Intel Calls $100 Laptops Undesired Gadgets

dolphinlover writes "Craig Barrett, Intel Corporation chairman believes that the $100 laptop computers to be manufactured by the MIT media lab run by Nicholas Negroponte beginning in early 2006 are merely 'gadgets', making them unattractive to consumers who will be disappointed by their 'limited range of programs'." From the article: "Negroponte said at their launch in November the new machines would be sold to governments for schoolchildren at $100 a device but the general public would have to pay around $200 -- still much cheaper than the machines using Intel's chips. But Barrett said similar schemes in the past elsewhere in the world had failed and users would not be satisfied with the new machine's limited range of programs."

Comments

Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[ackthpt]

"Bah. Humbug!", Barrett was heard to say.

But Barrett said similar schemes in the past elsewhere in the world had failed and users would not be satisfied with the new machine's limited range of programs.

Sounds like the Itanium, so I guess he should know.

"It turns out what people are looking for is something is something that has the full functionality of a PC," he said. "Reprogrammable to run all the applications of a grown up PC... not dependent on servers in the sky to deliver content and capability to them, not dependent for hand cranks for power."

Yeah and PDA and programmable cell phones would never sell.

He said Intel was also expanding an IT teacher training scheme it says has already reached three million schoolteachers worldwide to Sri Lanka, and praised local projects aimed at producing computer literacy. Some 90 percent of Sri Lankans were literate but only 10 percent computer literate, he said.

I think they call that the Save 10% off your next purchase of an Intel PC, forever locking you into our architecture plan.

i wonder if powerhungry processors and the electric generators necessary to power them are the actual root of global warming.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[mymaxx]

Some 90 percent of Sri Lankans were literate but only 10 percent computer literate, he said. Class, today we will be learning about Intel...(projector displays blue man group ad for intel)...

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[paranode]

Yeah and PDA and programmable cell phones would never sell.

Not that he doesn't have a particular bias, but he's probably right in that these devices are not going to be laptops like most people think of them. Instead they're more like special-purpose hardware for special-purpose software, something like the PDA you mention only marketed as a laptop. That's not to say these won't have a place, because I do think they could very well serve the purpose for which they're being manufactured.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[ackthpt]

That's not to say these won't have a place, because I do think they could very well serve the purpose for which they're being manufactured.

And as a matter of course, you may find developers catering to these little boxes, whether its some way to add new software, games, or cater to whatever browser is on them.

Anything of which there are a million or more sounds like a market, no?

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[paranode]

Hey as long as it runs Linux, the children of the world can play Nethack. It brings a tear to my eye.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[paranode]

Yeah you'll just have to pause Tux Racer while you crank up the battery for a few minutes so you can play longer. ;)

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[Alien Being]

I disagree with that they'll only used for special purposes. So what if they have limited power? They're infinitely more powerful than what was available before.

When Tandy introduced the Model 100 with a z80 and about 32k ram, most people used them for the built in PDA, word processing and comms programs. But others found very unusual and creative ways to deploy them. In many ways, the fact that it was such a lightweight made it more valuable.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[jcr]

Unless, there's major resolution in that small space (say 1280x1024), that's unworkable today.

For you, maybe. For someone who's earning about about $10 a week, and has a family to support, it's a different story.

-jcr

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[Mercano]

So, the Apple eMate lives again?

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[dslbrian]

Unless, there's major resolution in that small space (say 1280x1024), that's unworkable today. I fired up an old P233 notebook, had a 14 inch screen, but had the same problem - the resolution was too small 800x600.

I don't know, at one point the world seemed to operate fine at 640x480 for quite a while. I seem to remember a number of games running at 320x200 (wasn't the original doom running at 320x200?) Sure many apps these days are geared toward large screens, but not everything requires it.

As far as the poor of the world not wanting one, I doubt that also. Its like saying poor people don't want bicycles (you have to crank those too), they want cars. Well of course they want cars, but when your in the position of having neither a car nor a bicycle, you'll take a bicycle if its offered.

Personally I wouldn't mind a crank if I could read a ebook on a 14hr trans-pacific flight (even on my PDA, the battery is gone in 4hrs).

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[timeOday]

Instead they're more like special-purpose hardware for special-purpose software, something like the PDA you mention only marketed as a laptop.

It sounds fairly functional to me: a 12 inch screen, 500 mhz, and apparently 1 GB of flash memory to start.

1 GB isn't a lot to us, but ten years ago I was running linux on a 90 mhz computer with 1 GB hard drive and 16 megs of RAM, and thought it was the greatest thing ever. It had X and gcc, which opens the door to practically everything else.

I just think some of these skeptics have no vision. From the article:

"Most schools in the developing world don't even have textbooks," says Allen Hammond of the World Resources Institute. "How the heck are they going to pay for Internet access?"

Well, if the kids have laptops they can stop spending tons of money on dead-tree textbooks, for one thing, and everybody can have all the up-to-date texts they want. There - one step closer to affording the Internet.

Besides, computers were already cool before the Internet came along.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[rolfwind]

As far as the poor of the world not wanting one, I doubt that also.

That wasn't really my point - I was wondering if a used notebook for $100 wouldn't deliver similiar performance that this device does but with a bigger more usuable screen. The only benefit is the handcrank, which capability could probably be added cheap (via mass production) as a second hand power adapters as most notebook have a universal power adapter AFAIK.

Notebook sales outpaced desktop sales this year for the first time. In 5-9 years, many owners might want to chuck them in favor of something better - so why not concentrate on an effort to get them donated? Tons of them sit in closets and they're still be usable.

My P233 is still usable (and a P500 notebook is definitely still usable) with a distro like Damn Small Linux. I would use it as a firewall, but I find a $75 router firewall is cheaper with the ethernet ports built in. I try it as a print server, but it doesn't have USB.

Thus, I'm willing to give it away to an agency that distributes it freely to those that need it, where ever (must look that up soon) in exchange for a small tax break. I'll probably feel the same in 8-10 years with the Powerbooks I have now - my time is too valuable to f*** with old hardware and the problems that arise doing half-assed workarounds to problems that more modern technology made simple. I imagine many people feel the same way.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[mmurphy000]

I was wondering if a used notebook for $100 wouldn't deliver similiar performance that this device does but with a bigger more usuable screen.

But finding 1,000,000 used notebooks may be a bigger challenge than building 1,000,000 new ones of these devices. Particularly when you factor in things like:

• Dealing with support specifications for 1,000 different varieties of used laptop
• Finding Linux drivers to work with 1,000 different varieties of used laptop
• Finding replacement batteries for 1,000 different varieties of used laptop

In an ideal world, only the first one would be an issue; in reality, all three are. While I'm all for recycling laptops for educational purposes, doing so on a massive scale could easily be a royal PITA.

The only benefit is the handcrank, which capability could probably be added cheap (via mass production) as a second hand power adapters as most notebook have a universal power adapter AFAIK.

You're kidding, right?

While there's probably fewer than 1,000 different power adapters out there, laptops do not have a universal power adapter (translated to mean: everybody uses the same one). Just look at the lineup of available third-party adapters from firms like Targus, then remember that they're only selling for recent models from a handful of manufacturers.

Again, in the ideal world, we'd've standardized on one DC input spec (voltage, available current, plug type) for laptops and all sorts of other things using power bricks; in reality, they're a mess.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[sco08y]

Sounds like the Itanium, so I guess he should know.

That was a completely different market and died because it was dog slow...

Yeah and PDA and programmable cell phones would never sell.

The PDA boondoggle put Palm under and killed the Newton... The main thing cell phones get from a server is ring tones.

I think they call that the Save 10% off your next purchase of an Intel PC, forever locking you into our architecture plan.

You're just jealous because by teaching computer literacy in Sri Lanka, the guys at Intel are doing more for the world in a week than you ever will in your lifetime.

i wonder if powerhungry processors and the electric generators necessary to power them are the actual root of global warming.

Since the root of global warming is heat from the sun, no. But to answer the question you were trying to ask, no, they don't contribute anything like cars do.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[dindi]

Well 800x600 is just fine for a lot of things...

in fact 3 years ago I had a Vaio (I hav it now but it is dead) with that resolution, and I was carrying it to do work, and everywhere ....

It was perfectly OK to have files with me, to run office aps, and a browser, and to connect to cisco and other appliances and run a term on it ...

it was also fairly smaller than my current toshiba, that I am not carrying anymore as i consider it too big, too bloat, too expensive, to throw on a car seat and then drive on dirt roads and alike ...

Actually I would be happy if someone sold a 800x600 laptop, with a small screen and I top it with what some might agree with :
I do not need a color screen ... put 32 or 64 shades of gray or even less, and make it cheap, so if i drop it in the server room and it breaks I do not have to pay $500 for a damn color LCD ...

1GB of flash is also killer anough for a lot of things .. OK my ipod has 4 :) but I also remember running linux in 94 on some beatup 386 with like 12megs of ram or so and a 650meg hdd (maybe even smaller) can't remember :)

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[dindi]

you are a good person ...

i would be probably selfish enough to build it into my car for my GPS, or to make a digital picture frame out of it .... or yep, if none of the above, i might give it away too ...

the problem is that i tend to collect dead and working hardware ... and if i did not move 3 times to a different country to live i would have like a garage full of old computer parts :)

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[zippthorne]

Why do we keep using that phrase, "computer literate" when what we mean is "computer savy?" If we let ths poor analogy to be codified in the language, it will become that much more entrenched. As if understanding computers opens anywhere near the possibilites that being able to read does.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[daddymac]

I used the built in 300 baud pulse dial modem and BASIC to make my first war dialler. Still have two of them sitting in the closet at home.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[daddymac]

But finding 1,000,000 used notebooks may be a bigger challenge than building 1,000,000 new ones

Particularly finding 1,000,000 100$ used notebooks with batteries that still hold a charge for more than 45 seconds.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[MartinB]

I was wondering if a used notebook for $100 wouldn't deliver similiar performance that this device does but with a bigger more usuable screen.

Those of us who have actually been following the design of this device know full well that a 'normal' notebook screen is no damned good, and this device will have quite a different display technology.

Reason? The device has to be usable outdoors, in full sunshine. Many of the target locations run classes outdoors. You ever tried using a lappy in strong sunshine?

The only benefit is the handcrank, which capability could probably be added cheap (via mass production) as a second hand power adapters as most notebook have a universal power adapter AFAIK.

Actually, for many users, power bricks are pointless, not (just) because of the non-standardisation of output power required, but for the non-standardisation and non-existence of power input. To build universal devices, they have to run in areas without mains power.

Frankly, your donated laptop would be of severely limited use to many developing areas that are truly without computing. Might be of some use in semi-developed areas, mind.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[WuphonsReach]

Hey as long as it runs Linux, the children of the world can play Nethack. It brings a tear to my eye.

You got modded "Funny", but as long as it can run Linux, I don't think there's going to be a shortage of software to run on it. And at $100 or so, that's less then what the original Palm devices sold for. Look how many applications were developed and written for the PalmOS.

As long as we (the public) can purchase these in lots of 1 or 2, I suspect the manufacturers won't be able to meet demand.

Barrett sounds like typical, Intel-style, sour-grapes. Something tells me that they're upset that these systems won't be based on over-priced Intel chips. (Or that, if they were involved, they got shunted to the side due to costs or licensing issues.)

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[Kugrian]

I run 800x600 in my main desktop (yeah - it's hella old, but I'm a poor shit). In the past five or so years, I've never gone over 1024x768 (mostly due to crappy computers/vid cards). I've never felt that disadvantaged.. movies look nice, games look nice (nice != performance of course).. everything is fine.

If I was in a position where I had a good enough computer to support higher resolutions then sure, I'd use it. Spending (at least) an average of 8 hours a day online though in the last five years though, I've never felt at a disadvantage. Why should anyone else who's never been used to anything different?

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[d34thm0nk3y]

Why do we keep using that phrase, "computer literate" when what we mean is "computer savy?" If we let ths poor analogy to be codified...

Explain what WWW, RAM, email, web, google, etc mean and tell me why it isn't an apt analogy.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[kesuki]

i wonder if powerhungry processors and the electric generators necessary to power them are the actual root of global warming.

wonder not, it has nothing to do with how much power is being used, but rather the _source_ of the power is fossil fuels. the earth used to be a lot hotter, in fact at one point in time the entire planet was covered with magma. global warming won't quite acheive that level, but we can easily reach jurassic era warmth... just a few more decades of reliance on good old coal and oil, and we'll have the co2 levels needed to bring the earth to a level of warmth not seen since dinosaurs ruled the earth.

There are alternatives, thankfully, we already have a fusion reactor with about 10 trillion times the energy reserves of every molecule of hyrdogen and helium on the surface of the earth. some people call it the 'sun.' and currently there are this things called 'algea' that are up to 65% efficient at converting that energy into hydrocarbons (in this case vegatable oil). keep in mind photovotaics are lucky to see efficiencies in the 30% range (and much more likely in the 10-15% range)
and keep in mind that the original design for the diesel engine ran on straight up vegatable oil. luckily, biodiesel conversion is a fairly low energy consumption process, so you only loose a few points of the efficiency of the plant in converting it into a readily usable form.

another thing to note is that vegitable oil can be readily stockpiled, as can biodiesel, whereas photovotaics leaves you completely at the mercy of available sunlight. algae will simply grow more slowly when there is insuficient sunlight. by simply growing 'more than demand' one can stockpile the oils and always have a stable source of electricity or fuel for automobiles.

30 years ago when everyone last thought we were running out of oil, there was heavy research into bio fuel alternatives, but by the time the research had concluded oil prices had fallen to much lower price figures. currently known reserves of oil that could be tapped have about 100 years worth of fuel at the current rate of consumption growth, but some of that oil will be vastly more expensive to exploit, and some of it is too high in sulpher to be usable without first processing it to remove the sulphur, which would drastically increase the cost. luckily biofuels (produced from less efficient soybeans etc, which have energy yeilds in the 1-3% range) are already profitable at the $2-3 a gallon range, so hopefully someone gets on the ball with mass producing algea oil to make bio fuel, because just looking at the raw energy yeild numbers, algea should be able to produce a lot more oil for a lot less cost than soybeans... of course since the obvious place to locate algea is out to sea the cost of ships, aquaculture nets, etc to harvest and grow it is higher, but the fact that one doesn't need to own the ocean to put the aquaculture nets out there, offsets that slightly...

the big problem is the lack of people with vision, to develop and gamble in the future of bio fuels... back in the 1980's people risked big putting money into these companies that were going to grow this asian plant here in the states called 'soybeans' and well, soybeans didn't pan out quite as good as the people hoped, but soybean oil is a lot cheaper than other oils because of all the people who put money into growing a plant that people thought had no market... and most of the biofuels we make come from common crops like corn and soybeans...

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[smittyoneeach]

A sixer o' Benjamins, bub
A groovy, wee hub
Emerge, and distcc:
Wi' Gentoo rock'n dis byotch,
We'll kick Sony BMG in the crotch,
An' prolly end up Gentree!
Burma Shave

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[Waffle Iron]

Unless, there's major resolution in that small space (say 1280x1024), that's unworkable today.

So dig out the old program and OS versions; they haven't gone away. These same programs were good enough to run most of the businesses in the US on 80x25 character text displays or 640x480x16-color graphics displays not too long ago. They should still be able to handle this job.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[bismark.a]

Was it 12 inches. Thats a lot to expand 1 million pixels to. See the specs in the faq page "Its current specifications are: 500MHz, 1GB, 1 Megapixel."
http://laptop.media.mit.edu/faq.html

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[timeOday]

Was it 12 inches. Thats a lot to expand 1 million pixels to.

Wha? My 17" CRT is running 1024x768, which is only 0.79 megapixels. Perfectly usable.

I don't know what they'll actually do, but the link I provided says "The target is $12 for a 12-inch display with near-zero power consumption."

Thanks for the link by the way.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[uvajed_ekil]

You are right: these won't be what "most people" (ie those of us who read slashdot or use computers on a daily basis for work, etc.) think of when they think laptop. However, these $100 machines are not intended for us, but instead for poor people who can't afford what we use and for folks in poor countries where trchnology is otherwise too expensive. Of course these won't replace WIntel mahcines, but that is not the targeted market. They don't currently have computers because they can't afford to shell-out a year's wages for one, not because they don't want them or have uses for them.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[mikiN]

Just knowing the definitions for some computer jargon doesn't magically teach you how to use one.

Just knowing the names for all the parts that make up a bicycle doesn't magically teach you how to ride (or fix) one.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

"As if understanding computers opens anywhere near the possibilites that being able to read does."

As a matter of fact, it does. Being able to read does you very little good if you have nothing to read.

Computers are the next step beyond literacy. The library can only be so big, and few of us have the luxury of having the time to conduct research the traditional way.

The Internet provides everyone with a "virtual library" that dwarves anything that we are likely to be able to access elsewhere.

Literacy dramatically expands the universe of information that we have access to. The Internet does exactly the same thing.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[dorkygeek]

So what if they have limited power? They're infinitely more powerful than what was available before.

Yes, and they have infinitely more power than NO computer at all, as the current situation with most third world schoolchildren is.

Hell, if I were one of them, I'd love to get such a device, because it is definitely better than nothing.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[rolfwind]

You're kidding, right?

While there's probably fewer than 1,000 different power adapters out there, laptops do not have a universal power adapter (translated to mean: everybody uses the same one). Just look at the lineup of available third-party adapters from firms like Targus, then remember that they're only selling for recent models from a handful of manufacturers.

Again, in the ideal world, we'd've standardized on one DC input spec (voltage, available current, plug type) for laptops and all sorts of other things using power bricks; in reality, they're a mess.

No, I'm not kidding.

Plug type: Well, I'm probably wrong, but I've seen only 1 type of input to the bricks, which allow for easy changing of 110V to several different 220V type plugs. As far as voltage, that could be adjusted by the brick, perhaps before delivery of said machine - I have a brick that adjusts to several different voltages depending on the plug, so I see no major hurdle there. Available current - well, you have me there - I'm no electrician or electrical engineer.

