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.

Comments

So much for the Compy 386 LT

[ackthpt]

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.

"Business at the Speed of Thought"-ish?

[eldavojohn]

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*

Re:"Business at the Speed of Thought"-ish?

[Langdon]

I guess you haven't been in a third world country yet.

This won't directly go to the "poorest people in the world"... this will go to the slighty less poor folk trying to help them. I'd imagine a lot of these will end up in farmer's cooperatives or collectives, used to distribute information to the farmers themselves. Sure, an illiterate farmer can't use a computer, but the local aid workers or agriculturists can.

And even if the parents are illiterate, the presence of cheap computers available at the local library will help make sure their children aren't (with $100 computers and some form of wireless access, small rural libraries are now feasible in areas where shipping books in useful quantities are too expensive).

I've seen a project in India where a guy accesses the US Navy Geographical Survey page, looks up local weather conditions, and broadcasts the current weather report over short-wave radio every morning to the local fishing villages. The main problem was maintaining an Internet connection and computer for the announcer guy. Being able to deploy even one computer and 'net connection (rudimentary dialup, whatever) per village instead of only in the bigger population centers will help in disseminating this information to more people.

The organizers aren't as completely out of touch with reality as some people here, it seems.

Good choice of manufacturer

[Rude Turnip]

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.

Bad title

[DogDude]

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.

Quanta's specs

[digitaldc]

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.

What about older laptops?

[cejones]

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...

Re:What about older laptops?

[MaxQuordlepleen]

Can you imagine the nightmare of trying to install a standard operating system on 1,000,000 random previously-junked laptops? Or providing any kind of support? Or spare parts?

I think those donated laptops are probably better utilized in smaller-scale scenarios like a drop-in centre. Take a look at what these guys have done in creating a standard Debian-based distro for use on marginal hardware. (It's a very impressive project, proves what kind of talent exists in the K/W area)

There's poverty close to home, too, and close to home in the developed world is probably a better place to use this kind of hardware, where there are lots of geeks close by to lend a hand.

Crank Now

[Nom du Keyboard]

Once upon a time you had to crank your Victrola to play your music.

Now you can crank your notebook to play your MP3's.

Poor choice

[blueadept1]

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.

More informations

[this great guy]

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.

Many Aspects to Development

[JLavezzo]

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.

Oh shut the fuck you fucking retard

[SmallFurryCreature]

Isn't anyone else getting fucking tired of the same old crap bullshit over and over.

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.

Quanta is a great choice....

[8127972]

..... because they make stuff for the following companies:

- 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=17 3600682 for more).

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.