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Negroponte's Talk at Emerging Technology Conference
xacting writes "The video of Nicholas Negroponte's talk about MIT's One Laptop per Child (OLPC) research initiative was just posted to MIT World. In it, he discusses the challenges of tripling the world's laptop production, dealing with China's policies towards free speech and the problems of grey markets." From the article: "The key to churning out these cheap educational devices is volume -- and the more countries that join the bandwagon, the sleeker and less expensive the computers are likely to be. Negroponte casts a wary eye on the potential grey market appeal of the machines, and is determined to make them so distinctive as a government-distributed, educational tool that taking one would 'be like stealing a post office truck.' Negroponte concludes, 'Changing education on the planet is a monumental challenge,' taking decades. But OLPC will 'seed the change,' and help 'invent the future.'"
It will be very stylish for me and profitable for the original $100 laptop recipients if I can find these on eBay fairly soon after they're distributed. I'll pay $150.
Why is everyone so sure that putting a laptop in a kids hand will help them that much? I'm sure it's a great idea on some level but what about starving illiterate kids, wouldn't food and teachers be a better investment?
I'll happily pay for at least one 3rd world child's $100 laptop if I can buy another one for MY kids!
If they offer the First world a model at 200 a piece, I'm sure it'll help drive the cost of investment down for the participants involved. I know that I would buy at least one, probably more. I can already think of a few things to use them for, and that's without actually looking at where in my work environment they could be useful.
Yes, I said it.
Time and time again, we have been shown that trying to deny people access to things they want leads to one thing only: black market, with all the niceties that usually follow it.
So why is Negroponte so keen on preventing everybody who's not a starving child from getting the 100$-laptop? Especially since he seems so worried that they might not be in enough demand to grant them the best prices for components etc.
I say, why limit distribution and *force* this to be a government-sponsored program?
Global warming is a cube.
Why are they so determined to keep the laptops exclusively for 3rd world kids? Why can't I go out and buy one? What's so wrong with that?
This plan is doomed to fail if it depends on keeping these things out of the grey market. The grey market will provide a huge volume for these devices at $100 each. Trying to make them 'distinctive' is just going to drive up the cost. Negroponte is going to have to realize that truckloads of these things will be stolen, or even legitimately produced and sold into the grey market, and deal with that as a cost of doing business. If you flood the market with enough of these things, then people will be less likely to want to steal or buy them off children who need them.
...will we see a group of, oh, 20 or 30 kids get these, open the box, and do something with them? I revisited TFWebsite, and even the Wiki page is completely devoid of softare. I'm still waiting to see exactly what these things will do. Seriously, I want to see a study where they give a few dozen kids brand new boxes and show me how the peer2peer is going to revolutionize things.
I remember being this excited about Ginger (aka Segway), and Transmeta's plans to dominate the CPU world. I'd like to hope there's some new concept behind this, but it is very fuzzy, even after reading the Business and BBC articles. I don't even know what to get my hopes up about yet.
Patiently waiting for some substance. I guess I'm just not a smart as everyone who is frothing at the mouth at how this is going to be so revolutionary.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Maybe these laptops will decrease the spread of AIDS (no one spreads AIDS while downloading pr0n).
"Negroponte casts a wary eye on the potential grey market appeal of the machines, and is determined to make them so distinctive as a government-distributed, educational tool that taking one would 'be like stealing a post office truck." How long after they are in the public's hands will it be before you can buy one alongside the "Rolex" watches for 30.00 or "Gucci" handbags for 5.00 on the street in say, Bangkok?
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
AIDS and such in Africa will not be abolished any time soon as there is no cure yet... educating kids in Africa however can be done much sooner...
Hes not selling individually because theyre selling the laptops in bulk, which makes acquiring one so feasible for them.
I think the $100 laptop initiative is a good idea, but I run into tons of opposition when I hype this to my friends. Yes, all my friends are very progressive and I thought they would jump on the possibility of bringing low cost education to poor countries. Yet they all point out that Negroponte and those supporting this idea are in the end, companies that are really only interested in profit, the computers are purchased by governments with alterior motives and in the end, there is alot more that could be done with this money.
I know of the usual responses to these. I agree, that it is questionable to have Robert "Fox News" Murdoch solve the third world's problems sounds like a joke, I know the media lab has dwelled in rather silly ventures. But I really would like to believe in this venture.
Could someone please think of something totally overriding (and simply understood) that would turn people who are sceptical onto this project?
Some say he is made with ascii, others that he is eyeballed daily by millions. All we know is, he is known as the Sig
Wouldn't it be a whole lot better to first develop and distribute a "thin client" laptop that is not much more than a browser, screen, keyboard, and Wifi connection, along with substantial enough (and presumably pricier) servers that act as access portals, and then second, a more advanced laptop that can store useful data and other programs usable by more advanced students that qualify for them?
Secondarily, I would think that the first and/or second laptops could be sold as an entry level laptop in the first world countries with a sufficient profit margin (and the ability of educational systems like rural school districts, etc. to purchase a limited number of machines without the profit margin built in) to underwrite the distribution of many more machines to the third world? After all, if the whole thing is done under a non-profit framework, there isn't shareholder bottom line to worry about. What think ye all?
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
This is the problem--that there is not really much useful media to put on these machines.
For the most part, "the Internet" in itself is not directly useful in a lower-grade classroom, unless you want to teach kids about porn. What electronic media is available is usually only optional, and designed to complement the printed books.
What really needs to be created is MEDIA, electronic versions of suitable textbooks. And a database of quiz and test questions, organized by book sections, and a program to automatically check those answers. If the hardware had a way to do very-short-range networking (I'm thinking IR here, it only needs to work inside one room and not cause interference in adjoining rooms) then the ability to push file content over it and a way to check quiz answers in real-time would be a good thing too.
But you really don't need a whole laptop to do this. A laptop is really just adding a whole bunch more problems. A simnple e-book type device with a few input buttons would work. You wouldn't even really need a multi-tasking OS; this greatly cuts down on the speed and memory requirements of the hardware.
And finally, the thing's got to be drop-proof, water-proof, crayon-proof, ect. It needs to run off of regular disposeable (or possibly rechargeable) batteries, not $150 li-ion jobs. A laptop is NOT what will work for this.
And really--e-textbooks would/should be priced far lower than printed copies. There's no incentive for any school to even consider going to e-book use, if they are going to have to pay a bunch of money for hardware, and then pay a bunch more for "e-book licenses". If they just go with the printed books, they only pay a bunch once.
~
I'm guessing there are a couple billion people in the world that would rather have clean drinking water instead of a goddamn $100 laptop.
Particularly since $100 is probably a half to a third of their yearly income...
There's nothing like connectivity to information, and there's nothing like getting accurate information, and there's nothing in the world that can provide this link between people and data like the internet. Kids learning languages and merging languages. Kids learning about cultures and merging them. Kids identifying problems and solving them. Kids exploring their world with the wisdom of others at thier fingertips. These laptops could be a major step!
Give an infinite number of poor kids an infinite number of cheap laptops and given an infinite number of time typing randomly they will recreate the works of Shakespeare?
Just because someone is smart and comes from a top engineering school doesn't mean everything they say is golden. This guy is a serious liberal crackpot.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
$100 buys a lot of mosquito nets, that would prevent a lot of malaria and save a lot of lives. I think you have an uphill battle to convince people of the merits of laptops vs. mosquito nets.
/s/alterior/ulterior
Why put any artificial barrier at all in front of your product? If your goal is to make them ubiquitous, then let nothing get in the way.
He recognizes capitalism's inexorable hand, but refuses to accept it. He'd be much better off working with it. Accept that there is going to be a market for the things, and sell into the market. Someone's going to.
For instance, he could make a bare-bones, fully-functional version of the product available to schools, but sell a more elaborate model to consumers, a similar but higher priced one to business, and a milspec one to the US DOD.
By working with capitalists, instead of fighting them, the project would stand a much better chance of actually succeeding.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
but I run into tons of opposition when I hype this to my friends. Yes, all my friends are very progressive and I thought they would jump on the possibility of bringing low cost education to poor countries
Your friends understand that a laptop isn't education any more than a chalkboard is education.
You want to turn people on to this project? Come up with a killer app for these boxes. Until there is one, we'd be better off buying books.
What to do? Use this "machine" for an undefined incomprehensible goal, I mean even the makers don't really know exactly how this laptop thingamagig will actually be beneficial in REAL terms (ignore the use of buzzwords such as explore, interact and create, they don't mean anything). OR, they could flog it in the closest market for the highest they can, giving them REAL benefits, such as cash, to buy that tin pot they'll use to boil water, or whatever it is they need.
The first thing they need to realize is the importance of education. The second thing will be for them to actually do something about it. The third and last component will be to give them the tools they need to achieve their educational goals.
Both my grandfathers were refugees from the Armenian Genocide and arrived in France/Syria with nothing at all with them, they were orphans 5/7 years old and couldn't read or write. One of them went to a French school, got the education he needed. The other one didn't have the same privilege, he taught himself everything. Guess which one actually was the more educated person at the end? Yep, the one who taught himself.
The point? Education is not only about the tools you have at your disposal, it's also the willingness and dedication to learn.
"like stealing a post office truck"
It's not stealing. Isn't this more like BUYING a used, surplus truck from the postal service? You give someone a laptop-- what's wrong with them selling the laptop?
What would be the disadvantage in selling these laptops to people in wealthy nations as a commodity? That is precisely what the Freeplay Foundation does with their "Lifeline Radio", which is a robust, windup/solar powered, AM/FM/SW radio designed for people who live in areas without power. You can buy one radio through CCrane and they'll donate a second one to someone in need.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
There's two ideas going on here: 1) using computers for education, and 2) using an ebook instead of a regular book. Idea 1 has been going around and around for years and has produced very minimal results, given all of the money that school districts have spent on equipping every school with the latest hardware. The most important thing for teaching is a teacher and computers have not proven to be a good substitute for that. That doesn't stop the local schools from pushing an annual 'technology levy' to raise funds to upgrade every computer every couple of years, though. The school computers do get used for a lot of stuff such as email, student powerpoint, internet research, etc., just not for teaching.
Idea 2 would eliminate the expense of purchasing a pile of books for every student by giving them handy 'ebooks' to read on their laptop instead. The problems with this are that the hardware has a short lifetime, can be finicky to maintain, is not as readable as an actual book, and is less convenient and more time consuming to use than just cracking open a book. If you doubt this, look around at how many people buy 'ebooks' compared with paper books. The world still likes their books, given the current state of the technology alternatives. Maybe idea 2 would be more appropriate in third world countries with limited access to real books in the appropriate language or in poor inner-city schools. The best schools, though, in the first world countries will stay with books for the time being.
Replying to myself, but what the hell...
You know what would be great... Send these kids a bunch of speak-and-spells and build them a library instead. Those things are way cheaper than $100. Hell, they could probably teach the older kids to build them for the younger kids for pennies on the dollar... (that last part was a joke, BTW)
I know they want all of the production to go to needy children, but they could eliminate a lot of the grey market concerns if they would increase their production to provide for sales to geeks and the like who are willing to pay for a cool tech toy, and use the profits to build more machines for needy children...
Please, think of the nerds!
Sent from my iPhone
Wrong Negroponte, you monkey-spanking doofus...
You sir are a dumbass.
You are talking about John, while the rest of us are talking about Nick.
Get your Negropontes straight!
There are more than a few Negroponte's in this world. There is, for example, Nicholas Negroponte, and then there is John. Maybe they're related? Why don't you do some more excellent research and TELL US.
Why not? If they are starving (and most africans aren't, you know) they can look up what is edible in their area. (Or how to prepare what they have to make it last.) If they are farmers, they can look up farming techniques. (A lot of africa is at the subsitance level: a little better farming techniques would be all they need to start generating wealth.)
As for AIDs... A large portion of the problem with AID/HIV in africa is education. People don't know what to do to protect themselves from it, how they can get it, etc. With an internet connection they can look all that up.
This is the 'teach a man to fish' principle: If they are starving today, they need a fish. If they are likely to be starving soon, they need fishing lessons. A cheap internet connected laptop would allow them to look up the best way to fish. Or whatever else they need.
(Also: cheap laptops mean cheap teaching of basic computer skills. Which means the students are more employable, in more jobs, with less on-the-job training. Which is better for the economies of the countries.)
These can help. Don't doubt it. Don't assume Africa is in the stone age.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
Learn to read.
"MY APOCALYPTIC TENOR HAS NOT BEEN DISPELLED!" - T-Rex, qwantz.com
That's all well and good... but that has nothing to do with the man behind the $100 laptop.
The $100 laptop guy is Nicholas Negroponte.
The former abasador to Honduras is John Negroponte.
They are different people.
The modern world throws away thousands, if not millions of books ever year. Some of them are reference materials, spanning every education level. If the thrid world was given these books instead of a connection to the internet, I think it'd be vastly more useable, longer lasting, and cheaper.
This removes the need for electricity, connectivity, and familiarity with technology. Books are what the entire world has used for much much longer than the internet as a source of knowledge. it's a shame to skip this.
There is no social stigma to "rich" hackers having one.
Folk will get one and then claim to be a software developer for the project and vastly increase their sex appeal from the mere geek-world to include all the NGO's and aid-agency volunteers too!
Yay!
There may be a social stigma to 3rd world people having one.
As Nelson would say: "Ha ha! You're poor!"
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
We need a first wave of these devices ASAP in the hands of the free software community to sort out the capabilities of the device and then create a software base for it that will be useful for its intended purpose. It's going to be a tough sell until then.
I can just see some gummint beauracrat in Turdistahn trying to figure out why he should spend a billion dollars on these things when his country's GDP is half of that, and he won't know what to do with these things once he has them.
A: They're not. Quantas, their manufacturer, is free to sell the same item to anyone. However those commercial versions cost will be closer to US$200.
A: It's not, the State of Massachusetts and others are already committed to large purchases. Why not get your community involved?
A: Because all the research shows that 'seeding' 1 per 5 kids or whatever doesn't have the same network effect (figuratively & literally) that ubiquitous use in an area does.
A: They need all of those, and those are vital things to see they get. But once those immediate needs are met the long term goal of providing an education is what will help these kids and their communities be self-sufficient, indeed able to assist other neighboring communities.
A: It's Redhat Linux, this is
A: First the local communities will likely look down on this theft of their resources pretty intensely. Second the goal is to make any trade in these universally unsavory. Will it be 100% effective? No. But this is an easy issue to rally behind and the $100 models will be distinctive from their commercial kin.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
That is John, we are talking about Nicholas.
Nice troll though.
A blog about stuff.
14 years ago, I was given a used x86 machine with no hard drive, and floppies for DOS, MS Word, and two computer games. I had never touched a computer or typewriter before. No one taught me how to use it, I just started playing around with it, and two years later graduated to a 486, and so on and so forth. Now, I run IT for a small company.
Much of the negative feedback for this project seems misplaced to me. I suspect that just because we don't know how these laptops will be used doesn't mean that they won't be used. I don't believe that there is "alot more that could be done with this money." I think this is similar to the argument against desktop computers back in the day - no one could imagine how they would be used, so it seemed like a big waste of time.
Here's my simple formulation of an argument: every little bit helps.
You want to turn people on to this project? Come up with a killer app for these boxes. Until there is one, we'd be better off buying books.
You get it. At this point compiling a good almanac for these kids is going to be way more cost effective and educational.
These are NOT thin clients, they are fully stand-alone devices. The mesh part only comes into play for communications, not for operations. There is no central server, no must-be-in-range-to-work, etc.
Think about it, the goal is these kids can sit with these after dinner and be the first first in their family able to read a story, in their local language, to their siblings before bed, to do their homework, to learn about the world beyond their village. Do you really think that a thin client that only works within 100 meters of the district school is something folks who actually do put time & energy into these ideas would go for?
C'mon, for the time it took you to post you could've answered your (wrong) guess for yourself.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
And what's wrong with 'borrowing' a mail truck, anyway?
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
Sponsored at least one laptop .. how many more laptops could be paid for ?
I wrote to them asking where I could send $100 to sponsor the creation of the laptop.. I was automailed a response.
im still waiting for a real person from their group to answer my question .
And thats why Firecrackers and kittens don't mix.
they would like to find out how they can improve there water so it is drinkable.
Improve water use in agriculture, improve wells, improve sanitation, find out what then need to filter water, have an avenue to contact other people to help them
It is said, that if you give a man a fish he eatse for a day, but if you teach hin to fish he eats forever. This tool has the potential to teach everyone to fish.
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tell them that they are cynical asshole who would let a child continue to be dependant on handout becasue someone might abuse a tools they could use to learn how to take care of themselves?
There are many, many cases where rich people, large corporation and companies have done something becasue they thoughyt it was right?
However, you could tell them that it is in the corporation best interest to have an educated self-suffciant population. You need to to have a strong market base to sell things to.
I guess you could say "It's better to have people be fed and educated with disposable income that companies will try to get, then it is to have people starving to death with no way to help themselves that companies don't care about"
Your friends would rather give a man a fish, instead of the fishing pole.
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These are crayon & water proof.
These don't require a $150 LiOn battery, they use a hand-crank.
They're not just intended to be dumb reader devices but links to the larger world. Online encyclopedias, newspapers, updated textbooks, communicate with other kids in their native languages (IM shorthand in Urdu), get their assignments from the regional school, etc.
Lots of kids schools aren't like your wealthy western ones. They're shorter days, breaks for plantings & harvests, don't have libraries, indeed lots of these kids don't have electricity in their homes (why these laptops are often the brightest thing at night in their houses.) They have to be able to take them home, use them at night, etc.
Govt's like China allocate the equivalent of US$20/year for each kid's printed school books. With these laptops they can offer those gov't text supplied texts, a coupla thousand others, the latest news, access to encyclopedias, etc. all for negligible cost over the laptops.
Oh, and media? With a standard cheap platform lots of that can be developed quickly, by interested individuals, by non-profits, by governments, by the communities themselves. Once the 1st batches are out there the next set will find a set of tools to build further on, etc.
But, you'd know all this if you watched the videos or read any of the articles on this before rushing to post your under-informed argument against what you (incorrectly) assumed it was...
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
In your scenario, what would happen then (and it's likely if this does take off) is the guerillas in places like somalia and afghanistan and iraq would become "early adopters" and funnel the laptops away from the children. They might even open "schools" to make it easier to obtain and warehouse them. These things are supposed to have built in wireless connectivity, durability, a stand alone power source (the hand of the one holding it) - doesn't that sound liek the perfect tool for any militia looking for a robust means of organizing field operations?
and don't you think the world's governments are, at some point, going to step up with this argument and squash the project under the guise of "fighting terrorism?"
The only way to remove the "intrinsic value" from these is to give them none and to flood the market with them.
So far as the "stealing a postal truck" euphemism - what happens when the kids grow up? If you give one of these to every twelve year old in the world, eventually those twelve year olds are going to become twenty year olds. How do you create a stigma equating ownership of one of these things by an adult to the act of stealing a postal truck when you have spent a decade giving a postal truck to every child in the world?
The laptops will use innovative power (including wind-up) hand crank.
Surly it would have been better to have a usb foot operated pedal for the wind-up power so you don't have to remove a hand to charge it back up, this will end up being a job for little brothers/sisters.
Love it.
Oh wait, you didn't bother to actually watch or look up any of this before posting, huh?
'Cause if you did you'd know that they're actually pretty attractive little boxes. Their 'unattractiveness' will be in the sense of "You're using a device my community paid for, you're not a kid, not a school-teacher, what kind of jerk are you and have you met the business end of my hoe?!" unattractive.
Regarding capitalism, yes Quantas, Nortel, Intel, Redhat, etc. are all in this entirely for altruism... NOT.
Quentas gets to sell the design commercially (they guesstimate that model will cost around US$200.) Nortel gets real-world experience in mesh networking. Redhat gets their name and OS out on hundreds of millions of devices. Intel gets to expand their market with all of those Intel-friendly applications and follow-on laptop versions.
If that's not "taking advantage of capitalism" then I dunno what is.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
You need to learn how to purify water?
google: "how to purify water?"
there are a ton of good math sites, educational site, science sites. etc. . .
of course, if you had bothered to look into these device you would know they are hand cranked power based, and not full featured laptops.
printed books are expensive. dollar, it information, a internet connection from a 100 dollar laptop is vastly more economical.
Established school systems are so ingrained, it is difficult to come up with new ways ti utilize new technolgy.
I would bet dollars to donuts, we will see new learning techniques arise from this program.
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actual ther is a huge educational push about aids i Africa, has been for 115 years.They're culture needs to change.
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I distinctly remember Personal Computer World writing about Sir Clive Sinclair's idea of putting computers with AI into African villages, to replace the obviously insufficient real intelligence there .. to guide, effectively, the suffering poor by knowledge machines. Come on people, let's get a machine down there now and give them some knowledge!
..
:)
This was in the 80's sometime. Somehow, the project didn't get very far
Anyone know of a link to the original story about Sir Sinclair? It sure seems terribly similar to what Negroponte is up to these days. (Not that Mr N would be likely to take a hint
Get your Negropontes straight!
But they all look the same!
Once kids get the cheap laptop, book manufacturers are going to take a stance so they can sell E-books to the kids. And other software manufacturers will look in how they can come to the education front when kids are using computers instead of books.
God spoke to me.
I'm not sure I agree with you here. In fact, books are exceedingly efficient ways of distributing valuable information that everyone wants. Thing is, the marginal cost for printing and distributing a book is very low, not much more than a few dollars. Plus they're sturdier and more portable and accessible than a laptop can ever be. All you need to boot them up is some decent light source. The only skill you need is to be able to read.
The Internet by contrast is superior at distributing actual applications, like software, or fast-changing information (like news, or the latest tech innovation, or Fedora Core X, or odd bits of information that are only of rare use. (For example, in your example, the reason you go to Google to find out how to purify water is that in your Western life you are very unlikely to need to do it. But you don't go to Google to learn the rules for driving a car, or how to add, because that's a ubiquitous skill that you learned long before you learned about Google. In a country where purifying water is a top and general priority, people are going to learn about it from their parents and neighbors, not Google.)
None of these seem especially relevant to folks in poor countries. What they really need is access to basic information that is already well understood (how to dig a safe well, how to prevent AIDS transmission, reliable accounting and credit practises, basic nutrition). These things are actually very well conveyed by book.
The one exception I can see is that the Internet is also good for two-way communication between people well-seperated, and places like Africa are often short of experts of one stripe or another. I can see how it might do some good if you could have interactive, or semi-interactive software, that might let a back-and-forth go on to teach people stuff better. Say, an adaptive teaching program that could teach a range of students, from the barely getting started to the most sophisticated. A book tends to be a one-size-fits-all solution, which does not serve the spectrum of students in the real world. That's why you need a teacher, too, to customize the learning. But software could, in part, replace the teacher at lower cost. Or serve as some kind of faux triage nurse that could ask some questions about your symptoms and find out whether you should just rest up and drink more fluids -- or whether you really should make that 2 day trip to the clinic. These things would be good.
Not food, definitely not. When the current president of Brazil was elected, one of his campaign themes was the so-called "zero hunger" program, for distributing food to the allegedly starving poor people of Brazil. Much to his embarrassment, after he came to power, the Brazilian federal agency in charge of statistics published the results of a study showing that among the poorest people in Brazil obesity is a much worse problem than hunger. The managers for that agency were severely reprimanded and ordered to not publish anything without checking with the president's office first.
About teachers, you may have a point. Lack of proper education is certainly one of the main cause of poverty in poor countries, after high taxes and excessive government spending. But computers are one very important education aid that's missing in poor countries' schools. In these days, someone who's not able to use a computer is untrained for almost any decent job anywhere in the world.
Q: So what's to keep unscrupulous folks from buying these out the back door of warehouses?
A: First the local communities will likely look down on this theft of their resources pretty intensely.[...]
I've seen too many sacks of food marked "UNICEF - For Emergency Relief Use Only" being sold out of the backs of trucks to finance some warlords next BMW, "technical" or Barrett light-50 to believe this. Maybe in Fresno.
"Your friends understand that a laptop isn't education any more than a chalkboard is education."
Assuming you click a button on the chalkboard and be given a lesson on reading, or math, then you are correct.
You can keep your magic chalkboard. I'll take these.
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I will happily pay $300 for one of those but ONLY if the diff. is going DIRECTLY to either the project itself or UNICEF.
I will NOT buy it from the manufacturer for anything more than $125.
Studies have shown that the availability of computers can raise the standard of living for a developing society. After computers were introduced to Nigeria, Nigerians now benefit from a new, white-collar income stream that's safer, more comfortable, and far more lucrative than farming or manual labor.
Radio is a mature and affordable technology with seventy-five years of experience in educational broadcasting to back it up.
That's not entirely surprising, given that John and Nicholas Negroponte are fullbrothers.
Could someone please think of something totally overriding (and simply understood) that would turn people who are sceptical onto this project?
1. It's 'skeptical'.
2. I'd be more convinced if this guy can actually produce a single laptop for under $100. All he's done up to this point is shoot his mouth off, and get a company that says that they'll look into it. There's no economic way, short of him paying for all of the laptops himself, for this to work.
I don't respond to AC's.
you're talking about John Negroponte, Nick Negroponte's brother. they room together every now and then.
personally, I think that (Nick) Negroponte has a snowball's chance in hell of building the laptop whose specs are being publicized for less than $100. he may get lucky and charge other people more money for the same laptop to subsidize a sale price of $100 to developing nations. but I also doubt that; Negroponte has a very spotty record when it comes to delivering useful goods, as explained in the article.
El Fuego
It's good that you (and a dozen others) raised this old "poor people need clean water" meme. Because one of the things people in poor countries could do with this $100 laptop would be to buy online a water purifier for the equivalent of $20, if that product weren't available in their neighborhood store.
One of the first intelligent repsonses I've read.
Lets not forget that a lot of the impoverished world don't have a fixed address, access to any form of media, government, banks, libraries, colleges, literature about sex and the dangers of. Also, think of the high level of literacy this will demand, aswell as perhaps the spread of the English language. It also acts as a way to increase community awareness, communication.
This is a good idea, and as has been mentioned before, I'd love to see a buy one, get one to a child that may not need one, but can certainly use one.
This isn't a hand out, it's a hand up. God knows the less fortunate in this world need it.
This isn't meant to be a solution, but merely a catalyst for the impoverished youth of today to succeed in a modern world.
And the other immediate question people in the area will ask is how they can steal this laptop shipment from the local kids before somebody else does. A few guys with AK-47s could harvest a few hundred of these from the local school without much trouble.
A major reason much of the third world is poor is that it has no reliable system of private property for poor people, and armed thugs will take anything of even marginal value that they happen to possess. Of course, the kids know this, and it's half the reason they'd want to sell it before it gets stolen.
Well meaning people from the rich world often make the mistake of assuming it's just like their societies, filled with people just like themselves who just happen to have less money than they/we do. This sounds like yet another solution that could work really well in this, sadly nonexistent, scenario.
Not that there aren't more civilized places where this could possibly work, but don't imagine it will do anything for those suffering under cleptocracy.
I think I've posted this response so many times elsewhere that I left off key parts:
....Trying to restrict sales to poor countries is dumb. If scale of enonomy is so important, then why not offer it anywhere that people will pay for it? ...And if that is done, then the next question is...
....There is no useful media to use with these machines, including "the internet". Sorry, there just isn't. Those of you who would presume to use "the internet" to teach kids everything are mistaking spontaneity for rampant disorganization. Don't take my word for it, go and ask any grade-school teacher how well this would work. Lots of classrooms in first-world countries have PC's with internet connections right now, but most of their time is still spent with kids' noses stuck in books--because books provide a reliable collection of information to test the students on, and because the publishers often also include testing materials that correspond to the different sections of the books. Wikipedia provides neither of these things.
....A full keyboard isn't necessary to provide "classroom" functionality, and greatly increases the liklihood that the unit will be susceptible to physical damage. Assuming that we are dreaming for a moment--then a user of this device will need to be able to select a program and start it, page forwards and backwards through e-book files (of some sort, hopefully OSS) and ideally to be able to pick from four or five answer options when taking a quiz.
I have read this story so many times I have grown tired of explaining the problems with the whole idea.
I suppose that I am speaking about one thing, and Negroponte/MIT is attempting something else entirely, that their intended market doesn't seem to want. Amazon headhunters editing Wikipedia entries is cute and all, but in the grand scheme of things isn't really accomplishing much useful in their lives or anyone else's.
WOrking towards creating inexpensive electronic classrooms would be much more useful, especially since there are already learning toys for sale right now at Wal-Mart for ~$50 that come fairly close to fulfilling these requirements.
The more I read it, the more this entire effort seems to be "researchers in search of a project" than it does "researchers interested in modernising the classroom environment as inexpensively and effectively as possible".
~
I just searched all responses and was astonished to find only two promoting books as an alternative.
As near as I can figure out from 15 min. of googling, books cost about $2 to print. And I suspect that's high if you're talking about a print run of 10 million, and can tolerate pulp paper.
With a little care, even crappy pulp paperbacks last decades. That automatically means these are several times cheaper than the laptops even if you bought each kid the full $100 worth of books, because the laptops aren't going to make it past the age of 5, maybe 10 in the rarest cases. (NB: How repairable will the cheap ones be? Will they be useless when the ENTER key starts sticking?)
Whereas you could do 10 sets of 25 books, for 10 age levels. Then older kids could hand theirs down to younger and receive books from kids older still; effectively every kid in his childhood would receive not 25 but 250 books.
Yes, there's lots of stuff the books won't do that laptops will. But since you can get a lot MORE out there for the same donated dollars, I submit that the total good done will be much higher.
That said, poverty is a spectrum. Yes, 1/5th of the world gets by on $1/day, another 1/5th on $2 or so. But there's also about 1/5th of the world that has reasonable security of food, clothing, shelter and schools, already have their own books, and have some hundreds, even thousands, of dollars per family per year of pure disposable income - think of places like Mexico & Turkey where the huge depressing cinderblock slums (at least they seem so to us) have flickering TV light coming out of nearly every door by night.
I suspect they will just BUY their own dang laptops if they come out at a price point those people can afford, like the $50 TV they already have...and if the laptop actually does something more for their kids than an equivalent purchase of books.
You all seem to assume they are going to use these laptops for surfing ? ... or electricity.
Getting fast Internet anywhere besides North America, Europe or Far East is almost impossible. Are they going to use one dial-up connection for the whole class ? That is, if school has a phone line
I realize most /.'ers have no training in education, so let me...um...educate you.
.ppt-type aids with every lesson, which can be instantly transfered to the student's laptops, or emailed to absent students. What am I saying...if you can't see how much these would benefit the education process, just put a bullet in your head, you nazi cow...
This is not about creating a utopia, feeding the hungry, etc. Most of the anti-$100-laptop posts here focus on those red herrings.
Bottom line, this is about the digital divide. The internet provides access to more information than has ever been collectd in the history of humankind (wiki, etc). Right now, only those with a certain level of wealth have ready access to the internet. Now, don't you say 'they can go the library' or some other lame counterpoint cabal BS...we all know how important using the internet in your time and space is, and telling poor people to just go to the library or whatever is a joke and lame.
As far as the uses in the classroom...what a joke of a counterpoint! There are inifinite possibilities, use your damned imagination. I am a teacher, adn I envision a classroom with
Thank you Dave Raggett
"...he is also a liberal so, since his lips are moving he is lying."
I guess this "liberal" thing you speak of must be kinda like a "Conservative".
You know, like the guy who said "Iraq has Weapons of Mass Destruction and is directly supporting the 9-11 Terrorists"; his butcher bill is now on the order of 2000 American and allied military and -in his own words "thirty thousand Iraqies".
I guess they ALL lie...., but, as the say "when Clinton lied no-one died!"
Sounds like: "and the more countries that join the bandwagon, democracy will provide us a better/sleeker world".
or even...
"and the more countries that join the bandwagon, energy will be cheaper for all".
Same paradigm, obivously hasn't worked to date. Move along Nicholas...
Though last MITEF I attended, he was enteraining with his cynicism on the current politicians.
It may not be an original thought, but I think that when LOTS of people read about someone producing a $100 laptop for the poor the same thought occurs to them all: what else do the poor need more? And if the poor can't afford an expensive computer, I'll bet they can't pay for Internet access either -- assuming it's available at all where they live. People in refugee camps don't have a neighborhood store, or money for a water filter, or even a mailing address to send it to.
You (wrongly) deduced how I think about donating eyeglasses and Katrina rescue efforts from TWO sentences? Can you tell me what I had for lunch too?
$100 would buy a lot of slate, chalk, paper and pencils, with enough left over for food, water, clothing, et cetera.
However, it is a rather high-tech, impractical approach to education in the third world, which can be accomplished much cheaper with paper and pencils, chalk and blackboards. And a cheaper solution means more people can be helped.
I call bullshit on that.
Whats minimum salary ($5.50??) times 8hrs?
Youre telling me that Cambodians make more per day than a minimum salaried yank?
If thats the case then ship a few million of those laptops to the US.
This project is just wrong on so many levels.
What I would like to see is Mr. Negroponte going out there to a prototype poor 3rd world village and living there for a few months. That would really be all it takes.
BillG is absolutely right in funding malaria research - that's something that a big global sponsor can actually do for the people. That is helping.
Throwing hardware around and providing - for chrissake! - a crank because there's frequent power outages or no power in these areas is just silly.
It reminds me of a classic true story from my home country: When the Empress of Austria asked her staff why people are unhappy, they replied:
"Your Highness, the people are starving".
"Why are the people starving?"
"Your Highness, because the people have no bread."
To which the Empress famously replied: "Let them eat cake, then."
She didn't mean that as a joke - she was just so far removed from reality that she thought cake around the country was probably just as plentiful as in her palace.
The laptop strikes me as a similar idea.
Let me point out the most obvious flaw: There is no internet in remote villages, and if there were, it would be expensive and no one could afford it. So don't introduce this gadget without making available free internet in the 3rd world at the same time.
The intent - providing a good education to _everyone_ - is certainly noble but the execution, frankly, is retarded. I can't help but thinking this was inspired by Diamond Age's learning book - the little computer AI that can teach kids everything they could possibly want to know. Only without the AI or the educational content or even the capability of storing educational content.
I would view this differently if these came with 100G of storage and filled to the brim with the best educational software this world has to offer, starting with english learning software. Then it would have value.
They probably thought they can just use the net as storage but that just doesn't work and besides somebody still has to produce and make available the content. For free.
However .. the main impact this will likely have is on English as a second language. Why?
Try to search for "how to purify water" in Twi (one of the major languages in Ghana). Damn! No luck. Oh well.
Maybe the people you describe WOULD benefit from a $100 laptop, but they are not what I would call poor; they are lower class, but above the poverty line.
When I think of poor, third world people I think of people like the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico: they have no electricity, no running water, and no prospects for employement that can improve their situation. To them a laptop is useless, but a couple of goats and chickens can mean money and food and clothing.
Where is the presentation software and the course-ware coming from?
Just because it's Open-Source, that's not the same as being able to wave a magic wand, while saying "Abracadabra" to make the educational content suddenly appear. It takes skill and time, both by the truckload, to create effective teaching material.
Where is the training for the teachers coming from?
If my experience with teachers is anything to go by, computers are an absolute anathema. If this exercise is going to work, a great deal of care will be needed in their introduction to the classroom.
John and Nicholas Negroponte are brothers. Really.
Y'know, if you'd actually bothered to find out what you're talking about first...
Thank you for posting. This topic seems to be a veritable magnet for people with strong opinions and a complete inability to read or even just watch a video. There also seems to be an assumption that this non-profit effort is taking money out of some of these commentators pockets. Hey, if you have another idea that you think is better then go for it! No one is holding you back. Negroponte has been pursuing this goal for years and there is nothing naive about his effort. I hope more people read about the mesh network architecture that has been built into these laptops and stop parroting the fashionable dismissal of the internet.
Possibly the best aspect of this effort is the chance to avoid the usual corruption that fungible aid has always created. A grey market in these devices needs to be kept in check by treating those with diverted laptops as social pariahs.
Wikipedia also has a lot of information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%24100_laptop
I have to take issue with that. I'm assuming based on the 5579 after your user name that you've been around slashdot for a while. I would hope that you are aware of the censorship issues that exist with the internet and the benificent government of China. Why would China want to pay five times the amount if all they are likely to provide is the government supplied text books they are already providing. Then there is the emerging Chinese homegrown computer industry.
I also have to disagree about the media. I don't see the existence of cheap laptops creating a demand for the educational media. Yes it is very possible, but I don't think it is very likely. I think a better solution is to create the content first. If the laptops are that important, the content needs to come first so there is a push and demand for the laptops. It's kind of like my car that can run on E85 ethanol fuel. I can do it, but I can't find a place to fuel up with the stuff to see how it treats me.
Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
the worlds poor children are poor mainly because of their government. If you want to help these kids then you have to work AROUND the corrupt, greedy, repressive and incompetent. Negroponte is being very naive in wanting to work with these idiots.
Example: Pakistan.
Major earthquake, many many dead. The first thing that donors wanted from Musharaf was that there be audits of any donations/loans.
You want to help Pakistani kids you should work with NGOs. Work with the generals and the bastards will just give the laptops to their own kids.
Actually I never read a current slashdot article, because everyone else on slashdot is. And no I didn't watch the video; I have dial-up, you insensitive clod.
Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
This is not about replacing BOOKS. this is not about REPLACING AID. This is about putting a BLOATWARE FREE computer in the hands of young minds FOR THE PURPOSES OF LEARNING DIGITAL LANGUAGE. Remember, in the world of 1s and 0s, you can program infinitely, without having to learn cultural grammar rules or whatever.
Read more of Negroponte's stuff, esp his Wired Magazine articles. These kids will not only be able to use these as classroom aids, but ALSO learn to program at a very early age. Frankly, the future lays in computer programs and the digital language. Out of the millions that will be sold, Negroponte is probably creating thousands of programming minds who will be better situated to deal with the demands of growing population in third world countries.
I didn't watch the video, and I might be wrong on this, but these kids will not be connected to the Internet, as ISPs are still needed for that. What they will be able to do is create local area networks, which is great. I see here the revolution of the human mind.
You're thinking of software not a laptop. Show me software that's going to give these kids (who, if you're lucky, speak one of a hundred different languages) a lesson in anything, and I'll think this is a good idea. Still, it's the software giving the lesson, not the laptop, just like it's the teacher giving the lesson, not the blackboard.
After reading gp's recent posts and being made a foe of said slashdot user, I have come to the conclusion that maggard is angry that everyone else on slashdot doesn't/can't RTFA within the first few hours of its appearance on slashdot (I don't try because of slashdot effect and connection speed as I quipped in parent post), AND he doesn't have a sense of humor (he didn't seem to get that I was joking with the ever repeated insensitive clod remark). I just might have to tag him a friend so I can more easily spot his posts in the future.
Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
USB ports alone don't imply wifi which is why I would include it as a native part of the specification, or a required add-on which would probably be better because if a particular wifi format isn't available or is outdated, the local best version would presumably be included when the laptop was distributed.
As always, I am interested in what others think.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
I'm not too sure about this - I think it is great that there will an entry level computer that is so affordable, but I have my doubts about what it will achieve. It's a bit like giving a starving child a year pass to the theme park; perhaps it is fun to be able to go there every day and try the rides, but wouldn't it be more relevant to address that child's real needs?
There is a difference between giving gifts that are nice to give and gifts that are nice to receive. I don't think a laptop is much use if you live in an area where the necessary infrastructure is missing; without reliable electricity and net connections it would simply be a doorstop. And as for learning from the internet - it's no replacement for a school and a teacher.
Apart from that, when a person like Negroponte talks about 'freedom' and 'free speech' it sort of churns my stomach. All he means is 'free according to what suits me'.