[quote]But finding 1,000,000 used notebooks may be a bigger challenge than building 1,000,000 new ones of these devices. Particularly when you factor in things like:

        * Dealing with support specifications for 1,000 different varieties of used laptop
        * Finding Linux drivers to work with 1,000 different varieties of used laptop
        * Finding replacement batteries for 1,000 different varieties of used laptop[/quote]

You know what? I don't disagree with you much here although I'd like to point out that Ubuntu set their goals on Breezy Badger (or was it future Dapper Drake?) to be as out-of-the-box compatible as possible with a broad range of notebooks.

Also, some of the notebooks might come with Windows preloaded AND the windows CD, so it should be relatively compatible with it's own software.

I see the problems in trouble shooting all varieties of notebooks, but I see them pretty much F-ing up any type of install as people are apt to do and then calling their kids to fix it for them;D

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[jhtrih]

Yes, a virtual library... with the erotica section you always imagined as a kid...

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[indifferent children]

The Internet provides everyone with a "virtual library" that dwarves anything that we are likely to be able to access elsewhere.

While 'dwarves' (rather than 'dwarfs') is the proper plural for the noun 'dwarf', the correct conjugation for the verb 'to dwarf' would have been 'dwarfs'.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[Eivind]

"literacy" is not a on/off term, like many people sometimes use it. The point of literacy is being able to take part (both as consumer and as producer) in the written world. A 6 year old that knows all the letters and can read a normal sentence with simple words in a minute is "literate" in the sense that he knows, in principle, what reading is, and how to do it.

He is however, still closed out from 95%+ of the written world. He is *functionally* illeterate on many (most) fields. As are most of us in *some* fields. Many 30 year olds are not, in practice, able to say read a n average EULA and explain in their own terms what it means, or answer simple questions of the type: "Does this EULA allow you to [x] ?" not even when it really is rather obvious and does not require having studied law to say so.

Similarily, it requires a certain knowledge to be able to take part in the computerworld. Taking part in different activities on different levels require different knowledge, and different amounts of knowledge. Not having that knowledge means there are things you can't do.

Now, that's not nessecarily always so bad. If those things you can't do are things that don't matter much to you, it's not much of a handicap. The problem only starts when there's things you'd have large benefits of being able to do, yet you are unable to do them.

My grandmother cannot submit a sensible bug-report for kicker (indeed even though she uses it every week she has no idea that kicker exists, nor what it is). That's not a problem, it doesn't matter to her. She is also unable to say pay her bills online. That *migth* be a problem, perhaps one day she'll care enough to want to learn how to. She *is* however able to read and send email, look at and save pictures of her grandchildren. This *does* matter to her, it was a real handicap for her up to the christmas 3 years ago when she finally got around to learning it.

I don't see what's so wrong about using computer-literacy in this sense.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[iamhassi]

I dunno... he kinda has a point... here's the specs of the "$100" laptop:
-- 500mhz
-- 7.5" screen, 470x350 color, 600x800 black & white
-- 128 MB of DRAM
-- 1 GB of flash memory (no hard drive)
-- Wireless networking support using an "Extended Range" 802.11b wireless chipset run at a low bitrate (2Mbps) to minimize power consumption.
-- Conventional alphanumeric keyboard localized for the country of use.
-- touchpad for mouse control and handwriting
-- two loudspeakers
-- 4 USB ports.
-- Power sources:
---- AC Cord that doubles as carrying strap
---- two C (R14) or D size rechargable batteries and a hand-crank generator
---- four C (LR14) or D (LR20) alkaline batteries.

PRICE = $200 retail (it's $100 to manufacture, you'll have to pay ~$200)

I got in on those HP ze200z series laptops at Walmart for $378 the day after thanksgiving. Dell and several other companies are offering $400 laptops.

For $378 + taxes I got:
-- 15.0" TFT XGA (1024x768) screen
-- AMD Sempron(TM) 2800+ (1.6GHz/256KB L2 Cache)
-- 256MB DDR SDRAM (1x256MB) (upgradeable to 1gB)
-- 40 gB hard drive
-- ATI RADEON(R) XPRESS 200M graphics processor -- DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive
-- windows xp home sp2
-- built-in altec lansing speakers
-- Integrated 56K Modem + 10/100 Ethernet LAN -- 54g(TM) 802.11b/g WLAN
-- 2 USB ports

And that's available now. Remember this "$100" laptop isnt avaiable yet, by the time it is we'll probably see many more $400 laptops, perhaps even lower.

I'm cheap, but even I'd spend the extra $200 to have a screen twice the size, 4x faster processor, CD-RW/DVD, etc etc etc. Even if I was given this for free I would use it very infrequently, even before I had the laptop I'd probably just wait until I got to a desktop.

Might be nice for people who have no access to a PC and really can't afford a few more dollars to buy a real laptop or who have little access to electricity like soldiers on a battlefield.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[Halfbaked Plan]

Yes, and the Apple eMate, in this era of widespread connectivity, and the vast amounts of information now available, might have been more successful.

Back when the eMate came out, digital infomation was mostly shuffled around on stuffy little CD-ROMs.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[Halfbaked Plan]

I'm cheap, but even I'd spend the extra $200 to have a screen twice the size, 4x faster processor, CD-RW/DVD, etc etc etc.

The taxpayers won't, and in fact the extra stuff you mention adds little to the value of the machine for educational purposes, and would even be a negative distraction to the pupils. In fact, a 1 MHz TRS-80 Model 100 with the added connectivity that this system gives would fill many of the needs that it meets.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[reanjr]

Dwarves is Tolkien.

Dwarfs is English

I have actually heard Tolkien historians mention that could be the cause of some concern with editors (who may be tempted to correct the spelling) except that "you do not edit Tolkien".

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[jp10558]

Not to mention Opera at least is pushing ERA which resizes web pages to whatever width screen you have. I would expect that FF will eventually add this, and there is a small chance that in a decade or so, MS will as well.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[mmurphy000]

Plug type: Well, I'm probably wrong, but I've seen only 1 type of input to the bricks, which allow for easy changing of 110V to several different 220V type plugs.

Sorry, I meant the plug into the back of the notebook. Some use a barrel, of varying diameters. Some use a modular-type plug, with variety shapes, sizes, and orientations. The best you can hope for is a "power-tip" type of system, where those plugs are interchangeable. I'm not convinced that developing one of those is that much simpler than developing a notebook.

As far as voltage, that could be adjusted by the brick, perhaps before delivery of said machine - I have a brick that adjusts to several different voltages depending on the plug, so I see no major hurdle there.

I tried those once, fried a piece of equipment in the process. I'll readily admit to being an idiot, so choose-your-own-voltage power bricks aren't idiot-proof... ;-)

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[rtb61]

You forget the situation where many purchasurs of far more expensive notebooks will also want more a disposable notebooks that can be taken to and used in areas of higher risk of theft or damage.

Schoola, be it from kindergarten to university are all areas of high risk or damage. A cheap notebook is ideal for that circumstance, the power and capability of modern computers are rarely required. This nonsence of not being powerfull enough ignores the reality of business in the past running on cumputers with cpus operating in the single digit megahertz range, hard drives of tens of megabytes with ram just barely into double digits.

Considering the number of school students on a global basis, it has the numbers to drive a market to fill it needs what ever they will be, a niche of millions.

Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge

[indifferent children]

I never knew that, thanks. It seems that 'dwarves' has passed into common usage, especially for mythological dwarves (rather than humans with dwarfism). In either case, the verb 'to dwarf' should not be conjugated as 'dwarves'.

Oh, what a surprise!

[Lord Byron II]

The CEO of the company that makes product A, when he finds out that product B will be sold for much less than his, says that product B is no good. What a surprise!

Next week: Bill Gates denounces its operating system.

Re:Oh, what a surprise!

[g0dsp33d]

You are so right that you almost forced me into being redundant.

I wonder why this is even on slashdot. I know there is a bias against microsoft, but don't tell me slashdot is rooting for AMD now too?

Re:Oh, what a surprise!

[ackthpt]

The CEO of the company that makes product A, when he finds out that product B will be sold for much less than his, says that product B is no good. What a surprise!

I'm surprised all the battery makers haven't jumped on the badwagon, saying hand crank is no way to run anything and solar power is impractical, now if you'll just look at these lovely Duracells...

Re:Oh, what a surprise!

[Nethead]

It's a Zonk article. What did you expect?

Re:Oh, what a surprise!

[Ice Wewe]

This coming from the guy that will have no problem with sales. (Hey intel, take a hint, you don't win every battle you set out to. You're gonna be making Mac chips for crying out loud, quite being such a pain over this silly project. I'm surprised that you actually think people in North America are gonna give a flip about wether it's intel or AMD. Heck, all they care is that they're getting a $200 laptop! Next week: Steve Jobs offers OSX to the project, again.

Re:Oh, what a surprise!

[timster]

Dude, anti-Intel stories have been big on Slashdot for a LONG time.

Re:Oh, what a surprise!

[paranode]

I'm surprised that you actually think people in North America are gonna give a flip about wether it's intel or AMD. Heck, all they care is that they're getting a $200 laptop!

Well, until they see that the blue "e" is missing and they ask why "the Internet" isn't installed.

Re:Oh, what a surprise!

[burndive]

Name one laptop that operates off of disposable batteries.

Didn't think so. Now, do you think these laptops operate by constant cranking, or that they have some sort of mechanism to store energy for later use? What are those called again?

Re:Oh, what a surprise!

[zippthorne]

springs!

well at least baygen freeplay did that once.

Re:Oh, what a surprise!

[tfinniga]

Actually, the laptops are designed to work with either rechargable or disposable D-cells. D-cells were chosen because they're available pretty much anywhere. The crank would simply recharge the batteries.

Re:Oh, what a surprise!

[Samurai Crow]

IIRC They support internet through a wireless network. They will still depend on a server to connect them though.

Re:Oh, what a surprise!

[mikiN]

The Radio Shack's TRS-80 Model 100.

date: Funny argument specified
$ _

IBM said nobody would want a PC

[stankulp]

Deja vu all over again.

Re:IBM said nobody would want a PC

[skoryky]

Hmm, my memory is spotty. Did IBM say that? I know in 1977 Ken Olson, Digital Equipment Corporation founder, said "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." It also seems that IBM released a first attempt at a PC in 1975 (the IBM 5100) after two years of development.

Re:IBM said nobody would want a PC

[ChrisGilliard]

This is quite different that IBM saying no one would want a PC. Intel's point is that no one is going to want this device. I'm not sure he's right, but I don't think anyone is proposing that this device will replace the PC. I'll be honest with you, I'm not going to throw out my Toshiba and get one of these things. It's possible that there will be a market for these things at the low end, but they way they want to distribute them is flawed. They are trying to sell to governments and have them distribute. This really sounds like an experiment in Socialism. Why not just sell them to people who cannot afford a computer? I guess I'm just missing the whole sell to government idea of it. Also, these poorer countries tend to have a lot of corruption, so I wouldn't be surprised if the govt. officials end up selling the laptops at their market value anyways.

Re:IBM said nobody would want a PC

[justsomebody]

I'm not sure he's right

Well, I'm sure he's not right:)

In my case. A newsflash for Craig Barrett, Intel Corporation chairman.

I've been dissapointed with Intels buggy hardware too long and any alternative would be acceptable. Unfortunately for MIT, AMD was a solution in my case, and maybe hopefully Cell in the future.

Re:IBM said nobody would want a PC

[hylander_sb]

Yeah, but they were actually making them when they said that. It was just the rationale for licensing the technology to other manufacturer. Intel is just being a sourpuss.

Re:IBM said nobody would want a PC

[ccp]

I'll be honest with you, I'm not going to throw out my Toshiba and get one of these things.

Well, I own no Toshiba, and I'm going to run to get one, or rather two (for the wife) of these thingies. I even have a couple of friendly schoolkids to do the deed for me.

And not only because I'm a cheap bastard, but we have a house in the mountains, and it would be great to do a little work while on vacation.

Hurry up, Negroponte! We're waiting!

Cheers,

Re:IBM said nobody would want a PC

[ChrisGilliard]

I think you'd be better off waiting for Michael Dell to get you a $100 laptop. The prices of laptops have been dropping fast. These things are not likely to ship anytime soon due to the fact that there's a big difference between designing a $100 laptop and mass producing 100 million of them. If this guy can pull it off great. I will be impressed.

Re:IBM said nobody would want a PC

[ccp]

I think you'd be better off waiting for Michael Dell to get you a $100 laptop.

Go, Michael, go???

Somehow, it doesn't sound right.

Cheers,

Re:IBM said nobody would want a PC

[HAWAT.THUFIR]

If they're on the open then anyone can buy them. The whole point is to discriminate. The intended market wouldn't normally buy a computer. Hence, the distribution has to be controlled.

If the distribution isn't controlled then they'll end up everywhere but the intended market. Now, you might argue that the benefits of an open market outweigh the negatives, but that's beside the point: these devices are intended for a very specific market.

-Thufir

Later he was overheard saying..

[Mean_Nishka]

640K ought to be enough for everybody!

Re:Later he was overheard saying..

[Ars Dilbert]

Bill Gates never said that. And no one at Intel ever said that. It is a myth. The 640 KB barrier was a limitation of the 20 bit addressing space of the old 8086/8088 processors and had nothing to do with DOS or MS. (Well, the limit was 1024 KB but the upper 384 KB were used for BASIC ROM, BIOS shadow, video memory and other things.)

Re:Later he was overheard saying..

[Anne Thwacks]

Bill Gates never said that.

That is what you say. However, there was an mpeg of him saying it readily available from most OS/2 BBSes. I am sure someone has a copy.

Don't forget, when he said that, no one, not even Bill, could afford 640k. Early PCs shipped with 64k.

Before the PC, we bought computers with 4k! (Yeah, OK, that was words, because bytes were not invented, so 8K really.) I dont mean home computers, I mean machines like the PDP8, DG Nova, TI 990, HP 1000 and their many competitors. Really - the standard programming environment was "4k Fortran". AND the software that ran on those machines could PAY FOR THE MACHINE IN A WEEK!

Slightly later than the above senario (approx 1980), My mother (also a programmer) bought a house with 8 bedrooms in Islington (Where Tony Blair lives) for the same money my employers paid for a PDP11/60 with 1/2 MB of RAM, and two 40MB disk drives. (About the same power as a 386, but still able to support 12 users well.)

Re:Later he was overheard saying..

[ClosedSource]

Whether he actually said it or not is not the point. The point is that he didn't make the decision. As the grandfather post said, it was the direct result of the design of the 8088.

Re:Later he was overheard saying..

[frank_adrian314159]

PDP11/60 with 1/2 MB of RAM, and two 40MB disk drives. (About the same power as a 386, but still able to support 12 users well.)

Yeah, but was it running RSTS/E, RSX-11M, or UNIX? I know it wasn't running RT-11, 'cause then it could only be supporting one user.

Good News

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel wouldn't make a hitch if it wouldn't feel at least a bit threatened by this gadget. So this might be good news for MIT people.

Re:Good News

[heinousjay]

Do you really see Intel being pushed out of PCs by something that's not even close to the capability of their products?

To recast the question - do you really see these laptops as competing with Intel? I didn't get that sense from the article at all - it was more like Intel saying "Go ahead, forge the market, and if there's anything there, we'll come in later." Pretty smart business, if you ask me.

Re:Good News

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really see Intel being pushed out of PCs by something that's not even close to the capability of their products?

No. You misunderstood my post. I don't see Intel being pushed out of PCs. And I never said that it would happen. What I meant is simply that this gadged has a potential of hurting Intel's bottom line so much that it made Intel react. How much is that? I don't know. Hopefully enough to make MIT people happy.

Re:Good News

[heinousjay]

Yeah, I guess I was replying to a sort of roll-up of a lot of posts.

Still, I can't see this hurting Intel in any way. These markets don't overlap at all.

Re:Good News

[ccp]

Do you really see Intel being pushed out of PCs by something that's not even close to the capability of their products?

No.

To recast the question - do you really see these laptops as competing with Intel?

Yes.

I didn't get that sense from the article at all - it was more like Intel saying "Go ahead, forge the market, and if there's anything there, we'll come in later."

What Intel said doesn't matter. When corporations talk, they do PR, disinformation, FUD or just plain old lies.
What was interesting was that they felt the need to say anything at all.
This fact speaks volumes.

If I'm logged in, I'm trolling.

That I can believe. ;>)

Cheers,

Jealousy

[hug_the_penguin]

They're clearly jealous AMD snatched the opportunity to sponsor this project from under their noses when intel weren't even bothered. Since when was anyone expecting intel to say `the product with our competitor's chips in is better`? Intel's honeymoon is over, they're going to really have to work to get people to buy their products when this laptop is powerful enough for 90% of users.

Re:Jealousy

[abscondment]

I don't know if it's so much that AMD snatched the opportunity, but that their lower power chips are much better suited for cheap overall cost of production.

Re:Jealousy

[hug_the_penguin]

Last I checked, AMD were on the whole more power-hungry than intels, they put out more heat for sure. I suppose given that they're using old chips, however with lower power requirements and heat output, this would become something of a non-issue with the levels involved.

Re:Jealousy

[leathered]

Last I checked, AMD were on the whole more power-hungry than intels

When was the last time you checked, 5 years ago?

Re:Jealousy

[hug_the_penguin]

No. AMDs have traditionally been more power-hungry and heat-generating, they payoff for the the performance as far as I can gather. I personally would happily take that extra for the performance gain, but I see this as just being intel getting greedy for more money that made them lose out.

Re:Jealousy

[SaDan]

You're not quite up to date with your information, then. AMD currently produces processors for desktops and servers that require significantly less power and generate significantly less heat than Intel's competing processors.

Laptops are give and take, depending on the core and speeds. I used to own a Sony VAIO laptop that had been upgraded with a 25W Athlon XP-M, and it had decent battery life and never ran hot. I hear some of the newer mobile Athlon64 processors are down to 29W or less, which isn't too shabby.

Traditionally, AMD used to produce a lot of heat, but they've never required significantly more power than a comparable Intel processor. This changed about two years ago.

Re:Jealousy

[Rakishi]

You still haven't looked at it recently, recently being the last year or two. Things change, when someone rebuts your comment you may wish to make sure they haven't change since last time you checked before making another mistake.

The Prescott (newest P4) is a monster (nuclear reactor is an apt term), the older P4s are better but not by much. The Athlon 64 is cooler (as in heat production), faster and (if you don't go dual core) cheaper. The Pentium M used to beat everything in terms of performance/watt, however the mobile amd (whatever it is) seems to be catching up/caught up. Intel is keeping the P-M off desktops (except Apple ones, they're not stupid) and trying to push the P-4 despite its horrendous heat production and lackluster performance. And that is the last two years in computing more or less (I probably missed some things and made a few mistakes but it's a slashdot comment so who cares).

Re:Jealousy

[mrokkam]

Actually, in the last couple of models, AMD has been making huge strides in reducing the heat dissipation of their models, beating intel pretty often. Wikipedia has an article showing some of the heat dissipation details..: Wikipedia.
But then again, given that the specs of the notebook show it to be a 500 MHz machine, it is true that the Intel chips of that time were more thermally efficient as show by these websites: Intel CPU thermal ratings and some others including many AMD cores. But then again, we have the AMD Geode that consumes max of 4 watts at 500 Mhz. So... it's really something that AMD is just as competent at I presume.

Re:Jealousy

[heinousjay]

If you're going to talk about mobile chips, the Pentium M far outclasses any competitive chip on power consumption, and particularly hard on power per watt. Hell, the Yonah performs close to AMD's desktop chips clocked at the same rate, and they consume less power under full load than the AMD consumes idling. How's that for a differential?

Re:Jealousy

[Anne Thwacks]

There is just no way they will be using chips made with an old process. It s FAR cheaper to use a newer process.

The newer processes make smaller chips, and hence you get more per wafer. No foundry is going to crank up an old process for one customer.

If the chip is not one in current volume production, it must still use current technology to be economic.

Re:Jealousy

[Rakishi]

...you're using a comparison of a 65nm Processor optimized for low pwoer consumption with dual cores against a desktop 90nm processor not optimized for low power consumption...wow. Right now the mobile AMDs are almost at Intel's levels, and since the Yonah is Intel's next gen we will have to wait and see. Also since Intel seems to just love the P-4 for desktops we probably won't see Yonah on any except Apple's.

Re:Jealousy

[whorush]

the MT-40 turion is 2.2ghz at less than 25W
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInforma tion/0,,30_118_12651_12658,00.html

compare that with intel's P-Ms which go up to 27W
http://processorfinder.intel.com/

then factor in that the turion wattage includes the very hot memory controller and the PM doesn't, since its on-die for amd chips but on the chipset for intel chips.

therefore amd has the power/heat lead in laptops. they've had it in everything else for a while now.

Re:Jealousy

[SaDan]

How much are those Yonah's going for these days? Where can I get one?

Intel is just...

[tradiuz]

Intel is just afraid that people will come to realise that you dont need a $500+ processor to surf the web, and you can get by just fine with 4 year old technology.

Re:Intel is just...

[EiZei]

Oh don't worry, crappy designers who care more about looks than function and macromedia are doing everything to prevent such anti-capitalist ideas.

Re:Intel is just...

[mlg9000]

Intel is just afraid that people will come to realise that you dont need a $500+ processor to surf the web, and you can get by just fine with 4 year old technology.

Yeah but can you browse the web AND run all your spyware at the same time with a 4 year old processor? That's what your average home user does.

Re:Intel is just...

[mordejai]

you dont need a $500+ processor to surf the web, and you can get by just fine with 4 year old technology

4 year old technology to surf the web only?
I've made thousands this year programming ASP.NET on a Pentium III/450 from 1999.

It was also good enough to watch/write/encode DVD/DivX, play any game created before 2001, and even run VMware to test strange user setups.

Re:Intel is just...

[jayhawk88]

That's wonderful, but maybe you aren't aware of the fact that computer response time is typically measured in seconds now, not hours.

/I keed

Re:Intel is just...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thankfully you're getting paid by the hour.

Re:Intel is just...

[laffer1]

Thats very true. My dad is still using a Pentium 166 w/ mmx based laptop with windows ME to use AOL. Sure he complains its slow and asked me for a new computer for christmas (asshole), but he can still get his email and look at porn.

The only thing you mentioned that would be very rough is the video encoding. You notice the speed difference on newer hardware when encoding video.

People think i'm crazy for hanging on to a 10 year old sparc too. Its still got its uses. Only thing I would caution you on is to keep good backups. You never know when an older hard drive will die on you.

Most people don't need current hardware. Now if you're a heavy gamer it matters. My mother's using a 733mhz celeron and its working great for her. My aunt has a 300mhz amd k6-2 still in use. Reading email and surfing don't require much power. They all use windows. Imagine what you can do with a linux or bsd box on that hardware?

People like yourself hold open and closed source OS vendors in check. They can't write software that won't run at all on a few year old hardware. I mention open source because i've used recent versions of gnome!

Re:Intel is just...

[uvajed_ekil]

> Yeah but can you browse the web AND run all your spyware at the same time with

> a 4 year old processor? That's what your average home user does.

Yes, the system I use for email, downloading and browsing, like right now, is a 5+ year-old PIII-800. With 512MB RAM it is more than sufficient for everyday use, like word processing, web browsing, running spyware, countering the spyware and viruses with firewalls, spyware detection and antivirus software, etc. I can't play Quake 5, Final Fantasy XXX, or The Sims: You're Addicted to Crappy Games on this system, but it is good for almost everything else, even burning DVDs if little editing is involved. Hell, even my MD K6-200 with 128MB ran Mandrake and that internet thing okay until I spilled coffee into it.

Re:Intel is just...

[Reservoir Penguin]

Does asp.net really requre so much hardware??? What a bloated piece o0f m$ crap.

Undesired if you used a Pentium 4

[GeoffSmith1981]

Maybe Intel is just jealous because to hand-crank power a Pentium 4 laptop would take you a few hours.

Re:Undesired if you used a Pentium 4

[Belseth]

Maybe Intel is just jealous because to hand-crank power a Pentium 4 laptop would take you a few hours.

I just realized ME must have been designed to work with a handcrank. It all finally makes sense. Maybe for once Gates was being farsighted. Just wait, they'll come out with a handcrankable version of XP using the ME core.

Re:Undesired if you used a Pentium 4

[bawdymonkey]

Maybe Intel is just jealous because to hand-crank power a Pentium 4 laptop would take you a few hours.

And if it ran Windows, a few hours of cranking wouldn't even get you enough running time to boot up.

*hides from Windows zealots.....

...wait, this is Slashdot. I'm safe from them here :)

Re:Undesired if you used a Pentium 4

[nutshell42]

OTOH you could cook dinner on it while reading /.

missing the point

[joe 155]

I thought the whole point of these laptops was for people in far poorer countries who could not possibly hope to afford anything remotely as good as these anyway... I can hardly see people living in Brazilean shanty-towns saying "this laptop can't hash files fast enough"... Besides I'd buy one just because they sound impossible to destroy and it would be good to take to uni and have kicking around in my bag; I'd only need notepad anyway.

Re:missing the point

[Relic of the Future]

Notepad? These puppies are wireless; all you need is ssh. Heck, it's all I use on my 5-year-old laptop.

Re:missing the point

[commodoresloat]

He meant the paper notepad in his backpack that he uses to do any real work with... and it doesn't really come with wine but I think you'll find your thoughts are much more inspired after a glass or two.

Re:missing the point

[JourneyExpertApe]

I thought the whole point of these laptops was for people in far poorer countries who could not possibly hope to afford anything remotely as good as these anyway...

If they're selling them to governments in poor countries for $100 and to consumers for $200, then obviously they can't be manufactured for $100. Apparently, that MIT guy is counting on these things being subsidised by consumers in more affluent countries. So if consumers don't like 'em, then they won't continue to be produced.

Re:missing the point

[uncreativ]

I would think $100 is a kind of break even for MIT labs due to the altruistic goals of providing cheap computing resources to poorer countries and not a price set for the purpose of making much money. If the goal were to make a bunch of money, companies like Dell, HP, etc would be trying to get in on the game.

Re:missing the point

[crazyphilman]

These things are so cool. You can wind 'em up, they're practically indestructible, they run Linux (so I can use them to do my geekish techie stuff just fine)... I wonder if they'll run Netbeans? Or at least Mono...

If they get made available at 200 bucks each, I'm buying five of 'em. I'll feel good about it, too -- that thousand bucks will subsidize five laptops for the third world (each laptop you buy in the 1st world subsidizes one in the third).

Good deal all around, donch'a think? :)

Re:missing the point

[kasparov]

If I remember correctly, they plan on selling them to countries in lots of a million. I'm sure with such large lots, they will be able to produce them pretty cheaply. Consumers won't be buying in lots that are quite that big...

I'll buy one.

[MikeFM]

If they're as good as they sound then I'd buy one. I think laptops today are rather stupid. To slow to do anything demanding power and yet hot, noisy, and power hungry. I'd rather have something light, quiet, with a long battery life that does the basics I need - web, email, im, ssh, light word processing, and light image manipulation. I'll be surprised if the $100 laptop can't handle those and more.

Re:I'll buy one.

[Nethead]

My BlackBerry fits most of that and was only $100 with a very reasonable plan.

Re:I'll buy one.

[InodoroPereyra]

Me too. You make a good point. Besides, the people behind the project should seriously consider sell these babies at a premium to people in developed markets. Many people will buy one as a way to partially subsidize the production. Plus you get a pretty useful gadget.

Hell, I live in an expensive area of the US. I spend over a 100 bucks anytime I go to the supermarket and pick up a few things for next week for me and my family.

Re:I'll buy one.

[ZippyKitty]

I can see the market for it too. I use my home machine for nethack, email, web surfing, wordprocessing, IMing my family and, when I'm good, keeping the budget up todate. This is not heavy duty computing. (At work I need a heavy duty machine - but work pays for that).

And I use my home computer more than most people I know. My family doesn't need high end functionality, just useability (where is chat, email, and the web browser?). And if programmers concentrated on the functionality and memory issues of these machines, they should be more than powerful enough for most applications that most people care about.

There is a lot of software bloat that is simply not desired by most people. This is particularly true, if you end up using your computer as a communication tool, instead of a data processor and many people do.

Re:I'll buy one.

[humina]

You should be able to buy one for $200, and that money will be used to subsidize the laptops going to the developing countries.

Re:I'll buy one.

[mumblestheclown]

I think laptops today are rather stupid. To slow to do anything demanding power and yet hot, noisy, and power hungry.

1993 called and wanted its "+5, insightful" laptop comment back.

/ and also my hip language.

Re:I'll buy one.

[An Onerous Coward]

Hear hear!

I needed to wait a couple of hours for my girlfriend last night, so I took her laptop so I could do a bit of homework while I waited. I didn't take the power cable, because I thought "a couple of hours is all I need".

The bloody thing went from full to empty in about forty-five minutes.

I would so much have preferred to have one of these little babies. You run out of batteries? No problem, just turn the crank a bit. "All around the cobblers bench, the monkey chased the weasel..." You're ready to go again.

If they really are selling them for $200 to the general public, I want I want I want. I get something I can carry to class and take notes on, some kid in Bangladesh gets something he can carry to class and take notes on, and that sexy lime green color makes both of us the envy of our peers.

Re:I'll buy one.

[Arhat]

So will I. Actually, I'll buy four. As a father of four kids of different age ranges, this sounds ideal. Fast enough to surf and IM (which is what my kids do mostly anyway) and cheap enough that I can get four at the price of one mid range Dell or custom built machine. And it runs linux so there are fewer security issues to deal with.

Barrett is missing a huge secondary audience. Third world kids can use them. And American middle class parents can get a cheap laptop for each of their kids. Sign me up.

Re:I'll buy one.

[MikeFM]

I was actually thinking of trying Nokia's little palm computer that runs Linux. I'll have to wait until I see one. I don't want to cramped of a keyboard or screen. The BlackBerry's seem a bit to small in those areas (last time I looked).

Re:I'll buy one.

[MikeFM]

I'm especially interested in the 2.0 version they mention that they want to use an electronic ink display. Being able to read the screen in direct sunlight and with that extremely low energy use would be fantastic.

Re:I'll buy one.

[MikeFM]

These would be good little machines for running web-based apps especially. If it can run Firefox it can do everything most people will need. Most people already use web-based mail. Web-based IM, word processing, etc are going to be becoming popular soon I think. Making this machine good for the majority that aren't power users or gamers or at least aren't when mobile.

Re:I'll buy one.

[MikeFM]

The problem is that there has been little innovation in laptops in the past decade. ;)

Like - why does dropping a few drops of water in the keyboard still DESTROY your laptop? We let them sell this crap to us? Keyboard and mousing should be sealed off from the rest of the laptop and easily replaced. I'm waiting for them to figure out that they can make dockable keyboard and mouse that can be used normally while docked or can easily be popped loose to sit on your lap (or desk, or whatever) while you work.

And why can my laptop be used to fry an egg? There is no way you could sit with it on your lap for very long and if you could you couldn't really see the screen comfortably. Of course, to run Windows, I guess they can't cut back on the hardware specs to much. Linux runs just fine on my old 233Mhz laptop with 128MB of RAM but I hate to think how slow XP would be on that. Vista sounds even worse. Transparency and other useless visual stuff so we'll be lucky if we don't need a water cooled GPU in our laptops.

Re:I'll buy one.

[MikeFM]

My laptop only gets about an hour but it's even less than that if you use the wifi. Pitiful. You have to lug around the power cord for it. I even had to get a car adapter so for the few minutes I use it in the car it won't go dead.

To bad it isn't kinetic like those flashlights you shake. Whenever you get peeved and shake the computer it'd recharge.

Re:I'll buy one.

[MikeFM]

At Walmart you can find some IM/email specific machines for about $50 but I think these $100 laptops blow them away since they offer nicer keyboards, screens, and real wireless instead of some weird proprietary scheme. Maybe your highschool or college student might need something more powerful but up through junior high these would be perfect. It'd be pretty good for my parents too. They don't use their computer for much more than email and web and they always have spyware and viruses.

limited range of programs

[7macaw]

You can only get finite-sized memory for $200 and therefore the range of programs is limited. For $2000 the amount of memory you get is... oh wait

Re:limited range of programs

[Marxist Hacker 42]

If it's got web, word processing, e-mail, spreadsheet, and minesweeper then it will have more than most of my users ever bother with.

Duh, of course...

[metlin]

Of course, Intel is going to say that.

Quite obviously, when you are going to be selling an entire computer at the price of their processors and motherboards, they're going to be pissed.

Sure, I could use a dual athlon if I'm running the latest game or doing some serious number crunching - but for a user in an developing country with limited funds, the choice is definitely beneficial.

Today's computers have a lot of crap that most users don't use - but they have them anyway. The idea of a computer is to be a tool - give those people a simple, straightforward system that a user can truly use in doing their job, and you'd have gone far.

Of course, given the choice, companies like Intel would sell a $500 processor to a poor man who'd have no use for it. But that doesn't mean the idea itself is flawed. If anything, it's a nice way to help bring technology to the needy, and give them a chance.

I've seen the use of some of these technologies (MIT's Michael Best does some work on e-development -- they've some really nice work) - and they truly are helpful. Just because it doesn't help Intel's bottom penny doesn't mean it's useless. Given time, I'm fairly certain that it would be proven so.

Re:Duh, of course...

[metlin]

Yeah, I noticed that myself - I just wanted to provide an example of powerful processing power. And since I use a dual athlon, I used that as an example.

Oh really?

[iibbmm]

$200 for a laptop that I could slip into my backpack on a camping trip and not worry about battery life since I can hand crank it? Put me down for one. It would be perfect for logging camping trips, vacation abroad, ebooks on a plane, etc etc. So what if it's not the most powerfull thing in the world. Open source and the very nature of the product SCREAM oodles of programs and potential. I'm reminded why I haven't found myself removing the shrinkwrap from an intel box lately.

Re:Oh really?

[Shadow Wrought]

Exactly. I think there will be a much larger market for these than people suspect. It'll probably be the first laptop sold at REI.

Re:Oh really?

[YrWrstNtmr]

$200 for a laptop that I could slip into my backpack on a camping trip...

It's called a PDA. Smaller, lighter, and probably does everything this laptop could do. Get a solar battery charger, and no worries about power.

Re:Oh really?

[iibbmm]

I have a PDA, it even has a built in thumbpad keyboard. I still think I'd prefer the laptop. I'd rather have a handcrank than solar. It's faster, it works 24/7 and in inclimate weather, and it's integrated. The laptop has a larger keyboard, larger screen, and is still not too big to be a burden.

Re:Oh really?

[Anonymous Coward]

PDA... too small of screen, too expensive (especially with a solar battery charger), more fragile, too awkward or slow input, and some probably have exposed screens (I haven't looked at PDA's so dunno about that last one).

Even disregarding that last one, I'll pass and take the laptop.

Re:Oh really?

[deimtee]

I agree on the handcrank. The times when hiking that you are going to most use this are when you are stuck in a tent and it's pissing down rain outside. Solar won't do you much good then.

Hmm. What's the range on the wireless? I foresee ad-hoc gaming and chat networks in campgrounds.

I'd buy it for $200.

[MsGeek]

It might be underpowered for a lappie but it's not half bad for a PDA. And it runs Linux! But the hand-crank thing is what really interests me. No more looking for an outlet when your battery is running low! 10 minutes of elbow grease and you're back surfing again. I'd pay for a mod like that for my ThinkPad 600x or my iBook.

This is a reversal...the $200 price to the General First-World Public. Negroponte was talking about not even offering this to developed countries. I guess he knows that there is a secondary "tinkerers" market for this device.

Re:I'd buy it for $200.

[7macaw]

10 minutes of elbow grease and you're back surfing again

What's the use surfing with hands tired!

Re:I'd buy it for $200.

[An Onerous Coward]

Selling to the public is a brilliant idea. First, it will increase the volume manufactured, and thereby decrease the cost per item. Second, it provides the manufacturers with more feedback about how it works under a wide variety of conditions. Finally, combining this with the open-sourcishness of the software, you end up with a lot more people doing development work for it, greatly expanding the usefulness of the laptops themselves.

That Depends...

[DigitalRaptor]

Well, that all depends on whether or not it will run linux...

Because if it does, then any application can be added. If they design it with hacking in mind, then there will be a myriad of uses for them, and economies of scale will drive the cost down, and the value up.

Re:That Depends...

[Nethead]

Fsck linux. You can be sure that NetBSD will run on it, some how, some way.

Re:That Depends...

[LeneJ]

It runs Fedora

The real acid test will be Henrico, VA

[dubbayu_d_40]

If anyone gets kicked in the balls over one, then these laptops are gold.

Circumstantial

[biocute]

I think technical demand is circumstantial, and I'm sure poor students/families wouldn't mind a less powerful computer as long as they have a computer to use.

Intel is judging this product from a commercial point of view, but what MIT is more about benefiting others than making a profit.

Undesired by Intel

[happyfrogcow]

But anyway... If I crank the handcrank faster, can I overclock it to give me more PPS in POV-Ray?

Looking back...

[Chris Bradshaw]

Wouldn't this be a great opportunity/enhancment for programs such as this (featured earlier this week)

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/05/191205 &from=rss

My Wife

[GmAz]

My wife would want one since all she does is type her book on it. Plus in 3rd world countries, you can either have this computer or...nothing. Hmmm, me thinks Intel is just pissed because they didn't think of it first and don't have intel chips in it. They know these things will sell real well in 3rd world countries and make nothing off it.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[tomstdenis]

What's more useful? A billion dollars to immigrate the poor or a billion dollars to educate the poor?

You can give them all the food in the world but if you don't educate them what's te point?

You know "give a man a fish, feed for a day, teach a man to fish..." which is odd because the USA is the largest pro-jesus country in the world and they totally ignore the positive teachings. They're all cool with frying people on an electric chair. I mean that's justice. But teach some wetback how to add or multiply and you're just a socialist commie freak and should be smited...

Tom

What people want

[GroeFaZ]

FTA:
"It turns out what people are looking for is something is something that has the full functionality of a PC," he said. "Reprogrammable to run all the applications of a grown up PC... not dependent on servers in the sky to deliver content and capability to them, not dependent for[sic] hand cranks for power"

Uhm, as opposed to be dependant on a power grid infrastructure, centralized power plants, money to pay for the power, and whatnot? Truly an ugly piece of competition diss.

For the hand crank alone

[Maxo-Texas]

I'd buy it today for $100.
I don't even need to think much about it at $200.

I'm drooling over this computer.

Sure, it won't do what my 700 dollar p4 3.0 with 600 gigs & a 6800OC card will but it is useful in several cases where my p4 isn't.

Look into my eyes! You are getting sleepy...

[Mike Buddha]

You will not be satisfied with an economical competetitor.
You will not be satisfied with an economical competetitor.

You must pay $3600 for the latest and greatest Dell XPS laptop or you will never be happy.

Intel is your ONLY friend.
Intel is your ONLY friend.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Re:Look into my eyes! You are getting sleepy...

[sharkey]

Remember: At Intel, quality is job 0.999999998.

stupid for whom?

[John Nowak]

Personally I'd love to have an 8 pound brick of a laptop. I take mine with me every day, and I need to be able to handle video editing, 3D rendering, audio synthesis, etc, while at school (Parsons School of Design). My Powerbook is fast enough, for now, but I'd take something a bit bigger with twice the power if I could. When half of your heavy computing needs to happen outside of your home, such laptops are hardly stupid.

Re:stupid for whom?

[MikeFM]

They're stupid because they never have a real PC's power and have a lot of downsides. They really need to create two lines of laptops.. ultra lights for casual use and power machines (with upgradable graphics, ram, etc) for users that need the power. I don't like being stuck somewhere in the middle where I have to lug a big heavy block that still can't quite do what I want. It'd be awesome if you could easily upgrade the graphics processor of your laptop. Of course with mini-itx (and nano-itx?) machines your PC is almost as small as your laptop a lot of the time but is still expandable. Slap a battery on there and you have a powerful, if slightly bulky, portable machine.

Re:stupid for whom?

[John Nowak]

Yes... with no monitor.

Re:stupid for whom?

[MikeFM]

It's easy enough to get a small monitor. :)

Racism?

[NotoriousGOD]

I think someone should change the name "Negroponte" to something more politically correct. Like "Africanamericanponte".

Re:Racism?

[ahem]

Totally off topic, but back in the day when I was part of a community theatre group (working lights), one of the actresses was British, and she had cause to say that she had "sniggered" at someone. I had suggested that she should use the phrase "snafrican-americaned".

She looked at me quite blankly at the time.

Much like you just did.

Re:Racism?

[geekoid]

If I pronounced Niger the way the people in Niger pronounce Niger, I would be driven out of town.

Re:Racism?

[NotoriousGOD]

Well I for one think that is hilarious.

Re:Racism?

[metlin]

:-)

On a serious note, he's Greek in origin - and Negropont (or Euboea) is one of the bigger islands around the Greek archipelago. It was called that by the Venetians after the bridge which connected them with mainland Greece.

I think the term, "negro" is common around that area - there is also a place in the Balkans called Montenegro.

Re:Racism?

[jcr]

Think that's funny? I saw a Q&A session with Nelson Mandela, where some silly bint asked him how he felt about some issue "as an African American". He said "as a what?"

Once Jesse Jackson ran up the flag and demanded yet another jargon change, a lot of people fell all over themselves trying to comply, lest their liberal guilt overwhelm them.

-jcr

Re:Racism?

[Arandir]

That the reason I don't use the term "African-American". What do I call my friend from Nigeria who hasn't gotten his citizenship yet? African-African?

Re:Racism?

[sco08y]

It's not the changing jargon that's really an issue. Language changes, that's just how it works.

But identity politics is a dangerous game and has far reaching impact.

The beauty of "black" and "white" is that they're two sides of a coin. By being so innocuous you tend to think *less* about race when you hear them.

But racial activists rewriting the history of Africa were busy outdoing the PR campaign that earned Greenland its name.

African American came about because activists wanted people to think about race. They had many legitimate reasons. But at this point, the movement has achieved its initial goals and while I'm sure blacks would love to get a reparations check, they'd be far better served if we could come to a larger kind of consensus.

That's hampered, in a very large part, by the divisive side-effects of identity politics, of which terms like African American are symptomatic. One thing progressives don't understand is that once progress is made, society needs to internalize it. Of course, if they understood that, they'd be conservatives...

Re:Racism?

[pipingguy]

Niggard

Choice quote: "Howard was pressured to resign by people who, as columnist Tony Snow put it, "actually demanded that he apologize for their ignorance."

Re:Racism?

[jcr]

the PR campaign that earned Greenland its name.

Actually, Greenland was green, at the time it was first settled. There was a climactic shift about a century later.

-jcr

Re:Racism?

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

The beauty of "black" and "white" is that they're two sides of a coin.

As an Asian, I resent that. I don't care about racial issues - I'd be happy if everyone just ignored race; I generally ignore my own already - but why is every racial division between "white" and "black", and Asians, Hispanics, and whatnot just don't seem to exist?

Re:Intel says so...

[unknownideal]

Wasn't that HP?

Re:That's assuming

[joe 155]

it wouldn't even have to run windows, just something like notepad would do, which is to say some really simple word processor, my phone has that, i'm sure they can get it into one of these

These are not the laptops you're looking for...

[FlyByPC]

...You will buy only laptops with Intel Inside(tm).
...You do not need low-cost, $200 laptops.

Well -- the Jedi Mind Trick seems to work for Micro$oft; why not Intel, too?

Intel makes ARMs too.

[mnmn]

Such laptops would ideally use ARM processors and free OSes, unless you can get by with PalmOS or WindowsCE. Intel as a matter of fact makes the highest performing ARM chips out there. Only theyre real expensive compared to others' ($5 in qty) ARM chips. Intel also has access to 90nm and 65nm process technologies, which should make their chips much more powerful for the same price. They CAN benefit from the $100 laptop, maybe taking a good $40 of it considering they also make good flash chips.

But selling Pentium 4s running Windows XPs is far more profitable, regardless of what the end user is getting. Computers as a matter of fact are real cheap items. Only theyre overselling it to us to fatten their profit margins. Sadly the poor are completely left out as a result.

Re:That's assuming

[pebs]

It could even run Windows. It sounds like what they're saying is that people (such as yourself) expect it to be a fully functional laptop when in fact it is limited in what it can do.

Forget Windows, if it can get a Linux or BSD on it and be able to do all the command-line text-mode stuff, this would be sweet.

Replace what the other guy said "I'd only need notepad anyway." with "I'd only need vi or Emacs anyway."

what does it really DO?

[Sebastopol]

seriously: go to this website

http://laptop.media.mit.edu/faq.html

and then tell me what the heck this thing does? it basically networks with other machines like itself, and then it does... nothing! no hint as to how it will help children. its got more marketing fluff than a white house press conference.

let's be honest, MIT is throwing these things out there with hopes that someone will figure out the killer app for them. they remind me of the HP-95x: a whiz-bang DOS machine that ran on 2AA batteries, and it bombed. if this thing is designed to surf the web and do email, then why not go with a cheaper cell phone technology like southeast asia? what is it supposed to do?

Re:what does it really DO?

[geekoid]

Give basic access to other syustems, and be able to be used where the only reliable form of electricty comes from the hand crank on the laptop.

"Furthermore, there are many reasons it is important for a child to "own" something--like a football, doll, or book--not the least of which being that these belongings will be well-maintained through love and care."
Of course, the assumption that a child will maintain something because it's there is an idealistic idea brought to us by people who don't have and practical knowledge about kids.
Also, If this does become popular, whats stopping people from robbing the children?

Re:what does it really DO?

[metlin]

Have you seen MIT Media Lab's work towards helping kids? They've tonnes of toys and other material that are aimed at learning, primarily constructionist in nature.

It has been well proven that constructionist learning goes a long way towards building analytical and engineering related skills - while it may not be the only thing towards that end, it definitely helps.

Now, for a constructionist learning environment, you need tools that they can experiment with. What better way to do this than computers? However, a $2000 computer for a kid is quite obviously not a good idea, so MIT went ahead and developed a cheaper alternative.

Do you know why they can be networked? Because one of the fundamental needs behind education is to have some means of collaboration and team work. Do you know why they have tonnes of USB ports? So that they can be extended upon - a lot of MIT's toys (such as Flow Blocks) are toys that interface with the computers. It's important for folks to be able to add on to these computers, and build new things - whether it's for a farmer in a developing nation using it for weather prediction or whether it's a kid who's adding stuff for class.

Simply because you are ignorant and cannot comprehend the need for this does not mean it's useless. But go ahead, though - am sure you know a whole lot more about educational technology than all those fine folks who've spent years doing this stuff for a living.

Re:what does it really DO?

[nekoniku]

tell me what the heck this thing does

From TFFAQ: [it] will be able to do most everything except store huge amounts of data

Isn't "most everything" clear enough? Jeez!

Re:what does it really DO?

[empvirus]

It does nothing; it's what they can do with it is what's important.
From your link:
"Why is it important for each child to have a computer? What's wrong with community-access centers?
One does not think of community pencils--kids have their own. They are tools to think with, sufficiently inexpensive to be used for work and play, drawing, writing, and mathematics. A computer can be the same, but far more powerful. Furthermore, there are many reasons it is important for a child to "own" something--like a football, doll, or book--not the least of which being that these belongings will be well-maintained through love and care."

This more or less, is an open ended set of tools. They could do millions of things with these laptops, really. And of course as is the nature of Linux, they have to do do these things themselves, involving learning. Duh.

Re:what does it really DO?

[podperson]

It says it does anything an ordinary laptop does except store large quantities of data.

Not very complicated.

Take a look at a 1995 Apple Powerbook. It had a smaller display, less storage and memory, and a slower cpu, and it does anything a modern laptop can do except store large quantities of data.

Re:what does it really DO?

[metlin]

Very nice analogy - thank you. A lot of people do not realize that computers are primarily designed to be tools. They are not the end, they are a means.

I hope you would not mind if I used your analogy elsewhere?

Re:what does it really DO?

[TapeCutter]

"Of course, the assumption that a child will maintain something because it's there is an idealistic idea brought to us by people who don't have and practical knowledge about kids."

Because it's their's (not just "there"). If you don't undrestand, talk to anyone who was a kid in Europe during WW2, ask them what toys they had.

"If this does become popular, whats stopping people from robbing the children?

What is stopping people from robbing children today? Why does a cow with a new born calf attack humans? Why do some poeple think living in poverty implies a lack of basic morals?

Re:what does it really DO?

[Zerathdune]

and then tell me what the heck this thing does?

what the heck does a computer do? This is just a cheap computer. Surely I haven't encounterd a slashdotter who thinks computers are useless? so it's not very powerful. My pentium 2 laptop is still good for surfing the web and other simple tasks (or it would be if I could get the network card working.) This thing will be just as good at those tasks, which for educational purposes cannot be scoffed at. The sheer information that will suddenly become availible to these childern is astounding. This will be better than my old laptop though; it's lighter, runs cooler, and has a much more reliable power source than my crappy battery.

Re:what does it really DO?

[empvirus]

Go right on ahead.

Re:what does it really DO?

[metlin]

From Wikipedia:

In 2005, Papert, together with Nicholas Negroponte and Alan Kay launched the One Laptop Per Child initiative to put constructionist learning into practice in the developing world. The aim is to provide $100 laptops to every child in the developing world.

And before you go saying that I edited it now, note the date of the last edit - the last edit was on November 2005. It's quite obvious you're an idiot, though.

But hey, if you can't understand what it is, it must be BS right?

Re:what does it really DO?

[ArtStone]

Who is going to turn the hand crank on the WiFi Access Point?

Re:what does it really DO?

[Sebastopol]

Wow, what a load of horseshit you just piled up.

You = Fanboy + Academic

The worst combination, neither understands "fluff".

Re:what does it really DO?

[metlin]

You should look up Constructionist learning sometime.

Or maybe something on situating constructionism or it's applications. It's cog-sci + AI, done by folks who're definitely way smarter than you ever will be.

I mean, all those folks from MIT and elsewhere with degrees in AI and Cog Sci who're recognized the world over, what do they know, right?

But don't worry, though - your ignorance is amusing.

Re:what does it really DO?

[Sebastopol]

Judging by the number of links you've sent out, clearly you understand this much better than I ever could. My knuckles reach so far to the floor I can barely Google, unlike you.

But don't worry, though - your ignorance is amusing.

So is your desperate attempts to convince me how much smarter you are than me.

Please send more links. I think I can almost grasp the enormity of your staggering intellect with my barely-simian cortex.

Re:what does it really DO?

[metlin]

Umm, simply because you do not know or understand something does not mean it's worthless.

Of course, if I had not given links, you would have asked for corroboration. And now, rather than argue the point, you argue against the person who made the point.

Wow. Yes, barely simian quite nicely sums it up. Although I wonder at the prudence of insulting simians thus.

Re:what does it really DO?

[Sebastopol]

Go back a few posts, Professor Fallacy: I never received an answer to my original question.

Q: "What does it do?"

A: "Everything and anything, you silly little fool! How dare you question the establishment that MIT are the gods of all knowledge! Begone!"

Although I wonder at the prudence of insulting simians thus.

Nice cop out.

Just answer the original question with substance, and not loads of lofty fanboy horseshit.

This is as pathetic as the Transmeta Flamewars of the late 90's. It was real fun watching TM go down a few years later.

Re:what does it really DO?

[metlin]

Well, simian, I'd explained that quite nicely. With several links too, but then, clicking those would be beneath your exalted underdeveloped cerebrum, I suppose.

It helps in the process of constructionism, by giving kids a tool to play around with. What can they do with the tool? Well, what can they do with a pencil? It's left to your imagination and the educators.

It's a tool to facilitate a well established educational methodology, which says that when you play with things and build things, you learn. MIT has several things to this end (Flow Blocks, Crickets etc) and all these assume that a kid has a computer. So, they're giving the kids a computer. They already have tonnes of programs to help the learning process, if only you had a computer - which is what they're doing.

Now, combined with the computer, the programs and the tools, we'd have a better chance of teaching kids things.

Ergo, this project. But you would have known that if you had read the whole thread, rather than ranting away.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[metlin]

Good lord, is there always an idiot who has to come up with these comments on all articles related to technology?

Seriously - stop and think for a moment. Technology has definite uses. And it's what's keeping us the edge over one another.

Even if you are a farmer, being able to predict the rains, know about prices, fertilizers and the like helps. In the past (late 70s/80s, I think), in some parts of the south, India had a programme to help fishermen be informed about storms and the like by having a special radio channel that broadcast such information. They gave all the fishermen free transistor radios and told them to use it - and guess what? Several lives were saved, productivity increased and people in general were happy. And some started using their system for other purposes, like listening to alternate channels - because it's enough if there is one fisherman who knew what was going on. A whole system was developed within the community to this end, and everything improved as a whole - people were coordinating the whole process, resulting in much better productivity. It had benefits that the original creators did not even see.

There are always more pressing needs, and the only way you are going to take care of those needs is by making them self sufficient. This is a tool to that end.

You cannot forsee or predict how these tools will be used. But the only way to find out is to develop the tool and see how far it goes. Sure, it might be an absolute failure - but you would have tried, and you would have learnt.

Better than not doing anything, IMHO.

cluster

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, welcome our Beowulf cluster building Nigerian overlords.

Re:cluster

[Gravis Zero]

eh... id still prefer the russian paratroopers... so i can run into the forest to fight off the ruskies and call ourselves the wolverines. at least that way i wouldnt have to hear about how i could get a million dollars for a mere1 ten thousand dollars investment.

Maybe

[wangotango]

Intel can sell their processors to Fisher-Price and offer a competing product.

Actually

[paranode]

It does run Linux so you're okay there. I thought the OP was talking about using Windows on it since he mentioned Notepad. The official site is a little short on details but it will have a 500Mhz CPU and 1GB of storage with many USB ports and a cheap LCD.

Re:Actually

[PinkyGigglebrain]

500Mhz CPU, 1GB of storage... Thats plenty of power for 90% of the people out there. Hell, my mom is still using an old Compaq 486DX-33, 200M HD, no USB, everytime I tell her I could upgrade her system she says not to bother, what she has works perfectly for her, she doesn't need a faster CPU, USB or a bigger HD. These systems, if the interface is clean and intuitive to use (I did not RTFA, sorry), would do great in any market.

From the FAQ

[rhoder]

http://laptop.media.mit.edu/faq.html

WiFi-enabled
"USB ports galore".
Its current specifications are: 500MHz, 1GB, 1 Megapixel.

Re:From the FAQ

[Alsee]

WiFi-enabled "USB ports galore". 500MHz, 1GB, 1 Megapixel.

Christ! And Intel is calling it an underpowered "gadget" capable of a "limited range of programs"? Someone is smoking crack!

I set up a family member with an old hand-me-down system...
No WiFi, just a dialup modem.
Zero USB ports.
350 MHz
0.125 GB (128 MB)
Capable of a megapixel, but set at a default of 0.5 megapixel (800x600) to keep all of the fonts and icons larger.

Sure it's an "old klunker", but for your average non-geek it's more than powerful enough for personal and even business use. It sounds like these $100 units plenty capable, and a stunning bargain at the price.

-

Re:From the FAQ

[floorpirate]

My younger brother is currently using my laptop from college, which I finished 6 years ago. The laptop is an IBM ThinkPad 365ED, supposedly 100 MHz (actually 66), 24 megs of RAM, and a 540 MB hard drive. Runs Windows 95 and Office, AVG for antivirus protection, and has a PCMCIA network card.

It chugs, but it works. I'd put a firewall on it, but it would probably choke and die.

Re:From the FAQ

[WoTG]

I'm pretty sure that the 1GB refers to non-volatile storage (i.e. flash). I doubt that there will be 1GB of RAM.

Re:From the FAQ

[PsychicX]

I think that might be 1GB of hard drive (or more likely flash memory) storage space. Why would a $100 laptop need a gigabyte of RAM? Besides, that much RAM would by itself consume the entire cost.

Re:From the FAQ

[TIMxPx]

What, no wheels and no propellor? What kind of a windup toy is this?

Re:From the FAQ

[burns210]

Needs to be clarified:

the 500MHz AMD processor is a custom building, using something like .5 watts of power (the system is expected to use 2-3 watts total) as this system is meant to have very low battery usage.

the 1 GB is for flash memory, used in place of a harddrive for nonvolatile storage. There will be 128 MB of RAM for the actual running system. 4 USB ports, which may change. Wi-fi, and some form of cell phone wireless connection, i believe. They support some customized ad hoc wireless mesh networking system, as well.

The laptop using up to 4 C batteries (believed to be natively available in every country in the world), or using a handcrank. Which both goes back to the very low power usage. The crank is expected to get 1:10 ratio (1 minute crank, 10 minutes of battery). In eBook + black & white mode, they expect to get up to 1:45 ratio. Perfect for cuddling up with your favorite electronic (text)book for school or play.

Redhat is using a customized Redhat Linux (Fedora, presumably) made to be fully and specifically supporting the hardware capabilities of the laptop. The entire laptop is IP free, all the technological developments are going to be 'open sourced', so no Intellectual Property, Trademarks, etc. They are inviting other manufacturers to learn from the $100 laptop's advances in efficiency.

These things will be hacked on faster than the original Xbox. It will be cheap, ubiquitious, reliable and natively run Linux.

Re:From the FAQ

[Alsee]

I think that might be 1GB of hard drive (or more likely flash memory) storage space.

That makes a lot more sense price-wise.

So to correct my post, the hand-me-down computer has a 6 Gig drive. However only 900 meg of the drive in use anyway (about two-thirds of which is Windows Operating System bloat). It may as well be 1 Gig capacity. So 1 Gig of storage is still plenty for most personal or even professional use.

-

Stupid

[Eightyford]

That's stupid. Many, if not most of these users have never used anything better than these laptops. Say we went back 10 years and had one of these instead of an old 386... we wouldn't be complaining about lack of features!

Also, standardised and limited hardware actually make development on the babies a whole lot easier than for a PC, provided there are good development tools.

In other words...

[tyler_larson]

... Me! Me! Me! Pay attention to ME!

US Market

[nurb432]

I guess he has never been to the local toystore, where they sell borderline worthless junk for more then that..

Ever see the fake laptops they are pushing this season?

For 200 you get a *real* laptop, and arent tied to batteries? Sign me up..

Similar Schemes? Where?

[Glomek]

What "similar schemes" could he be talking about? I have never seen anything before that combines this level of cheapness, functionality, and openness.

What an ass

[asv108]

Seriously, how could Barrett be so stupid? Yeah, lets launch FUD against a low cost laptop designed to give computing capabilties to people could otherwise have nothing. Does program diversity matter when the only other option is no computer? Brilliant PR move! Maybe Barrett is just pissed that Intel's stock price has been flat since his tenure as CEO.

no surprise

[lobsterGun]

Of course they are going to say this.

What the hell are they supposed to say? "Damn! sucks to be us! I guess we can kiss that market goodbye, cause there is no way we can compete with that price."

That statement would be followed by the swirling vortexy sound of their stock price going down the toilet.

Re:no surprise

[ZippyKitty]

What the hell are they supposed to say? "Damn! sucks to be us! I guess we can kiss that market goodbye, cause there is no way we can compete with that price."

Thought comes to mind they should just be quiet then. If they can't compete then why bring attention to it.

or, as my grandmother always said: "if you cannot say something nice, don't say anything at all".

ZK

Craig Barrett

[FudRucker]

i think Craig Barrett's head is cloudy from smoking too many Wintel cigars...

What similar schemes?

[HangingChad]

But Barrett said similar schemes in the past elsewhere in the world had failed and users would not be satisfied with the new machine's limited range of programs.

You mean like eMachines? I still have one of those chugging away out in the garage. What similar scheme would that be, Mr. Barrett?

I'm pretty happy with the range of programs available for my Linux machine. Not going to do much video editing on a $200.00 hand crank computer anyway. If they were available today, I'd buy one today. I could think of a lot of uses for a half-PDA, half-notebook type of device that could run anywhere, especially if it has a serial port or card slot.

Maybe that's part of the reason the last two PC's I've built are AMD's running Xandros. Just because Barrett lacks imagination doesn't mean there's a shortage in the rest of the world.

$100 Per child? Yes, but how many times?

[bogidu]

Books don't break! (Generally speaking)

Sign me up

[Schlaegel]

I would love a few of these. A notebook for each kid, and one for mommy and daddy too. They are cheap. They don't have power cords to worry about. We can take them anywhere. They are cheap. They claim they are durable. I can write software for my kids. They are cheap. There is a large quantity of open source apps just waiting to be ported.

Did I mention you can put me on the waiting list?

Re:Sign me up

[chrisd]

One other thing: In one of the mockups, The power cord doubled as a shoulder strap. It was so neat!

A crank-powered laptop?

[ScentCone]

Does that mean it will only display content from MoveOn.org?

Re:A crank-powered laptop?

[Trepalium]

Nah, it means you can attach Micheal Moore, Bill O'Reilly or Ann Coulter to it. Any of them easily produce enough hot air and bullshit to power the device for the foreseeable future.

I know what the first mod will be.

[geekoid]

It will be hooking the crank to a foot pedal devise. That way you can charge it, and use it at the same time.

Re:I know what the first mod will be.

[Gravis Zero]

no, the first mod will be a plug that charges it via usb.

Thanks for pointing this out

[n3xu5]

As you stated, this point is always something that has to be reviewed every time there is a "bring technology to the third world" article. Tons of medicines and food have been sent to these regions (which is good and helps, I have no problems with this certainly), but have these places become as self-maintaining as they should be? I have no statistics to quote, but I am guessing that there are still lots of starving and unmedicated people there.

So why not try giving them technology that may help them get to the point where they can take care of themselves. Give them the tools and teach them how to use them. Hopefully their own desire to be free of handouts will push them into the desired state of self-reliance.

Hopefully I was not too redundant. Thanks for an informative post.

Will not be limited

[cvd6262]

$200 to the public, for a box with Linux is not unlike the Sharp Zaraus. Though mine had its issues, the range of available software was not one of them.

I can't stop thinking of application for a $200 Linux laptop.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[mpfife]

But teach some wetback how to add or multiply and you're just a socialist commie freak and should be smited...

Or called a Catholic (their school systems are the basis for many modern ones)

Yeah right...

[rwven]

I guarantee you the school children in 3rd world countries or otherwise will be absolutely thrilled with these "undesired gadgets." On a consumer in the US level, not really sure. Heck, i'd buy one just for kicks and so would a lot of people, but who knows how big of a seller they'll be. 200 bucks for a new laptop running linux is a steal no matter how you look at it.

20 mins per windup should be....

[zappepcs]

20 mins of operation per windup should be enough for anyone... there, fixed that for you

Undesired gadgets? Limited capabilities?

[Diocleciano Palma]

This was said before, but to say something like this sounds like a marketing attack.

How could one find these laptops to be underpowered? Either:

1. You know you paid $100 for it, so you couldn't expect much anyway! (Even if you paid $200 because you live in a western country)
2. You never had access to a computer before - let alone a (n extremely) portable one - and you'll astounded at how much stuff you can do.

Even disregarding this, these things should be impressive machines for what they're worth; they run Linux, which is a tremendous platform for doing stuff your way. I bet a quite nice hacking community will form around them.

The people at Sun who were projecting the Network Computer some eight years ago are probably having a warm fuzzy feeling in their bellies right now :P

Unbiased ! Intel has hit the pipe too much . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

No one will buy an iPod,
maybe 4 people in the USA would want a personal computer,
telephones have no practical use for business,
japanese cars are no threat to American Automotive manufacturers.

Intel is giving a fair and unbiased opinion.

I live in the USA, and I would love to replace my
$3,000 laptop upgrade with a $100 wind up, internet enabled gadget.
Slashdot, Google, Email, Notepad and calculator - good enough.

Go-Go Gadget Windup Laptop!

Heh, I agree with the "GNU Zealots"

[Nichotin]

Too bad I don't have modpoints now. Darwin is open source, yes, but you are not primarily running X11 applications, are you? If you were doing that, why not go for Linux in the first place? The problem as they see it with Mac OS X is that Aqua is proprietary, and a lot of the tools you "need" for several tasks are proprietary too. Most of the open source stuff can be run on Linux/X11 anyway.
Do not lock them in. Let them be free.

Re:Similar Schemes? Where?

[Glonoinha]

Google the i-opener (or iopener).
Cost $100
Came with a smallish LCD screen and if you hacked it just right it would run Linux (cost another $50 or so in parts, including a cheap small hard drive.)

Some details here and here.

Re:Well if they accepted Apple's OS ...

[dougTheRug]

What does "100% except for $1" mean?

(written from a $100 old powerbook, btw:-)

The Single Biggest Step Up

[Nom du Keyboard]

The single biggest step up is from no computer to a computer. It's all diminishing returns after that.

(P.S. The same thing applies with printers.)

Re:The Single Biggest Step Up

[Apotsy]

Well, the MIT media lab is currently at the "no computer" stage, seeing as how this project is still vaporware and does not exist.

If they ever actually build the thing, we'll talk more about it then. Until that day comes, we might as well talk about unicorns or fairies, because they are about the same level of reality. (And if the do really build it, I doubt it will cost as little as even $400, let alone $100.)

Re:The Single Biggest Step Up

[Chabo]

Why wouldn't it cost under $400? According to the site of this project, the screens on these things cost $35. That's the biggest cost in the average laptop. Other than that, it's all really simple. Go on Newegg and put parts in your cart that make the cheapest desktop you can. For $158, you can get a mobo with an 800MHz processor (60% increase over this laptop), onboard video and sound, 512MB of RAM (probably substantially more than the laptop, though no figure is given), a 40GB HD, a mid-tower case, and a PSU. Nothing amazing, but certainly good enough for web browsing, schoolwork collaboration, and other such low-intensity applications. Hell, I might build one of those to run as a webserver!

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[tomstdenis]

hehehe I wouldn't know. I went to a public school... :-)

Point is Americans live good not entirely because of hard work on their part. If they're really worried about immigrants stealing jobs they'd stop enjoying slave labour [e.g. nike and all other clothing shops basically] and pay fair wages for work.

You think if some person in a Nike shop was making [say] $14USD/hr they would need to immigrate? ...

Tom

Limited functionality...

[spagthorpe]

For one thing, the hacker community will be on these immediately, and I expect them to have a lot more functionality when that kicks in. I also look forward to having a laptop that I can use in less than ideal environments without fear of loosing something much more expensive. Last, I don't mind paying more for the device if it helps fund the project somewhat and helps provide the laptops for people less fortunate.

Underdog project

[porkThreeWays]

The fact that this project contains so many underdogs just might make it succeed. Their egos won't make it fall apart. Except for the MIT staff, almost every company involved can be replaced with someone bigger at any minute. AMD, Brightstar, Google, News Corporation, Nortel Networks, and Red Hat. They've all got bigger counter parts. I think it really pisses off the bigger companies that these smaller companies had more insight than them. When they realized how big this thing is going to be, it was too late.

Re:Underdog project

[im_thatoneguy]

"The fact that this project contains so many underdogs just might make it succeed. " such as "News Corporation".

Hahahahaha... I would be terrified to see the media company large enough to make News Corp an underdog.

Re:Underdog project

[zCyl]

When they realized how big this thing is going to be, it was too late.

The problem isn't the $100 laptop. Most people in the developed world don't need a laptop archaic enough to cost 1/3rd of their TV. The problem is that if there exists a functional $100 laptop, then that means there can exist a viable market for the mid-range of $250 to $400 laptops, and this is what frightens hardware manufacturers. The lower laptop costs go, the less money there is to divide up among each hardware component.

It's almost inevitable that the laptop industry would follow the progression of the desktop industry toward a market dominated by cheap, but fully functional, products. But just because it's inevitable, that doesn't mean they have to like it...

He's right!

[lheal]

I believe that there's need for maybe 5 inexpensive laptops in the world.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[Hosiah]

I'm all for giving poor and developing nations access to this kind of technology but the fact remains that there are more pressing needs for these folks.

Well, MIT doesn't grow corn. They don't research AIDS cures. Other people are doing these things. MIT is helping the best way MIT can. MIT helps by building you a computer.

Amazing...MIT would be drawing 100% less criticism right now if they'd simply sat on their hands and done *nothing*. Why is it to get rotten egged off the podium in this world, all you have to do is volunteer to help?

Re:Are You People Kidding Me???

[AKAImBatman]

Here's a little tidbit to mull over. Dell is presently the highest volume laptop company in the world. Dell sells their Inspiron B120 laptop for $500 and their Lattitude 610 laptop for $1,000. Which do you think sells more? The much cheaper B120 for $500? No! The best selling laptop that Dell has ever had has been and continues to be the Lattitude 610 at fully twice the price of the B120!

Yet the B120 still sells well enough for Dell to keep it in its lineup. Which means that there's a market for cheap PCs, even if it isn't as large as the market for more expensive PCs. The question then comes to: Can this company sell enough cheap PCs to be profitable? The answer to that depends entirely on the size and complexity of their operations.

In theory, their costs might be low now that the product is developed. So now they only have to recoup the costs of R&D. But wait! What about product support? In computers, Tech Support is always one of the most expensive components. How is tech support handled in their business model? Are they saving money by outsourcing to an overseas facility? (Perhaps hiring the very people they trained with these laptops? ;-))

It's definitely a complex issue. Just saying "market X is bigger than market Y" does not resolve it.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[DrCode]

"Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Give a man a $100 laptop with an aquarium screen-saver and he'll stare at it all day and forget that he's hungry."

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[udderly]

The easiest things in the world to be are a critic and a cynic, and yet many of us wear it like it's a badge of honor.

Re:He is right

[Seumas]

No problem. Since we offshore all our work to you guys, we'll just have one of them stop on by and do some mentoring and training on the cheap laptops we provide so that you can get up to speed so we can hire you as an offshore employee.

Really, this is the turning of the worm. Mark my words - this is the most distinct moment in which the US turns from knowledge-work while farming out physical work and manufacturering to other nations into us doing manufacturering work for the knowledge-workers in other nations.

Re:Similar Schemes? Where?

[Glomek]

From your first link: "It runs their custom software under QNX and only using their own dialup service"

There is a world of difference between something that comes open, and something that hardware hackers are able to make open. The OLPC machines will come already able to run huge amounts of Linux software. They'll come with one of the greatest development environments ever created (Squeak). They'll be portable and not need electricity and be easy to hack, by design.

I don't see much similarity between OLPC and the I-Opener.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[sunwolf]

I thought it was: Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll sit in a boat all day drinking beer with his buddies."

Re:Well if they accepted Apple's OS ...

[hypnagogue]

Well if they accepted Apple's OS then they would have a wide range of programs.

As a daily user of both MacOS and Linux, I find your comment confusing. My Mac came with a browser, email, IM client, music manager, photo manager, a great compiler suite and some cut rate media production tools deliberately designed to upsell customers to their $1000+ product line.

My linux distro all that and an office suite, educational software, graphics editing (vector and raster), desktop publishing, and a great compiler suite that just happens to be the same one as above, except newer. Oh yes, and the source code to every single program on the box. Were the programs "first tier"? Well, some less than others -- but they were at least there to use.

It's truly baffling that you can buy a $2000 Mac and not even end up with a basic word processing program or spreadsheet on it -- especially when that software can be had for free. Owning a Mac is like a owning a Jeep -- pay once to own it, then pay continuously to use it.

