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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.
The stock for Strongbad Industries, of Strongbadia (Pop: Tire), took a severe hit on the news.
like my good friend, Craig Barrett says, it is no good if our sales no asplode
BTW, how do you spell Barret(t?), even Intel seems to forget.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
So perhaps some of you have read Bill Gates' Business at the Speed of Thought . No, not the Necromonicron, I'm not referring to anything written by Satan (just one of his understudies). I have read this book and a very interesting concept that I gathered from it was that a business could be measured by the speed at which information passes through it. This makes sense as the easier it is for employees to gather information or to pass information increases the amount of brainstorming and learning that occurs at your company.
I then speculated that this could also be applied to nations. A country's greatness may be able to be measured by the ease at which its citizens gather information. And if you look at today's countries, this might be true.
Perhaps this initiative to deliver cheap laptops to students of poorer nations will help boost their economy and the rate at which information travels from person to person. After all, isn't internet access the fastest and cheapest form of communicating?
Just something to think about. I wonder if anyone else feels the same way--I know this is a very altruistic view. On top of that, I realize I've just mentioned Bill Gates in a somewhat positive manner. *sprays himself with flame retardent foam and begins to pray*
My work here is dung.
Quanta is highly regarded as one of the better laptop manufacturers and I wish them luck. Quanta manufacturers a number of product lines for Apple and their own line of X86 laptops get good reviews.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
The manufacturer wasn't picked. A company to investigate how this thing could be manufactured was picked. No company has yet to say that this is even possible. This is still ivory tower, public reltations mumbo jumbo at this stage.
I don't respond to AC's.
Actual production of the laptop will, of course, be outsourced to the Ohio Art Company.
The 500MHz
1 GB Memory
"Skinny version" of the open-source Linux operating system
Two-mode screen, viewed in color and black-and-white display
Powered either with an AC adapter or via a wind-up crank w/ 10-to-1 crank rate
4 USB ports
Wi-Fi- and cell phone-enabled
Each laptop acts as a node in a mesh peer-to-peer ad hoc network
When closed, the hinge forms a handle and the AC cord can function as a carrying strap
The laptops will be rugged and probably made of rubber
I say this is not bad at all for $100.00.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
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.
After recently visiting my local Goodwill computer store, I saw hundred of old laptops laying around for sale.
Why not take donated laptops and refurbish them.... get donated spares from the orginal OEMS, etc Fix them up and then you kill two birds with one stone... No more computer waste in the landfills and cheap laptops for Ghana.
Considering the cost of labor in Ghana, why not send donated laptops to Ghana... Bring a few hundred people from Ghana to this Taiwanese company to train on how to refurbish the laptops...
Now you can crank your notebook to play your MP3's.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
One laptop per child? If they used the manufacturers that Nike uses, they could surely turn out at least 3 laptops per child per day.
I submitted the story 2 days ago, but it was rejected (damn I hate when that happens), so here is more information...
Here is the official press release from the One Laptop per Child organization. OLPC Chairman Nicholas Negroponte said, "Any previous doubt that a very-low-cost laptop could be made for education in the developing world has just gone away."
Also tech specs can be found on the FAQ page: 500 MHz processor, 128 MB RAM.
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.
And the GP2X also runs linux.
For $179, I can watch movies, music, play several different consoles (Right now we have 100% functional sega genesis, gameboy, not bad for the first 2 weeks. PSX and SNES are partially functional)
SearchIRC - Now with live chat directory!
Givings kids cheap notebooks does not equal education. Without learning how to read, or operate the machine the machine is useless. You need the infrastructure in place to have an educational environment before these things can be of any use. We still don't have educational applications for these machines lined up yet.
Truth be told, the laptop really isnt necessary. It could easily be replaced by a good thousand page almanack containing good information on math, science, culture, farming, clean practices, etc. Ever see how cheap reprints are on out-of-copyright works? 3-5$ 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-
..... because they make stuff for the following companies:
7 3600682 for more).
- Dell (Latitude)
- IBM/Levono (any and all of them)
- Sony (Vaio)
- Apple (iBook)
- Gateway
They also made HP laptops in the past. Plus they're moving into cell phones and other eletronics.
Their CEO Barry Lim was named one of Computer Reseller News's Top 25 Execs in November (http://www.crn.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=1
They have the track record to make this happen properly. I just wonder why they'd do it. Maybe for the P.R. points? It's not for the cash.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Here is what will happen when those laptops hit the street of those impoverished nations: 1) They will be sold to local pawn shops or richer people for food, clothing or medical treatments that these people need more than this type of technology. 2) The ones that are used, will be used very little or mis-understood, because technology with out proper training is utter folley. 3) They will end up in secondary or used markets and provide litte to no benifit to those that have them due to the reasons listed above. sad but true
I highly recommend you try to locate a copy of National Geographics Africa issue. It is very enlightening in that it avoids the Tarzan stereotype propogated by the sensationalist media in the U. S. and describes what Africa is really like.
Yes, Africa has problems and there is a need for clean water and food. But Africa is not as bad off as you might imagine from what you see on the nightly (so called) news.
If you can't find a copy of NGs Africa issue I highly recommend you try to locate a copy of the latest New African. It is a British magazine and hard to locate in the U. S. but well worth the effort if you do find it. I get mine from DeLauer's bookstore in Oakland, CA. I have also seen it at Barnes & Noble.
Again, I agree that Africa has problems, but they are not as bad as we are led to believe. Also, this laptop will create opportunities that you and I cannot see from our distant perspective.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
Yeah, but you need tests, grading, etc. That should be standardized. Currently, it is a hodgepodge of different programs.
Of course, the textbook publishers will detonate a nuclear device on Taiwan to stop it from happening, if they can.
I suspect that we will see a lot happening when publishers start running to congress to get this stopped. Plain and simple, this has the same disruption capabilities as the Internet and mp3 players have had. The internet has change society and impacted everybody. The mp3 players (and more video players to come) have impacted RIAA and the music industry. This small computer may have the same impact on the educational world as well as on computer manufactuers. One of the bigger mistakes for large manufactuers is to ignore this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I though the RAM manufacturers were already convicted of price fixing. We've known this for a long time. Also, RAM you buy is at retail value. Obviously these laptops will have a cost value of $100, and will be sold for no profit.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Whenever the 100$ 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.