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Manufacturer Picked For $100 Laptop
IZ Reloaded writes "MIT has picked Taiwanese firm Quanta to manufacture its $100 laptop. From PCWorld: 'Under terms of an agreement with One Laptop Per Child, Quanta will devote engineering resources to develop the $100 notebook design during the first half of the year, according to a statement issued by the group. At the same time, Quanta and the non-profit organization will explore the production of a commercial version of the laptop.'" Apparently they don't think it's ineffectual either.
I don't know, I think before any of that you could like put resources towards feeding people and providing them with fresh drinking water. Some of the basics to survive before giving some kid out in the middle of the kalahari a laptop and saying "go pedal. information is free"
Run Linux? Oh wait, cheap hardware, of course it runs Linux, fine.
This $100 laptop is a great idea, but the justification stated on the website seems a little "creative." You could also argue for any number of modern conveniences that would help children in 3rd world countries, like a $1000 Mercedes using that justification. The bottom line is, people in these countries need food, shelter, clothing and education but more importantly, political stability. It just seems funny with all the problems countries are facing--particularly in Africa--a $100 laptop for every child, though commendable, would not solve.
Well, you're right about an immediate form of aid. But have you really helped them by giving them this water or food handout?
What better way to free a people then to allow them the means to learn how to grow the food or purify the water? What I'm trying to say is that teaching someone how to help themselves is worth more than you helping them along their entire lives.
That's why I like this laptop idea so much. It's not a temporary bandaid with a few truckloads of food. It's a possible permanent fix for people in need if it is done correctly and used by the people.
My work here is dung.
What will bring political stability is education, freedom of speech, and communication.
This laptop will bring those about. It has wireless capability. Even a programming language. It can teach obviously new farming techniques, basic healthcare, but also new political ideas by exposing people to the last 2000+ years of political experience and historical knowledge.
Furthermore, this laptop is not necessarily targetted at the poorest of the poor. It is targetted at the children in the middle poor countries who already have their fundamental basic needs such as food taken care of and now need other tools so that they can be more productive and self sustaining without being permanently dependent on aid.
Giving aid is already being done. You are pooh poohing somethat is less than one tenth of one percent of the "aid" budget
And by the way yes, a $1000 vehicle and cheap fuel _would_ go a long way into helping farmers.
What better way to free a people then to allow them the means to learn how to grow the food or purify the water? What I'm trying to say is that teaching someone how to help themselves is worth more than you helping them along their entire lives.
Any idea as to the literacy rates in these areas? Somehow, I find it absolutely absurd that a person who lives in the bush somewhere in Central Africa is going to Google "manual water purification systems", whip out a credit card, and have one sent to them from Amazon. Or potentially find a web page written by another bushman describing the best way to skin a wildebeest.
I don't respond to AC's.
But the education need is addressed with the laptops. That's the whole point - it allows for a better education than without. Electronic medium textbooks are a pretty big deal even in America, let alone a third world country with a minimal GDP.
Food, shelter, political stability - of course these aren't answered. But that doesn't imply that bright minds shouldn't be working towards innovative solutions on other fronts as well.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
Seems like every time the OLPC project comes up, someone brings this up. Fact is, there ARE people working on improving supplies of drinking water and irrigating crops. The MIT Media Lab isn't going to be involved in that. They do stuff like come up with technology that can be used in classrooms where the school budges barely pay the teachers, let alone buy books for the students. That's awesome. The problem has lots of aspects, let's look at as improving as many as we can
Are you saying that this project won't succeed because there are parts of developing countries that don't have close access to clean drinking water? Or are you suggesting we only look at one aspect of the problem at a time? Because, that hasn't worked very well, yet.
I wish I had a book or something to suggest as reading for folks who don't "get" international Social and Economic Development. Best I can suggest is calling your local Peace Corps recruiter or Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Association.
Not every 3rd wold nation is a disaster zone. Their are plenty of places where there is political stability and food and water and hygiene are no longer the primary concerns.
What is the problem is getting them to the next level. EDUCATION. Books are expensive and you need a lot of them for even basic schooling worse they need to be translated for each country.
While laptops are also expensive you only need 1 per child, its software can be updated constantly to give the latest book the child needs, it can replace paper to make homework on.
Stop thinking the 3rd world is like the horror shows you seen on tv. These occur because the 1st world always looses interest the moment the immidiate horror is over and the real hardwork needs to start.
SCHOOLS are needed much more at the moment. These laptops would help in those 3rd world nations who are at the moment struggling not to feed their citizens but to educate them.
These are not for refugee camps, they are for places like south africa and india.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Do the 5 year old kids working in the factory get a free laptop. They would probably be good at turning the crank. anyway just a thought
Givings kids cheap notebooks does not equal education. Without learning how to read, or operate the machine the machine is useless. You need the infrastructure in place to have an educational environment before these things can be of any use. We still don't have educational applications for these machines lined up yet.
