Slashdot Mirror
The Sub-$100 Laptop?
Vollernurd writes "The BBC is carrying this article detailing Nick Negroponte's plans to deveop and distribute a sub-$100 notebook computer. It would be very basic and stripped down and be used in developing countries as a way of distributing school books and such. Interesting to see how they will cut costs. Yes, it does run Linux." You can read another slashdot story about this machine when it was discussed on Red Herring awhile ago.
It takes a network of laptops to raise a child.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Isn't it more a matter of Linux running on it? Well, at least you worked a Linux reference into your submission, just as I did in my comment.
Before any liberals are tempted to mod up one of my comments, a word of warning: I'm actually making fun of you.
Will it have CRT or what?
He said the child could use the laptop like a text book.
As in, fall asleep and drool on it?
A laptop keyboard isn't nearly as pillowesque as, say, the cushy, thick pages of a physics book.
The coolest voice ever.
So it will be a day or two's delay until you can grab one off eBay.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
I wonder if it is going to be something like the p-p-p-powerbook?
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
would this include Florida?
1. Distribute cheap Linux-based laptops to 2 billion indigent Asians
2. Extort $699 Linux license fee from each user
3. Profit!
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
From looking at my inbox, Nigeria is populated by thousands of princes worth tens of millions of dollars each.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Just ask for your cash discount.
You can always find *someone* to sell you a brand new notebook for $150-$200. And, yes, they're making a nice profit ($150-$200).
Lots of your inner cities already have such discount retail programs.
The machines come with Windows pre-installed. Most of them even come with user data pre-installed.
They'll even make same-day delivery (some will even let you order the particular make/model you want).
Ain't capitalism grand. [tt]
In a few years I think we will be seeing stories about the miraculous sub-$100 movie ticket
Some will even sell you the one you lost last week. I've seen the program before. It's great.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
The only sub-$100 notebook you'll ever need can be found right here.
"United Nations officials report a mysterious 50,000 percent increase in Ethiopian pr0n online...
What do I have to do to get some love around here?
Hiawatha Bray
Tech Reporter
Boston Globe
" Esp. if these people are going to be using it like a textbook, it's going to be much more memory intensive than CPU intensive....."
Reading text is not intensive at all. If it uses flash ram or battery backed up ram it will be many times faster than a hard drive.
I hope they put a nic on it. For a developing country it could really be a replacement for the phone. Heck it would almost make sense to go straight for VoIP and broadband from the start with these and skip phone lines. Small villages would only need one strand of fiber for all it's needs. If you are going to run copper anyway you might as run fiber. It would probably be cheaper. 802.11b with old primestar dishes or a locally made dish could be cheap microwave links. For where running lines is too expensive.
Each school could have a server for mass storage. It could really work well. If they can get the display cost down. That is what I see as the big question mark.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Given the right angle of tsunami, this could lead to a rather literal sort of 'net surfing...
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear