Slashdot Mirror
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."
I was thinking exactly the same thing, and then I realised what the problem would be - standardisation. Too many machines, too many different combinations of hardware to troubleshoot effectively. And who would do that job? I suppose a country could get their high school geeks on the cheap to do some of the maintenance. However, I think this is one of the reasons why the recycling programmes already in place haven't been successful on an international basis -- in terms of the number of PCs that get turned into landfill, as opposed to the number that do get shipped abroad, the ratio must be ridiculously bad.
That being said, I wholeheartedly agree with you and think it should be done regardless. I guess in principle I object to just simply throwing things out and buying new stuff when older equipment could, with a bit of work, be perfectly serviceable. (I'm typing this on a crappy old 1998-vintage 633mhz Celery II as I'm broke too right now! But I do think it's fine for what I need at the moment)
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Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
Speaking as someone who was lectured in Nigeria on technology issues, all I can say is you are not seeing the big picture.
Every one of your laundry list of things that people need, are either predicated on, or at the very least made much more efficient by: The efficient and timely flow of information. In other words, IT.
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
"The mothers are going to walk right up to that computer and say, 'My children are dying, what can you do?' They're not going to sit there and like, browse eBay."
Why do you impose what you do on a computer to a third world mother?
Of course she's not going to browse eBay! But a worker at her local clinic may well discover the proper treatment to treat the childs diarrhea, a farmers cooperative may find the agricultural practices necessary to avoid a prevalent crop disease, etc.
I'm just a farm kid from the American midwest, but I lived 3 years in Africa and 4 years in South Asia and I can tell you from personal experience that lack of access to timely information is a major factor in attempts at development in the third world.
You may think of your computer as mainly recreational or as a convenience, but there are places in the world where access to the internet is a matter of life and death.
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.