hand in hand with labor and the media and some elements of the capital class and do a work around. if it's less than that.....
See? You keep asking for an answer to such a vague assertion that any possible reply is bound to sound ambiguous, IF, you want just a general reply. If you want a specific reply that goes beyond my recommendations, then you need to ask a very specific question.
As to my dealing with it by ignoring it, I'll give an example. I don't incorporate, I don't seek licenses, permissions, permits, etc to the best of my ability from the state. Extreme bare minimum. As little as possible. Less interactions, the less I have to deal with actual corruption or be around the possibility of having my life influenced by possible corruption. I own very little in the way of personal property. I don't get loans or have credit or use credit more specifically. It hasn't happened but in the future if the state insists on my getting "chipped" or "tagged" I will refuse that..in any manner I can. That is one way of avoiding the corruption associated with governments, by "not dealing with them". And I was clear to state several times it's how *I* deal with it. And similar can be done anywhere, just degrees and situations are so widely divergent that no adequate parallel may be established, that's why I said it was more described as a mindset than an exact follow to the letter specific process. Did you understand that part? I don't want to assume so I will reemphasize that.
of course, your way involves just putting up with it near as I can tell, because all you have done so far is insult me personally,and compl;ain, tell me I don't have or offer the single magic bullet solution to all the planets political corruption problems. Well, never said I did, just one method of a practical immediate work around. Yet I don't see any answers from you on how you deal with corruption in your area. Please share! What are your personal big examples of successes and techniques that you might have to share? Be specific please, so that we all may learn from those examples. And see if you can do it without the ad hominems.
If you recall, the beginnings of this thread I stated that the money was there for the critical infrastructure in those two areas I mentioned, Tsunami warnings and then with small cheap computers, and I DID provide specific examples of where that potential money could have come from. If you want to dispute THAT, then identify the exact name of your country in question and it's situation and a place on the web to look at it's budget in some detaiul, because I bet I can prove/illustrate to you the money would have been there, but the political will wasn't.. If you can't or refuse, then end the conversation now, your choice. In other words, put up or shut up.
As to how do I influence politics, well in my small way I was once instrumental in get
never really thought about it that way, but I guess there's a profit in there with shunning some place if you want to do something,or buy something, or get serviced by something..err, you know what I mean, but the traditional way is something you don't agree with. A boycott is an economic shuuning, it usually makes whomever is being boycotted change what they are doing, or some alternative gets the business from the boycotters. Like todays music, more people are gong to be turning to alternative music as the DRM crap gets ramped up more in hardware and in digital copies. They will shun the big guys somehow. Look at the supermarket where organic food is finally mainstream "enough" and being sold on the shelves and gets a good price. Traditional chemical food is being shunned more and more. Shunning works if enough people do it. In politics I started shunning the two major parties many election cycles ago now, because I see no practical overall differences. I shun most TV now because I don't like the programming I can get, I switched to getting amused off the internet. I get most of my news off the net. The local OTA am/fm radio stations are so universally sucky, me, a decades long radio news junky now primarily uses shortwave or netfeeds. I shun the crap and give my business to the non-crap, which is a personal opinion on quality and content, but it's an effective technique. Hmm, like years ago I realised professional team sports was no different than the gladiator games in the roman times with keeping the populations dumbed down and complacent,bread and circusesm so I stopped viewing, discussing, going to the physical games, etc and now wehenever anyone in meat space brings it up I just tell them frankly it's a bigfat waste of time and money and not worth it, that there are so many other more important things out there I can't be bothered. Shuts em up quick I guess, probably annoys a few folks but I don't care either, so tired of hearing about someones "team" like that score means anything practical to be such a big part of your life. I admit I was addicted once, then WHAM one day it just dawned on me HOW MUCH people get addicted to that. Things like that I guess are part of the economics of shunning and then going to an alternative.
Current setup: 486/33 and M$DOS 6.0 you insensitive clod!
If it is a public terminal, like some posts sugest, then I would think that being more keosk shaped would be in order. Which might lend itself to what other posts have sugested in taking care of the used computer surplus market. However, this also could be a seperate project all togather.
But I think that what NN is going for is cloer to his school project. Which is why a notebook design is key.