Truth be told, the laptop really isnt necessary. It could easily be replaced by a good thousand page almanack containing good information on math, science, culture, farming, clean practices, etc. Ever see how cheap reprints are on out-of-copyright works? 3-5$ for 500 page books are not unheard of. We could be mass producing educational works for $8 if we wanted to. But that wouldn't be "cool" because its not a computer. Book has less failure modes, cheap to produce, could be produced under an "open source" license free to distribute...
-everphilski-
Whenever the 100$ laptop is mentioned, the hordes scream: "Africa needs food! Africa needs schools!". Well, they've been receiving food and aid for decades, and they're still poor. Maybe it's time to try something different. What if you gave millions of children access to the "sum of human knowledge" - or at least, the next best thing: a laptop with ad-hoc wireless mesh networking?
500MHz AMD CPU. 128MB RAM. 1024MB Flash memory. 4 USB ports. WiFi. VoIP. Switchable colour/BW display. Hand-cranked generator or AC powered. Runs Linux. Rugged. 100$.
This is much more than a toy. It's a communications device. It's a textbook library. It's an opportunity for Africa to embrace information technology and its benefits.
Some laptops will be stolen. Others will be destroyed by accident. Others will be burned at the stake for being evil western technology. A great many will probably just gather dust.
However, most of them will be used right: as learning tools. Millions of children will have and will use this wonderful library of textbooks. They will have a better opportunity to learn and to educate themselves than they ever did before.
But what good is an education when you're condemned to a life of subsistence farming? I'm betting that in the end, the true potential of these laptops will be wasted on 90% of children who get them. And that's to be expected. And that's all right.
There are kids, on every continent, that love to learn and that have a gift for learning. These kids go to school, but they absorb knowledge from available source. These children will go beyond the school curriculum. In Africa, they will use their laptops to learn skills they never could have otherwise. We'll see young africans that know about programming, networking, information technology, advanced farming and construction techniques - and so much more - just pop out of nowhere. We'll see a new generation that knows how to use technology and how to make the best of it.
So, you're right. These laptops will be for the most part, wasted. But it doesn't matter - because we'll have given awesome new opportunities to a few hundred thousand gifted children, who'd otherwise would have been condemned to a life of subsistence farming.
Here is what will happen when those laptops hit the street of those impoverished nations:
Have you seen these freakin' things? They're cartoonish in appearance, and are very obviously meant for children. That was an intentional design feature; the idea is that anyone who is not a young student will look ridiculous carrying or using one of these laptops, and it will be very obvious that any non-child that has one obtained it through less-than-honest methods.
That is also the same reason that they can't use refurbished notebooks. If the device is a standard, commercially available laptop, they would definitely be stolen and sent out through the black market. Keeping the design kid-oriented and very unique will minimize any shady trading in these laptops.
Alot of posters have mentioned that this money could better be utilized by giving them text books. Which of course earns the response by the other side of why spend $50 on one text book when you can spend $100 on one laptop that can hold 40+ textbooks. Here is where I weigh in on this: Publishers of textbooks do so for the money. It is simple, they copyright their material and sell it. They will not be able to simply get this $100 laptop and keep all the textbooks they need on it, the 'e-books' will have to be purchased/licensed as well. Now if the laptops were connected to the internet then the could simply utilize it as a textbook, however do people actually think that the third world has a cable/dsl connection sitting idle just waiting for a laptop? Telcos will not provide internet into a new market if they cannot make money off of it. If the residents do not have money they will not waste money building the infrastructure. Think of it like this, if everyone had an electric car instead of gas, would you open a gas station? I wouldn't. -matt
$diff terrorists hippies
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$rm -rf *terrorists *hippies
The people using them are not steeped in western computer culture. They won't find Smalltalk or Logo syntax "weird".
The people using them are not tied to lots of other high tech ways to communicate. When they are taught how to use the computer as "personal dynamic media", that is, as a way to communicate with each other by sending each other simulations of their ideas, they will find it useful. They will learn how to do it.
The people who will be teaching with these won't have a "back to basics" crowd preventing them from using constructivist methods. Their students may end up being able to think better than our students.
In short, the fact that we got computers and education first addicted us to a less developed way of using computers and teaching. The late comers will be able to embrace the more effective ways of using computers and educating, and will probably pass us up.
Personally, I think this is bad news. We had Logo and Smalltalk over 20 years ago, with the chance to have a revolution right here in America (in many ways, one started with Logo in classrooms, but then it sort of died). Because of our lack of foresight, those who were behind us are now going to get the chance to pass us up.
I would still buy one though. It looks really cool!