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Gates Mocks MIT's $100 Laptop
QuietLagoon writes 'Reuters is reporting that Bill Gates is making fun of the one laptop per child initiative to revolutionize how the world's children are educated. 'The last thing you want to do for a shared use computer is have it be something without a disk ... and with a tiny little screen,' Gates said at the Microsoft Government Leaders Forum in suburban Washington. 'Hardware is a small part of the cost' of providing computing capabilities, he said, adding that the big costs come from network connectivity, applications and support. 'If you are going to go have people share the computer, get a broadband connection and have somebody there who can help support the user, geez, get a decent computer where you can actually read the text and you're not sitting there cranking the thing while you're trying to type,' Gates said.'
That's a load of crap. When Microsoft was trying to get involved in this project, he thought it was great.
Now that the organisation making this laptop has rejected Microsoft, it's crap? Forgive me for being paranoid, but I don't think that's genuine concern...
Gates is just spreading the usual FUD. He seems to "misinterpret" the simple facts and spins till they're dizzy.
...and being able to actually power it without an outlet would help readability too. The crank is only one of several ways to provide power, it can also get powered just like a "decent computer".
Shared: It's "One Laptop per Child"; no sharing.
Diskless: The machine has peer-to-peer networking built in; disks would be slower.
Tiny screen: It's a bigger screen than my PocketPC. And I bet 6 of those screens are bigger than his 6x more expensive "alternative".
Network cost: It's got builtin wireless networking; no network expenses needed.
Application cost: That's why they didn't choose Windows.
Support cost: It's a total package; if it's broken in either HW or SW, replace the entire machine and fix the broken one centralized.
Broadband connection: Because these educational systems are meant to be used for downloading the latest movies? Besides, the wireless network will probably be a lot faster than the 56k6 modems a lot of people are still using.
Reading what you type: That's where the dual-mode LCD screen comes in; something a "decent computer" hasn't got...
Crank:
I think that debunks all of Gates' lies.
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Correct - it was the Chinese mystic philosopher Lao Tzu who first said it.
...and playing Civ 4 pays off again! (It's the quote you get when you research the Fishing tech, naturally...)
My, that was a yummy potato!
The reality is that Gates is blatantly lying when he says that applications and network connectivity are a bigger part of the cost than the hardware. First, the applications are (big and little-f) Free. Second, the network connectivity is free as well, because these things are designed to make their own mesh network.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
these devices have mesh networking. that means after all the kids go to bed, their parents can crank them up, get on their local AfricaDot or whatever, and discuss how they will go about building infrastructure, starting a business, overthrowing the government, etc. could be handy...
From Wikipedia: "Steve Jobs had offered Mac OS X free of charge for use in the laptop, but according to Seymour Papert, a professor emeritus at MIT who is one of the initiative's founders, the designers want an operating system that can be tinkered with: "We declined because it's not open source"[4]. Therefore Linux was chosen. Microsoft's Bill Gates has attempted to convince Negroponte to use a version of Microsoft Windows on the laptop, but Negroponte turned him down. Some of Negroponte's friends told him Microsoft might then attempt to craft its own version of the laptop, but he responded such a development would be "great", as it would speed up the process of delivering cheap laptops."
Maybe Microsoft is ticked off with MIT because they were too insistent on OSS, and they view that as a threat.
I think they maybe already.
Wow, not only are you wrong, but you're also an asshole! According to the slashdot summary, Gates mentioned 3 things: network connection cost, application cost, and support cost. He said these separately, meaning that he claims there is a per-copy cost to BUY the software. This claim is false. I made no mention of the third part, which is support cost; you're the one who read something in my post that wasn't there!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
People are ignoring the message because the messenger is Bill Gates.
Giving third world children crappy laptops is not going to do anything to help them. First of all, there WILL NOT BE ANY OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE for these laptops... the specs are too different from a normal PC to use normal open source software off the bat, and since the laptop is restricted for purchase to governments, you are not going to have any open source community of hobbiests or developers working on it. ONLY school kids and government officials will have access to these things. Where is the internet connectivity going to come from? Part of giving people laptops is allowing them to contact people in other countries, to establish possible buisness connections, to keep them up to date on weather or medical info, to help them trade seeds and capital goods to spur development, etc. It is a glorified e-book without internet connectivity.
What happens when a family, who makes $200 a year, decides that selling their $100 laptop and buying food is worth more than having a glorified e-book reader? How long is this laptop going to last? What happens if people lose it or it is stolen? What infrastructure is there to repair these things? Are these private property, or owned by the government?
If we really wanted to help the third world, we would stop giving huge amounts of aid and resources to local dictators, and end restrictions on trade and our huge farm subsidies that western countries use to undermind competition from farmers in the third world. The $100 laptop is a feelgood solution looking for a problem.
Actually, most of those people are starving because the food relief sent from US/ASIA/EUROPE Rots on the docks because the ruling government wants those people to starve, they are also starving because of drought famine and disease eliminating what little crops they can grow.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed