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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.
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.
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.
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.