Apple's OS has no business anywhere near this project -- it's a gloriously decorated desktop operating system designed for people that can justify paying thousands of dollars for a photo editing program. Id est no one outside of California. I certainly can't afford it -- I had to fink my way to a fully functional desktop box since the missus wouldn't switch from Linux without the equivalent of Open Office, Scribus, The GIMP and Inkscape. The "first tier" commercial equivalents of those programs would have cost me significantly more than the computer itself.

Don't blame Intel for being a business

[My_guzzi]

If I was in charge of Intel I don't think I would pursue this either. Intel makes in money form selling chips. What benefit is this to Intel ??

I think the main market of this in the US would be a better fit for Fisher Price.

Now on the other hand Micro$oft would benefit from this in terms of it being widely introduce into "3rd" World countries, like Inda for example. More children exposed to computers might produce more programmers thus further reducing their wages giving Bill more bucks in his pocket.

I used to be indifferent to this project,

[Hosiah]

but now I'm cheering it on! Nothing puts the lead in my pencil like pissing off the kind of people who've been expressing hostility towards this project.

Well, we're going to see our $100 laptop happen, ANYWAY!!! And it's going to be AMD powered and Linux powered ANYWAY!!! And poor and underpriveledged people the world over will have the power of computing in *their* hands, too, and they're going to use Linux and compute circles around the greedy pigs at the corporate trough and be smarter about computers than they were, ANYWAY!!! What are you critics going to do about it??? Wet your diaper?

Hey, is it OK to still give to Toys-for-Tots this year, or you people got a problem with THAT next?

Re:I used to be indifferent to this project,

[TheLink]

Heh, I sure hope there's sound support.

Might as well piss off the music and movie industry as well while they are at it ;).

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[NCraig]

You can give them all the food in the world but if you don't educate them what's te point?

Over 25,000 people die from starvation every day. Ask one of these individuals if they would prefer a laptop or a fish.

Further, please note that the $100 laptop initiative that you are supporting originated at an American university.

Finally, the United States provides more foreign aid than any other country in the world. Far more.

Of course

[The Cisco Kid]

people will be dissatisfied with underpowered $100 laptops. They'd be much happier having no computer at all. Idiot.

Obligatory

[ackthpt]

Just a matter of time before some opportunist does thus:

My name is Ebou Nogamono and I need your help in retrieving 14,732 gold coins from Croesus' Vault...

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[jcr]

they totally ignore the positive teachings

What's your next guess?

The USA in fact, dwarfs the rest of the world in charitable contributions.

They're all cool with frying people on an electric chair.

No, nearly half of the people in the USA are opposed to the death penalty. It's a very hotly contested issue.

Bigotry is still bigotry, even when it's directed south, eh?

-jcr

you're dead on

[johnpaul191]

these are not to be sold at CompUSA or even walmart..... if they read the specs and explanations for these they would know that they are not intended to be state of the art, and they cost $100 each in quantities of a million or something. the one prototype or mockup that was posted here before even had a crank to generate power because they are going to be used in places either without electricity or with unreliable electricity. if somebody is in that situation i don't think they will give a crap how well the machine can run Doom (or whatever the hip game is now). it's more of a "my first sony" approach than Apple Powerbook. that being said even for $200 it may be fun to have one?

i say more power to them. if they can get them out there and run some lo-fi linux software then great. they will be able to load them with edu software and possible some form of internet access? if it works maybe we will see some form of freeware educational e-books. it seems like a noble effort to help educate people. honestly if there was no other way to do it, wouldn't loading educational stuff on something akin to a Palm Pilot be better than nothing? you figure Palm was selling handhelds for $99 retail a while back. buying a million, being non-profit and a few years of trickle down technology makes me think it is possible.

Re:you're dead on

[TERdON]

if it works maybe we will see some form of freeware educational e-books. it seems like a noble effort to help educate people.

Check this out!

Re:you're dead on

[Decker-Mage]

these are not to be sold at CompUSA or even walmart.....

Which is sad. I know a lot of people to whom I've described this machine, all of whom are living on very limited disability incomes, that would love to be able to buy one from anyone, even if it's through a government program. I can easily think of numerous areas of this country where it would be to our (the US's) advantage to distribute these machines as well. Heck, I would love one as well even if it is just for reading e-books and tapping the wireless at the university/college libraries when I'm doing research. Paying a lot of money for a laptop seems silly for that kind of limited use.

Re:you're dead on

[KiloByte]

if somebody is in that situation i don't think they will give a crap how well the machine can run Doom

Actually, on a machine of that class Doom will run just fine. It started being playable on a mid-end 486, and this $100 box is a lot better than that.

Re:you're dead on

[johnpaul191]

true.... that's why my laptop is a 12" ibook G3 500. cheap (because i got it a year ago), small, portable and more than enough for web fun, runs OS X 10.4.x. all i had to do was get a new battery (a super long life one from Newer Technology) and it's more than adequate.

who knows if these will have wifi? that would add a lot of cost i think? i would guess that would depend on where they will be deployed, and with the ideas of 1,000,000 units/order minimum they can make specific configurations for specific regions/countries and still keep costs low.

as for use in the United States, with cities adding full coverage wifi there will be a call for some sort of cheap computer/internet appliance to get the masses online. what a city saves in clerks, copies of forms, phones, phone lines, operators bla bla bla could be incentive for them to do what they have to and get as many citizens online as possible. the Philadelphia plan to get full wifi coverage is just phase one. phase two (not really talked about too much yet?) is to figure out a way to get computers to the masses. besides the coolness of wifi, it is also a desire by the city government to make every citizen have decent web access so they can get to city forms etc.

Re:you're dead on

[Decker-Mage]

Actually they do have WiFi so that the children can share a network (mesh) connection for distance learning. Apparently it didn't add that much to the price which doesn't surprise me given the single chip solutions I'm seeing now in the electronic engineering trade pubs.

uhhhhhhh... who is the target audience again?

[Mashdar]

"unattractive to consumers who will be disappointed by their 'limited range of programs'"

Oops! Looks like someone forgot who these laptops are for! It can be found at the group's website (the big words on the front page).

This laptop is not being designed for "consumers" who are used to having all of their pay-for-use windows software. It is meant for people who wouldn't be able to choose commercial programs to begin with. That said, you can be sure that once users of these devices become comfortable with them a whole heap of software will fill any shortcomings of the default software.

When the group licenses the laptop for other companies to make it comercially available in developed nations you can bet that more clutter will be included. Hell, there will probably be a distributor of $300 windows versions of the thing.

Myself? I just want the hand crank and the black-and-white screen. The rest of it can go to hell.

Department of Redundancy Department

[mstyne]

Limited range of programs having a limited range of range.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[jcr]

It does not follow that if a more pressing need is not yet addressed, that other needs should be ignored.

We really need a cure for cancer, but that's no reason to postpone arthritis research.

-jcr

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[Gibsnag]

Is that aid in total, or relative to population? As, I mean America is pretty damn large and has a large GDP so you'd expect it to have a very amount of foreign aid. I'm not trolling, just wondering what exactly you mean.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[dbIII]

Ask one of these individuals if they would prefer a laptop or a fish.

They'll find a better way to catch fish on the net.

One of the most intelligent people I've met grew up in a small villiage in Nigeria, later went to Oxford, and is now helping the first world as well with leading edge medical engineering research. There are many other similar examples of education of people in remote areas helping all of us.

In my experience

[Andy Gardner]

It turns out what people are looking for is something is something that has the full functionality of a PC

Whenever I've put a PC together for a family member or freind (usually at a fraction of the highstreet cost) when asked how much they want to spend and what they expect they will use it for the answer is almost invariably, "I just need to get on the net and write letters". Of course Intel is going to oppose the idea that you don't need an Intel® Pentium® Extreme® 955X Express® Edition processor to compose an email.

[Craig Barrett] Do you need a Gadget? 'Cause if you buy that machine, that's all you're going to have, an expensive Gadget.
[Homer] Well, a gadget would be nice, but what I really need is a laptop. How about that one? [points to a second machine]
[Craig Barrett] That technology is three months old. Only suckers buy out-of-date machines. You're not a sucker, are you sir?
[Homer]: Heavens no!
[Craig Barrett] Oh good, because if you were, I'd have to ask you to leave the store.
[Homer]: I just need something to receive email.
[Craig Barrett] [whistles] You'll need a top-of-the-line machine for that. [shows Homer a top-of-the-budget machine] That's the same computer astronauts use to do their taxes.
[Homer] I was an astronaut.
[Craig Barrett] Of course you were.

worse names in the US

[commodoresloat]

Apparently the herb echinacea used to be called "niggerhead" here, and there is a mountain in Santa Monica CA known as "Niggerhead Mountain".... it's there on some of the maps of the area still today. On another note, there's a small airport in the San Fernando Valley called Whiteman Airport, so it is perfectly feasible to get a helicopter from Whiteman to Niggerhead.

Re:worse names in the US

[Arandir]

There is a stream in California called "Nigger Creek", named after an early pioneer. A small blue wildflower that grows in the area is called "Niggertoes". In the 1970's the state officially renamed it to "Negro Creek."

success depends on internet connectivity

[karuna]

I bought a laptop recently, that one cheapy Walmart thing for $500 something. So far it works great. I am using it for web browsing, e-mailing, studying English language, updating my webpage and making cheap VoIP calls to Europe. I often go the nearest library to use the free wireless conectivity. But my 2 concerns about this laptop is 1) the quality issue -- it looks fragile and I am afraid that it may break soon from constant carrying in my backpack and tear. 2) The batery life is not great. But all in all it is a good deal considering the price. It has only 256 MB and I bought another SO DIMM module but have not installed it yet because I yet to figure it out and not void my varanty. So far I have not experienced any problems with memory shortage.

I guess that $100 laptop (or $200 for product cost) will be as much useful. But the crucial factor will be available conectivity. I think the talks about ad-hoc mesh networks are fantacy. It won't work because from where that one person will get the internet living hudreds of kilometers from real civilization? There is no infrastruction in place. Maybe cell phone towers will be there offering wireless data connections like slow GPRS channel that will be completely saturated by one user alone.

Thus this gadget will not be a saver and the local governments will have to think about supporting the local infrastructure like providing the internet through WiMax etc. On the other hand even though some may call such laptop a gadget it may become very cool thing to have. As much as today teenagers can spend hours on cell phone features, trying out SMSs, logos, ringtones etc.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[idsofmarch]

Finally, the United States provides more foreign aid than any other country in the world. Far more.

This is true to a point, but this far emphasizes the generosity of the United States. See this article.

A starving individual will certainly choose food over a laptop, but not all third-world countries are teeming with starving people rather most countries have a potential for a rising middle-class who lack the education and information necessary. The choice isn't between a laptop or a fish, it's the choice between a livelihood dependent on foreign food-supplies or a life of opportunity and all of its residual benefits.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[NCraig]

I'm certainly not against the promotion of education. I'm merely pointing out that food is more important than laptops for those who are in imminent danger of death from starvation, a point dismissed by the post I was replying to.

Re:That's assuming

[Anne Thwacks]

Considering NetBSD runs happily on 15 MHz SUN processors, 500 MHz will be absolutely blinding. Especially if its not i386 architecture.

However, NOBODY needs vi or emacs. Especially if they use DBCS. (Or TECO).

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[heinousjay]

No, no, no, no, no. Bigotry directed at the US is insightful, informative, and just plain smart thinking.

Repeat this mantra 5 times an hour or your right to post will be revoked.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[metlin]

Actually, a lot of people on Slashdot do not seem to have a clue about this stuff.

The thing is, more than for developing countries, MIT developed this for kids. MIT is a big proponent of constructionst learning. In fact, the very concept originated at MIT from Seymour Papert.

Constructionism says that when you play with things, and make new things, you learn. Lego blocks are an example. Lego Mindstorms were in fact the brain-child of Papert. Other tools, such as Programmable Bricks/Crickets and Flow Blocks etc. are other tools that came out of the Media Lab. There are several other folks such as Mitch Resnick and the like who believe in similar methodologies.

All of them have one thing in common -- the using of computers in one form or the other. So, while the tools themselves are nice, they are not really a universal tool.

What is, in fact, a universal tool, is a computer. So, Papert, along with Negroponte and Alan Kay (who's a big HCI dude), decided that the best way to bring constructionism is to give kids a powerful tool to play around with.

And hence the $100 computer was born. But then, most folks here do not seem to have a idea clue, and babble on and on.

The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest

[zarozarozaro]

Link Has anyone seen this movie?

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[NCraig]

I mean aid in total. The post I was replying to insinuated that America does nothing to help the rest of the world.

Certainly it is easy for America to provide enormous sums of foregin aid. However, this should not demean the fact that the aid is given.

Re:Well if they accepted Apple's OS ...

[daeley]

Not to say whether OS X was the best option for this laptop or not (I suspect not), but all of those apps you mentioned for Linux are also available for OS X. You only own it like a jeep if you choose to. ;)

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[heinousjay]

Technology can't save the world, but access to information is most assuredly an equalizer.

stupid idea.

[Truekaiser]

the '100 dollar laptop' is the poster child of the disconnect we in the western world have from what is realy needed to live.
they want to give/sell these to people thinking that they need these more then food, water, and shelter.

Re:stupid idea.

[ColaMan]

give/sell these to people thinking that they need these more then food, water, and shelter.

You give/sell these to people with half of the 1GB space loaded with text files on how to bootstrap themselves up to a higher standard of living.

Instructions on how to build water filters, decent sanitary facilities, preserve food, basic ammonia-cycle absorbtion icemakers, simple home power setups, crop growing/rotation, etc. Check out ITDG Technical Briefs (cached, the sites b0rked at the moment) - a laptop loaded with those files suddenly becomes pretty interesting to people. That's the kind of stuff that people will hopefully have access to once they get one of these. From all the billions spent on trying to improve their living conditions, it's all too obvious that we can't pull them out of the shit - they've got to learn to do it themselves. Laptops such as these could be the thing to help them do it.

Re:stupid idea.

[Truekaiser]

nice try but the people they are aiming this at don't even earn 100 dollars in a year, or earn anything at all. so which do you think comes first, spending their very small income getting a meager amount of food and water so they can live another day? or saving up to get this machine that they never even heard about let alone know enough to turn the thing on?

ibm workpad z50 anyone?

[kex]

I have a workpad z50 http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/documen t.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=BMOE-46XPTL That I use while travelling, to work on word documents. I type a lot of articles for various publications, and for work, and find this item has great uses:

*lightweight (2.6 lbs)
*instant on
*16 hour battery life

Which makes it perfect for strolling around demo floors, walking and typing, etc.

Yes, I could do all this with a laptop, and have other features, but I paid $80 on ebay for it last year, with the extended battery, a 300mb micro drive, 2 regular batteries, the original box, paperwork, software all included. I would never get the instant on or 16 hour battery life I get with this little device. It only has an 8" screen and a resolution of 640x480, but works perfectly for what I need it for.

Phrased slightly differently...

[Anti-Trend]

Negroponte: "We plan on building $500 cars that will be simple, durable and will allow roural farmers in 3rd world countries to be able to drive to larger cities rather than walking"

Barrett: "Similar schemes in the past elsewhere in the world had failed and farmers would not be satisfied with the new car's limited range of features. We believe that what people really want our luxury sedans, and we're hoping they will buy some from us."

Re:Phrased slightly differently...

[taustin]

More like "Similar schemes in the past elsewhere in the world had failed and city people would not be satisfied ..."

This clown is complaining that consumers won't like it. Negroponte's market isn't consumers.

It's that simple.

Re:Phrased slightly differently...

[Anti-Trend]

Good point. Now, if only I could mod up replies to my won posts...

-AT

Re:Well if they accepted Apple's OS ...

[wpmegee]

Mac OS X is nowhere near 100% open source. Carbon, Cocoa, and Classic, the programming APIs, are all closed source. Java and Quartz aren't either for that matter. So what's left? A kernel and a bunch of command line utilities and X? What's the point - why not just use Linux or xBSD.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[dbIII]

I'm pointing out that a simplistic attitude may not be the way to solve these problems and find the premise that we can do nothing other than supply a constant stream of food startling. We had the same things when people were complaining that there should have been a focus in New Orleans on food over communication when the lack of communication resulted in resources sitting unused when they were needed elsewhere. These laptops can be considered as communication and education infrastructure, which helps with other things.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[NCraig]

This is true to a point, but this far emphasizes the generosity of the United States.

Certainly America could potentially provide more aid. However, according to your article, the American government provides a quarter of all development assistance monies. Further, Americans are second (to the Irish) in percent of annual income donated. Coming from such a large and high-income country, this represents a huge outpouring of wealth.

A starving individual will certainly choose food over a laptop, but not all third-world countries are teeming with starving people rather most countries have a potential for a rising middle-class who lack the education and information necessary. The choice isn't between a laptop or a fish, it's the choice between a livelihood dependent on foreign food-supplies or a life of opportunity and all of its residual benefits.

I never argued that the only problem facing the third world is hunger. I merely stated that more money is needed to combat starvation.

Is that a Windows key?!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look in the screenshots on their page of that green laptop. From the bottom left of the key board to the space bar: Fn, Ctl, Alt, Windows Logo?!? I thought these were running Red Hat or something. http://laptop.media.mit.edu/images/laptop-front.jp g

Re:Are You People Kidding Me???

[sco08y]

Which do you think sells more?

At the $500 price point, you're much more likely to go for a used or refurbished laptop. Thus you're inadvertently comparing two distinct markets, each of which has different needs and priorities.

Most people that would need to hand crank a PC do not need a PC at all!

I'd like one to take with me to the field. The fact that it looks solidly built is also appealing.

Re:Well if they accepted Apple's OS ...

[Billly Gates]

RMS ran the FSF from some rented offices on campus. I wonder if he had any influence?

Its stupid and as a BSD user I get upset when I see people making gnu god like in that freesoftware and even linux could not exist without it. BSD's were free long before and possix and other free c/c++ were around when linux first came out.

I think freedom is lost when kids can't run all the kid oriented software from macosx. These are children and not software engineers.

Even for software engineering macosx is impressive and very opensource friendly. Just not all of its gnu. How much of the windows source code is free?

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[Hosiah]

Wow...so it's called "constructionist learning". I always called it "learn by doing" or "hands-on", but now I have an official phrase for it.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[sco08y]

MIT doesn't grow corn.

Funny you mention that, since the efforts to produce abundant food with built in vitamins via genetic modification have been thwarted by protectionist European farmers...

Re:Similar Schemes? Where?

[Glonoinha]

The i-opener was quickly hacked and had Linux installed.
Read the second link.

Re:Won't happen

[humina]

Look up the specs, construct a bill of materials, and let me know if you still think it's impossible. I think you'll find that reality is closer than fantasy. It is because the laptop uses very dated technology that it is able to be so cheap.

Re:He is right

[dindi]

"is useless without training and mentors."

There is http://www.geekcorps.org/ and maybe an other few, and I am sure if they need training these guys (or others) will recruit some ...

I am actually considering signing up with them, not for the salary for sure (as it is like cost of living) but to do something GOOD ..

I do not know where they are going to put these first, but I am sure some Costa Rican (where I live) schools could use a few here, or just over the border in Panama or Nicaragua ...

I mean if they need people I would improve my spanish a bit and read the manual twice than explain it to a few teachers (if needed with the help of a translator). Damn I would do it just to travel a bit....

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[metlin]

Actually, constructionist learning is a more overarching term - if you know what I mean, when compared to hands-on or learning-by-doing.

It's all that, and more - basically, it evolved from constructivist epistemology in philosphy, which educationalists adopted to learning as a constructivist theory of learning.

So, an application of constructivism became constructionist - former is a theory and a model, latter is the approach.

So, constructionism is also a lot bigger in its use and intent (i.e. includes other domains, such as cognitive sciences, AI etc.).

Re:Similar Schemes? Where?

[Glonoinha]

DOH - fuck me. I meant read the first link.

What was meant by It runs their custom software under QNX and only using their own dialup service was 'It was intended to run their custom software under QNX and only using their own dialup service, but it has been hacked and runs all kinds of good operating systems, here are some pictures of it running Linux, Win98, and BeOS.

Underdog != instant success... it could still fail

[tlambert]

Underdog != instant success... it could still fail

"The fact that this project contains so many underdogs just might make it succeed. Their egos won't make it fall apart."

This is inconsistent with their refusal to take OS X when it was offered to them; if that wasn't ego-driven, then I don't know what that means.

-- Terry

2 outta 3

[zogger]

I got the cool 1000 buck ride (my used RV-works! Quite nice really once I cleaned it up some, has less than 100k on the clock) and a hundred buck computer (a mini itx mobo + RAM I bought and fit into an old AT case) but alas, my fridge was 100$ used. I imagine if I looked around I could get one for 10$ or free for hauling off.

Oh, you mean NEW? different story, but... I'll take one of the windup laptops from what I have read of the specs. so far price wise I think they have got it down to around 150$ or so theoretically. Still far from the goal of 100$ even, with with millions being the projected market, it'll get there... I dig the windup part, it has built in wifi, and pre installed linux and is solid state. What's not to like?? There's a market for these things out there beyond freebie give aways to poor folks. I mean, heck, look what they want for PDAs! That's what I think of these things, instead of calling them a laptop, call them a very large multifunctional PDA with somewhat decent specs, then they look like a deal, even at 200 bucks. Throw them on the shelf at wallyworld and electronics stores and they'll get sold. I already have two baygen windup radios, they are nice, I'd get another one if it was digital tuning with some programmable presets.

Re:Won't happen

[An Onerous Coward]

Are you sure? The specs seem reasonable: I'm interpreting them as "500MHz processor, 1GB flash storage, 1024x768 screen". The relative lack of moving parts makes it much easier to make the whole thing durable. There isn't a hard drive, and I'm guessing passive cooling would be sufficient for the fan. So reliability would be high. They're saying the display portion will only cost $35, and that's usually the most expensive part of any laptop.

Estimating the feasibility of this project by comparing it to a ruggedized laptop that is intended to act as a full desktop replacement seems misguided. My guess: it's going to happen.

Re:Won't happen

[ArcheKlaine]

This laptop can very easily cost 100 dollars. It has a tiny screen and runs a 500MHz processor. On the other hand, if by a 'very rudimentary laptop' you mean one that can kind of run windows XP well, that's another story.

(Though I've seen a Pentium II running XP off of 128MB of RAM flying along without too much trouble once all the crap was stripped out of it. Or at least most of the crap.)

We take it seriously

[dcrocha]

Hey dude, I'm Brazilian, and I can say we take file hashing very seriously around here.

Daniel

Re:Well if they accepted Apple's OS ...

[humina]

"Kind of odd since Darwin is %100 open source except for aqua."

Um...no. Apple's OS is far from open. Where do i download the source for quicktime? How about spotlight? Dashboard? any of the ilife applications. You see any application or section of the OS that apple builds on top of aqua tends to be closed source. There are small exceptions to that such as the rendering engine for safari.

Of the 8 pictures on the top right of this page:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/
Which of those are open source? I'll give you half a point for the khtml code in safari.

If I were an MIT researcher I would also not go with apple because I could not modify the source code. To fix a bug in an application or to perhaps speed up an application to run on a very low end laptop, the folks at MIT would have to file a bug with apple and pray it gets fixed soon. It's the same problem you will have with any proprietary software vendor. Just because you can write hardware drivers because Darwin is open does not mean that OS X is all of the sudden an open OS. Solaris is open source. OS X is far from open source.

Very Low, Craig

[knapper_tech]

It uses an AMD chip
AMD is eating Intel's lunch (though definitely not because of a $100 laptop with a $5 part)

He said Intel was also expanding an IT teacher training scheme it says has already reached three million schoolteachers worldwide to Sri Lanka, and praised local projects aimed at producing computer literacy. Some 90 percent of Sri Lankans were literate but only 10 percent computer literate, he said.

The IT teacher training scheme is primarily based in the US and Europe, where Intel pushes primarily to secure exclusive governmental contracts for machines powered by Intel chips. Intel doesn't giva a shit about Sri Lanka, much less the less publicized developing nations.

Open up your big heart, Craig. Tell us about how idiotic pushing for ubiquitous computer access is.

do they

[dzafez]

even get the Point of Education? I can'T belive they are so stupid. They should have been involved in the Project from beginning to ensure the rule all these new emerging Markets, but they have been sleeping and now it is bad, because it's not theirs.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[MartinB]

Even if you are a farmer, being able to predict the rains, know about prices, fertilizers and the like helps. In the past (late 70s/80s, I think), in some parts of the south, India had a programme to help fishermen be informed about storms and the like by having a special radio channel that broadcast such information. They gave all the fishermen free transistor radios and told them to use it - and guess what? Several lives were saved, productivity increased and people in general were happy.

There's a fantastic project now in a couple of African countries giving out GSM phones to farmers to let them know the prices at markets via SMS and WAP - if it takes 1/2 a day or more to travel to your chosen market, knowing which one you'll get the best price at matters. Similarly, buyers who travel the farms have the same access, so everyone can negotiate from a shared knowledge of prices.

As is uses SMS, this is much cheaper than a voice call which would have to be quite long to get the same information. GSM coverage is near universal, and the system is being used by people who've never had a phone before.

It's amazing what you learn when you listen to the World Service... or nab the podcast.

really though

[iconeternal]

what do they hope to accomplish with these comments? it's not like MIT is going to go "Oh, intel is right, we should be providing them with brand new HP pavillions. We can provide them at $1,000 a machine, and think of what the added power will let those people do! They can play World of Warcraft, and maybe do some CAD...oh yeah, and video editing to boot!"

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[humina]

"I'm all for giving poor and developing nations access to this kind of technology but the fact remains that there are more pressing needs for these folks."

You are so right. That's why you will happy to learn that almost all of the researchers at MIT decided to stop working on this project and decided to switch to growing food, manufacturing aids medication, and producing condoms. Now I know what you are thinking. "But how are the grad students going to get their phD's?". Well the answer to that is simple: cheaper condoms. phD topics abound in that area. Obviously the grad students will have to change majors from computer science or electrical engineering to condom engineering, but 90% of the students were willing to make the transition. It was from the tireless and thankless job of posters like you that made this project a success. Thank you.

What is the problem here?

[Kugrian]

Didn't RTFA but read things about it before.

From what I understand, these are going to be used in third world countries. Never been to one personally, though been to halfway houses (a lot of north and west Africia).

They have crappy computers anyway, shitty internet connections and no software shops. No Game, no EB. Does the software matter that much?

How many of these people have even seen a computer, let alone used one. Hell, give them a 386 and win 3.1 and they'd be happy. If they can WP - that's great. If they can play games (any at all) that's great. If they can write and compile software, that's great (I can compile without many problems on a 150mhz P1). If they have a 'net connection, does IE work? Yes. Older versions, but still working ones. What about Firefox? Yes - same.

What is the problem here? If Intel want to give them better ones, let no one stand in their way. Otherwise, shut the hell up or just tarnish your name for when these potential new buyers of hardware start seeking faster and better machines.

Re:Are You People Kidding Me???

[Crayon Kid]

The CEO of Intel is absolutely correct. Big surprise, a highly successful businessman knows what he's talking about!
[...]
The reason is that while everyone would rather spend less money, they regard features as being more important than cost. They gladly pay twice as much for the more powerful and more featureful unit.

Then he has nothing to worry about, right? So then why did he have to even make this statement, eh?

Doesn't the fact that he felt the need to say it kind of negates the very message? Why shout "I don't care, they're just toys!" if you really don't care?

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[Jay Carlson]

Well, MIT doesn't grow corn.

(You're going to have to imagine this coming out of a sneering Harvard mouth.)

Strangely enough, MIT is a land-grant college, which were originally created "to teach agriculture, military tactics, and the mechanic arts as well as classical studies so that members of the working classes could obtain a liberal, practical education."

Yale? What about Yale?

Interesting options for educational technology

[rhyre417]

I think new classes of applications will be built for these things. And they'll run a lot faster than my Apple ][ or 386 PC ever ran anything.
I'm just not sure I want to be the first one to order a million units of a new product.
Just becaause it's linux doesn't mean you have to go with XFree86 and GCC. Some of the good work Apple did on the Newton and eMate could be resurrected, especially now that Dylan http://www.gwydiondylan.org/downloading.phtml implementations are open-sourced.
I just need to get 1000 of my friends to sign up 1000 of their friends, and we'll be ready.

Re:Well if they accepted Apple's OS ...

[ThousandStars]

It's truly baffling that you can buy a $2000 Mac and not even end up with a basic word processing program or spreadsheet on it -- especially when that software can be had for free.

I understand that you're talking about preloaded software, but remember that you can run Abiword or the X11 version of OpenOffice. I'd wager that most software for Linux one can get precompiled for OS X, but that most OS X software isn't available for Linux.

Note that I disagree with your central point concerning the appropriateness of Linux for the project. But I think you underestimate the range of OS X software available.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[metlin]

This is not designed for that purpose - this is primarily designed as an educational tool to help kids learn, as a constructionist tool.

That it can also be used for other purposes is secondary.

I'm not a seer who can tell you what this can bring to the table, but how about giving it a chance and seeing what it does?

But then again, this place is full of arm-chair critics who would much rather criticize a tool without knowing what it's for rather than do something proactive.

As another poster remarked, MIT would be better off not doing anything, and instead, they're getting shit for doing something. And people wonder what's wrong with the world.

*shakes head*

A hint: either let others do what they can and help them, or do something yourself. Not doing either and putting down those that are, is a pointless exercise, and does nothing more than inflate your ego.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[amabbi]

They don't research AIDS cures.

Not that it's relevant, but MIT certainly does research AIDS cures.

[MIT's] Whitehead [Institute] is recognized worldwide for pathfinding programs in cancer and HIV research, structural biology, genetics, infectious disease research developmental biology, and transgenic science. Link

Remeber the $100 LInux Simputer?

[westlake]

The Simputer: Began as yet another high-profile, charitable project. 4000 units sold to large-sale commercial enterprises that needed a PDA for auto diagnostics and other specialized apps. The poor aren't buying and the middle class can afford much better. Simputer

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[grcumb]

"Why is it to get rotten egged off the podium in this world, all you have to do is volunteer to help?"

Amen to that. As someone who works full time in a place that has been designated by the UN as a Least Developed Country, I have to say that this absurd, simplistic logic which decrees that food shortages can only be addressed by food makes me grind my teeth with frustration.

Scenario: A child has a boil in his nostril that's gone septic and is spreading into his sinuses and putting pressure on the brain, there are no doctors within 80 miles. How does the poorly trained but well-intentioned nurse get a proper diagnosis, and if necessary the authorisation to fly the child to the district hospital if communications and resource materials are not available?

Answer: She doesn't, and the child dies. From a boil. This really happened; that child was the eldest boy of a friend of mine.

The country where I work is limited in its development for three major reasons: Education, Health and Infrastructure. In terms of communications, there are some villages here that have waited for over 23 years to get phone service. The national telecom infrastructure relies on microwave transmission equipment so old that replacement parts are no longer available. Introducing simple devices capable of creating ad hoc mesh networks automatically would be an absolute godsend.

Just in case anyone has missed the message here: Improved communications, through low-cost devices such as this, save lives. They do so more effectively than any bag of flour or rice could do.

Okay, I'll bite...

[Chmcginn]

MIT's not airdropping these in remote villages that are dying of famine. Considering they're being sold to education institutions in the third, I think most of the students who get to use them are already going to have all the basics for survival - kids who don't get to eat aren't going to be going to school. They're designed to be used as educational tools - and beyond immediate survival, I'd argue there isn't much more important than education - especially for the poor. Without education, they'll never be anything but poor.

Re:Underdog != instant success... it could still f

[DA-MAN]

This is inconsistent with their refusal to take OS X when it was offered to them; if that wasn't ego-driven, then I don't know what that means.

I thought their goal was to spread technology to the underprivileged third world. The best way to do that is to use something that has a license which permits redistribution. Doing that with a closed OS, whose license can be revoked, is a bad idea. We all know Steve is a megalomaniac only on par with Larry McVoy, and we all remember how the BitKeeper incident went down . . .

Cheap laptops = Cheap users.

[samurphy21]

The problem with offering a service or product for less and less money all the time is the diminishing Lowest Common Denominator that the product or service then caters to. For example, I work at a store that sells digital satellite systems. When it cost $800+ for a system to be bought and installed, we rarely, if ever, recieved the ignorant, angry calls about every silly little thing that goes wrong (probably caused by user error in the first place). Today, after credits, it costs you -$20 (negative 20 dollars) to have the same system put in, and we're innundated with calls from people who've switched from channel 3 to channel 48 and can't figure out how to tune the tv back to the right channel, or people who have let their 3 year old use the remote as a submarine, or the people who have lost the recievers down the drain (last one is an exaggeration for comedic effect, but the other two are anecdotal). I fear to see the quality of users of a $100 laptop, given the quality of users of a $800 laptop that I deal with these days.

Re:Cheap laptops = Cheap users.

[damsa]

In countries where these computers are going to, it's equivalent of buying a $10,000 computer for you and I.

Re:Well if they accepted Apple's OS ...

[Zerathdune]

but would they have made an open source version of aqua for the project? The idea of making it entirely open source wasn't based on RMS's, rantings, they just didn't want to be at the mercy of any corporation.

Besides that, I'm not denying that OSX is a decent OS, with a decent selection of apps, but are you actually buying into Intel's BS that linux doesn't have software? Pretty much all it's short on is an up to date version of flash player.

Why this will have minimum impact on poor people

[skeptictank]

Information technology is the pinnacle of the technology tree. For it to have real impact you need to have a lot of other technologies that it can help you manage. The computer revolution has pushed productivity in the developed world through the roof in the last 15 years, but that is because we already had communication, transportation and production systems in place that could be automated and otherwise take advantage of the computer. If you are a person that still depends upon muscle power as your primary means of producing food, it's hard to see how a laptop will help you be more productive. You can control a tractor, a factory, an airplane or a car with a microprocessor and gps, but not a mule. One of the most common promotions of these systems I have heard is that it well help people in remote villages get better prices for their crops, but I really doubt that. The dominant factor in the sale price of crops in primative economies is the cost of transportion. Knowing the price of corn in a large city several hundred miles away isn't going to help that much. MIT seems to be marketing these now more as an educational tool and less as a communications tool, but I can't help but think that in a country like Niger, the money would be better spent building a decent road system.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[Hosiah]

The country where I work is limited in its development for three major reasons: Education, Health and Infrastructure.

As your story left a lump in my throat, I recalled other stories from other places. In fact, every time I see a documentary on underdeveloped countries, or read about humanitarian efforts in foreign lands, these same factors come up again and again. Even amongst the ghettos and wastes of America (and I've waded in them hip-deep!), you have the same problem: you could literally go down skid row handing out hundred dollar bills - most of them would go on a drinking binge and the rest would blow it on lottery tickets. Both routes lead back to skid row. It isn't the lack of necessities that's the problem - that's just a symptom. The problem is that the US condones most of it's citizens' growing up as ignorant savages.

Where you are, I bet a mere book is a real treasure. Well, they're banned and burned, here. I bet a scholar is someone to be looked up to where you are. Not here; here, we're "geeks" and "nerds" and "literary faggots". With any luck, if these efforts do what they're supposed to do, the opportunity to join the 21st century will at last be placed in your people's hands.

I'm sure they will be eager to learn. Not here; instead a cursory reading of my fellow American's postings on Slashdot discovers a litany in praise of ignorance: "It's too difficult." "I'll just spend my money and pay somebody else to do it for me." "Why don't you like Bill Gates, are you a hippie communist terrorist?" and the resounding cry that roars from the mob above it all: "I'M TOO BUSY TO LEARN!!!" You know what they're too busy doing, don't you? Earning money working multiple jobs. So they can pay more money to other people to have them do things for them. Because they're too busy to learn how to do it themselves. But what happens when *nobody* knows *anything*? Money is a poor substitute for brains.

The scary part to me is, your country is heading where we are, while ours is heading where yours is! If so, I am almost fed up enough with this one to think, perhaps, that both nations shall get what they deserve.

Cell Phones

[failrate]

Cell phones are more ubiquitous than any other computer platform in history, exceeding even the reach of personal computers.

They also have enough processing power to perform most tasks that most people require (e.g., e-mail, web browsing, telephony (duh:D), calculation, games, spreadsheets (possible)).

With improvements in interface such as projection keyboards and displays, you already have your $100 computer.

Re:Cell Phones

[Anonymous Coward]

Cell phones have to be fed serious m.o.n.e.y. every time they transmit or recieve.

  You basically become a cash cow to your service provider. Which, in less affluent and remote locations, if you're not 'elite' enough, means virtual serfdom. With grace service and all.

    These laptops, if they live up to the hype; enable, liberate, and instruct.

    Dozens of Libraries suddenly become available. Texts. Lessons. Books. For free.

    Not to mention subject tutorial sites. Maths, Geography. Philosophy. Literature. Accounting. Law.

    Ok, so movie and song stars will also get a lot of attention. But they'll be able to read a lot about them, when all they had was the radio or TV, a Photo from an old magazine, and a CD or two.

    Local landlords are going to have a harder time fleecing their usual flocks with wrong tallies, wrong exchange rates, wrong legislation quotes... etc. And emails / blogs denouncing all this can spring from pratically everywhere at once.

    Family ailments will soon be looked up on the Net, adding to information and choice. ... They will be less isolated and less left out.

    With all this, will come better organization among the harder ups. And maybe the slimier middlemen will get cut out.

    Some good can come of it. As will some mischief.

    But at a better level.

Re:Underdog != instant success... it could still f

[AoT]

I would say that was a damn good idea. By running the thing on Linux they are ensuring that all the users can afford the same OS throughout their lives and have the ability to alter it.

Linux will probably run better on the hardware they are using as well.

P.S. I am a mac geek.

Anti-news.

[SavvyPlayer]

Somehow we are to expect that an organization facing a potentially disruptive technology wouldn't throw its weight into discrediting said tech? This might have been newsworthy had Intel publicly praised this technology. But seriously. Every major player with a stake in the PC (Intel, Apple, M$, Dell, etc.) should be expected to berate this new idea. Anything less would be sheer negligence in the eyes of the shareholder.

"are merely gadgets"? I remember when Bill Gates

[mcneely.mike]

said that the linux operating system was merely 'a toy' operating system... until, that is, someone pointed out that that toy operating system was more stable and secure than Windows..... Now he takes Gnu/Linux VERY seriously.

Re:Well if they accepted Apple's OS ...

[LurkerXXX]

Oh please. Apple's big thing is the overal 'user experience'. Ease of use. Do you really think they are going to put an interface abomination like the Gimp on it? (yeah, I know I'm going to be modded troll to oblivion for daring to say that the Gimp's interface sucks).

If Apple can't install an application with a great interface in their base install, I don't think they'd want to add it at all.

If the user wants to add it themselves later, fine. It's easy, but they probably think it's better than folks complaining about the crappy interface of 'that mac software'. I think that's the reason they give a pass to most of the free stuff out there.

$29 internet PC already exists ~ its called a 486

[anarchynow]

You can walk into any flea market around the world and pick up a full Pentium 2 PC running Windows 98 for usually about $100... including mouse, keyboard, and monitor. 486s running Windows 95 and Opera... can be had for next to free. There is no need to build more crap to be disposed of in ten years time.

Does it matter? They dont know the difference....

[cortech]

Many people in third world countries like sri lanka dont know how to use computers, they dont know what intel is or amd. If you were born into the world only hearing spanish you would speak spanish. If you were given a computer for the first time using linux, you would learn and adapt to linux. Intel is missing the point, the idea is not to try and compete with big companies, but to show everyone that there is a lot out there for 200 bucks.

Re:Are You People Kidding Me???

[Chunu]

So many, many things wrong with this post. But the only point I want to put across is that the governments or philanthropic organisations will be buying these to distribute to people, most of whom will only be making a dollar or two a day. Has everyone forgotten how exciting it was to see the Donkey Kong handheld, the Atari 2600 or even heck the Commodore 64? Add in the internet connection, and this will be ultra cool - for usage at least, because fingers crossed a lot of people will have them... And as for having more important things to do than handcrank a computer, there are more developing countries with poor people on them than the hot warzones or drought areas that are on the nightly news. I get the impression some people think aid agencies will spend money on computers rather than emergency food. And remember, $100 worth of portable computer is far better than $100 of weapons or landmines.

CPU's?, running linux + reprogrammable

[Zantetsuken]

1: arent the things supposed to run Intel Pentium 3's (so why are they pissed?)

2: they'll run linux, so they should be able to run most any program requiring less than the hardware specs, and a windows emulator or recompiler for their "windows only" programs

3: since its running linux, it shouldnt be to hard for people to write their own code (obviously the ones that know how)

Re:$29 internet PC already exists ~ its called a 4

[damsa]

Hand cranking that sucker would take arms of a popeye though.

But can it run VICE?

[VanessaDannenberg]

Most people here have one or another vice, but I mean the C64 emulator. If there's one thing I'd pay $100 for, it's a laptop that has enough koyach to run Linux + VICE reasonably well, seeing as how no one seems to be interested in actually *making* a real laptop C64. :-)

Mods: This is meant as a joke.. It's funny. Laugh.

computer literate != internet literate

[weierstrass]

You don't need to understand computers to use the Internet.

You need to be able to use a mouse, maybe a keyboard, know how to click on the blue 'e' (or the fox, yes), work a 'Back' button, use a search engine.. that's about it. Oh yes, and being able to read and write is helpful.

Being computer 'savvy' is different skillset altogether.

Re:computer literate != internet literate

[allanc]

> Being computer 'savvy' is different skillset altogether.

But we're not talking about being computer savvy right now. We're talking about being computer literate. That's kinda the point. I'd say your description qualifies for 'Computer Literate' but not 'computer savvy'.

Being computer savvy isn't a different skillset altogether. I'd say it's a superset of the computer-literate skillset. And if you think anyone can do the things you mentioned above, go find someone who's never touched a computer and do a real-world test on that theory.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[sullyfish]

MIT may very well be involved in corn and AIDS cures.

They have all kinds of research going on there.

I toured the Whitehead Institute when I applied for a job there. The job involved hundreds of tanks of Zebra Danios. They have have large ( relatively speaking ) eggs and are very prolific. This makes them ideal for genetics research.

If they have hit upon something possibly helpful to a third world country, why not run with it?
They just haven't come up with anything useful in the corn department yet.

You...don't...say.

[John Pfeiffer]

An Intel chairman has been quoted bashing a good idea that doesn't involve an Intel CPU?! OH MY GOD.

Seriously. It's like Nvidia calling Battlefield 2 a crappy game because my four year old ATI video card plays it just fine, and one year old Nvidia cards can't. (Actually, that has more to do with Nvidia paying the devs to artificially cripple the game to not run on those cards...but my point is: DUH! What did you THINK he was going to say?!)

You'd have to build one of these things with a Pentium 1 inside to meet that pricepoint, of COURSE the chairman of Intel is going to say it's crap/it'll never work/etc.

Re:Underdog != instant success... it could still f

[Rakishi]

"This is inconsistent with their refusal to take OS X when it was offered to them; if that wasn't ego-driven, then I don't know what that means."

Christ, will the Apple fanboys ever shut up? Yes, they refused to use a proprietary OS with unknown strings, with potentially problematic contracts and with unknown future support options. An OS whose requirements are much greater than other choices and which cannot be as easily optimized for their cpu (and for any future upgrades).

So it seems they can control egos, as they managed to contain any apple fanboys on staff and their egos already.

Dont make it closed source

[4Dmonkey]

If you are afraid that it will be useless, just bundle a simple C/C++ complier with a simple IDE and a good ebook on programming, and just watch it as it make waves.

Students are curious, a toy which makes many more toys is the most addictive one. When you cant play heavy games/surf etc on a machine, you start programming....thats how it starts.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[Eivind]

Perfectly correct. People too often don't see that people can benefit from technology even when they don't use it as we do. I know a teacher in a small village in Nepal (don't ask, long story). For them it was a *large* benefit when the village got its first handy. Sure, you had to walk for half an hour to get to the nearest point where it worked, and sure it could only be recharged with a small solar-panel that cost like literally a weeks pay.

But guess what: Knowing what their products sold for in the nearest city allowed the entire village to make more intelligent choises about what to bring along to market-day, and what price to accept from travelling sellers and/or buyers.

In his own words, the handy is more worth to the village than ten healthy hard-working men would be.

No, they don't use it like scandinavian 13-year-old-girls use it (i.e. to send thousands of pointless SMS a month and listen to "ringtones" at $2.99), nor does it have a camera, triband, or look very sexy. Doesn't mean it's useless.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[Decker-Mage]

One of the more interesting developments in the Third World is that one woman (it always seems to be a woman) will obtain a cell phone via a microloan (Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, via other agencies elsewhere) and sell time on their cellular phone to others in their village at a small markup. It's a booming business and doesn't require any additional infrastructure investment by the countries involved beyond the cell towers which they already were installing all over the place for their own governmental officials and their military.

You never know how technology is going to be applied by sufficiently motivated individuals let alone all the various directions they will take to get there. That's what makes the intersection of high tech and economics especially in terms of international development so much fun.

So, expect to be surprised what happens with these laptops when they get into the hands of not only school children but their parents as well. It will happen.

Hopefully it will be properly supported

[Iron Fusion]

If this initiative goes how this kind of thing normally goes, most of the third world recipients won't be taught how to use it properly and the people in charge will come back in 6 months to see it propping up a wobbly table leg or something.

$100.00 Laptop

[john666seven]

1) You are assuming that everyone in the world wants a computer or has a use for one. I think that you will find that the assumption that everyone has a use for a computer is wrong. 2) Intel is angry that they are not Intel processors that's obvious. 3) From what I can find, the computers will be used to access the internet (no use for big programs there), write lessons, do other simple things. They are not made to write code, handle the latest AI programs. 4)It will be Linux based--you know there is pressure from "the other company" on Intel to make such statements, as usual.

Re:Won't happen

[MikeFM]

Why? We have $100 PDAs and phones that have built-in web browsers and are more powerful than the computers a lot of us were using just a few years ago. Also without the markup of going through usual channels to buy parts a hdd, lcd, etc can be bought much cheaper. I think that's why they're trying to sell these in lots of a million or more units because it lets them buy the parts much cheaper. You're $1500 Toughbook is great but it's seen a lot of markup before reaching the consumer.

Useless gadgets?

[yfkar]

If gadgets are so worthless, then things are going pretty bad for Intel. :)
http://www.intel.com/personal/resources/five_must_ haves.htm

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[Hosiah]

Well, MIT doesn't grow corn. They don't research AIDS cures.

OK, I hear everybody saying MIT does, indeed, have it's fingers in these pies as well. But they're *famous* for engineering, or the MIT computer science lab only does computers, or something like that. Moral of the story: never make general statements about an area with a high concentration of brains. Brains always surprise you.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[SteeldrivingJon]

"A billion dollars to immigrate the poor or a billion dollars to educate the poor?"

A laptop is not an education. It's a tool that may, under certain circumstances, facilitate learning, but overall it's probably a wash. In the US, laptops in curricula typically turns out to mean giving the students assignments where they, for example, do their history report as a web page. End result, they probably waste a bunch of time on HTML crap they don't really need to know, and spend less time on the history they're supposed to be learning.

Furthermore, laptop or no, it's hard to learn when you're shitting yourself to death because the water is bad and sanitation in your town is more a long-term goal than a reality. And forget about learning when you're winding a guinea worm parasite out of your leg for a few weeks.

If 3rd world laptops are going to be of any use, they should be targeted at teachers and administrators, not at the students.

Alas, targeting the teachers and administrators wouldn't get Nicholas Negroponte enough PR to garner another 60 seconds of fame.

The real problem

[SteeldrivingJon]

The real problem is that we're already sending obsolete computer hardware to the third world by the container load.

If someone wants to provide the developing world with computers, they should come up with a platform that can be built locally by cannibalizing the old computers piling up around them.

Negroponte should fly a team of MIT students to some old PC graveyard in India and give them a couple of weeks to come up with a platform based on the available parts on the ground.

Re:There's probably some truth to this

[ChrisMaple]

"You know what they're too busy doing, don't you? Earning money working multiple jobs. So they can pay more money to other people to have them do things for them. Because they're too busy to learn how to do it themselves."

The principle at work here is called division of labor and it has been known to be effective for a couple of hundred years. It's one of the reasons that an advanced industrial civilization is possible.

Yes, being able to do things yourself has a lot of value; but it's not effective, or even possible, to do everything yourself.

Re:oops

[lloydtesterman]

"Apparently you've not been following the subject very much. If you're going to flame the first idea you happen to find through uneducated guesses, please, get off the internet."

You must be new here

Re:Well if they accepted Apple's OS ...

[FATRanger]

Not sure if policy has changed since you've got your mac, but on my new iSight iMac it came with Appleworks, which would be more than sufficient for everyday word processing.

Re:If Microsoft announced a $100 laptop...

[wilec]

#Reply to Windows TROLL
#Sorry but it simply computes that:
{
  {
    IF (((it is too slow) ++ (it crashes)) == (it runs Windows))
  }
  {
    THEN (Do not take pot shots the messenger)
  }
  {
    ELSE (Quit whinning about topic choices and just ignore the ones you dislike)
  }
}

This is not of our doing, you know where the fault lies, either your user habits or your OS or sometimes both. Anyway for some strange reason I tend to suspect Microsoft would line up with Intel on this issue. If either organization,or most university and corporate board level types, had any real vision they would be able to see the high probability of a huge payback on programs such as this.

Heck I might even get one to throw in the toolbox/truck as a PDA, data logger, calculator, ect. I use old OS/2/DOS/Windows 486 and 386 laptops like this now, WiFi & USB support would be really handy and a light weight distro of Linux, BSD, QNX, etc. would be a nice fit.

Kudos to MIT, again!

Matthew

You are missing the point of the machine

[tlambert]

You are missing the point of the machine.

The intent of the machine is to provide a tool that can be used by a large number of people who are otherwise computer illiterate, and on the wrong side of a steep learning curve.

Until Linux has software enforced compliance with usability standards and style guidelines, and a single, uniform UI, so that knowledge is portable, not only between machines, but between applications on a single machine, it's just not suitable for this use.

One of the major intents of the machine is to effectively promote literacy - not computer literacy, but the real thing.

This is not intended to grow the next generation of uber-hackers in Benin, where 66% of the population can't read, or it's neighbor Burkina Faso, where illiteracy is 73%, or the 82% in Niger or the 60% in Iraq or the 62% in Somalia or the 64% in Afghanistan or the 40% in India - total ~750M people worldwide.

The predominant use and limited capability of the hardware platform would make the locals hacking it unlikely, at best. Software is likely to be contained in a read-only partition, since these machines are not field servicable without additional equipment (specifically, the ability to reload the flash contents from a doorstop state back to a working machine).

MacOS X has a large number of advantages over Linux in this environment, not the least of which is full Unicode support, already isolated translation strings, and translation consoles for use by translaters who will need to push these machines into environments requiring localized UI (and do it reasonably quickly).

If the translation infrastructure already built into MacOS X has to be redeveloped from scratch for Linux, we are talking adding years to the deployment cycle.

I'm sure everyone already realizes that MacOS X is Open Source. As one of the ~dozen full time people responsible for maintaining the MacOS X kernel, I can assure that the Open Source nature of MacOS X is not about to change overnight: as a worst-case scenario, you could always fork the code base.

Nothing you are going to do in user space on Linux can't be done the same way on MacOS X, if you didn't want to take the UI parts because they contain proprietary code. The GNU HURD is also Mach-based, and is an MIT project. The choice to use Linux instead of something else was purely a political play on their part; their argument about hacking the code themselves is a minor consideration, at best, and doesn't argue against a non-Linux implmentation.

For this particular project, the native language capability is probably the single overriding factor that should be considered in the decision making process, after the price point.

It also doesn't hurt that there are some advantages to use of closed source components - at least *some* closed source components - to prevent governments from pithing the machines. The first thing I would expect to be chopped in many locations is the mesh networking - it's a subversive technology, particularly for countries whose goverments rely on the ability to control their citizens communication channels. Being unable to rebuild the system from modified sources in order to prevent this from becoming a village communications network not under government control could only be a good thing.

When these machines get where they are going, they are *NOT* going to have the source code included with them - there are no CDROM drives, and there isn't enough storage to contain the full source code for everything, nor is there a way, without additional more technologically advanced resources for someone to undo a government lobotomy on the machines.

Yeah, it'd be fun to be in a first world country and have a $200 machine (our price) to hack on, with all the source code for everything - but guess what? The damn things are not intended for us geeks. And that includes the geeks building them and making decisions which are likely not in the best interests of the people they are supposedly intending to help with them.

-- Terry

Please see my othr comment in this thread.

[tlambert]

Please see my other comment in this thread.

The bottom line is that these machines will not be field servicable at all, without additional, more complex hardware available to reflash the storage media, and they do not have sufficient storage or a removable media storage device like a CDROM drive, so the source code is not going to go out with them.

These are the moral equivalent of electric books and writing pads, combined with a semi-uncontrolled communications infrastructure that will probably be lobotomized out of them at the first opportunity by any even mildly control-happy government, with no way for their users to undo the damage once they're deployed in the field.

-- Terry

You'll have to wait

[hug_the_penguin]

Simply they aren't out yet, and besides, apple gets first pick at them when they do come out, anyway. How many will be left for consumers, I wonder? That said, I'm much more looking forward to new AMDs, that said as someone who only has intel machines in his house.

Re:You'll have to wait

[SaDan]

Speaking as someone who's traditionally had Intel, Cyrix, AMD, Sparc and various Motorola powered machines at home, the new AMD X2 chips rock. I just built a simple X2 system at home (3800+, 2.0Ghz dual core), and it's absolutely the fastest thing I've ever used, at work and at home, for a desktop system (and most servers).

You'll be happy if you give AMD a try.