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Intel Unveils PC for Developing Nations
Poppler writes "Intel has announced it will produce a PC aimed at developing nations, the 'Community PC.' Instead of giving out minimal PCs to as many individuals as possible, Intel wants to sell these machines to 'kiosk owners' who will rent out use to their village. Price TBA. How does this stack up against the $100 laptop, in terms of helping the developing world?"
A. Nothing.
Intel's talking about "Kiosk" PC's - has noone from Intel ever travelled to a developing nation? PC's in Kiosk mode are everywhere allready.
What intel really need to do, is make a cut-down macbook style notebook and take Steve Jobs up on his generous offer to help third world children.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
These computers will obviously be exploited by terrorist cells. Sure, you say they're not very powerful computers... ..but imagine a Beowulf cluster of 'Community PCs'!
Making you think you're crazy is a billion dollar industry.
Cool lets get some of these sent to Nigeria so we can get some more 419 scams going on, I really could use a share in $10 million just for helping to move the money. This really works out as a winning situation for everyone, cheap computers for developing nations, Intel makes money, and I get some of the money left by a rich former head of state, hopefully I will get more invitations to be involved.
GeekServ Unix Consulting Services (http://www.geekserv.com)
The $100 laptop seems to be producded with more philanthropic ideals. Intel's version just seems to be out to make money... wich means charging as much as they can.
Firstly how long will a desktop PC and monitor run off of a battery, and how much hand cranking will be required for 10 minutes of use?
Okay, maybe these PCs will be located where there is a reliable power supply. That's not much use for many of the uses the $100 handheld PC will be used for though - education, textbook provision, assistance (e.g., farming techniques for farmers in the field).
There's no reason that this cannot co-exist, but it seems that Intel will pay $50m to the countries to get a stranglehold on the market and to destroy the competition. I'm sure that Microsoft will ride on the coattails of this, knowing that a country brought up using Windows will then be tied to it for a long time afterwards. I bet they'll offer another $50m soon just to enable this option. Then Brazil, etc, can think 'Spend $100m to get 1m laptops, or spend $0 and get 250k desktops'.
Can't you hearrrrr it calling? The computers will build another Empire!
It is called "cafe internet" in developing nations (like Mexico) where people can rent a PC for 1 hour for as low as US$2 (I think even $1 in Mexico City...
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Frankly this seems to be a better idea, and more realistic. I can't honestly see people out in rice patties cranking up their $100 laptop, but I can see a community sharing a fully featured PC to find out medical information and argicultural techniques in the center of town.
Hopefully either of the projects can become real.
Based in Cairo, Egypt here. We have long slagged the USD 100 laptop project, since for that price you can get a more functional second hand pc. What the market here needs is more efficient hardware trickle down mechanics, not new architectures.
Now, if they're building a kiosk, then the lest they can do is make the machine fnction in multiseat mode. This is possible both using Linux and windows.
But then again, that would translate to lower Intel sales, so I guess this is just another case of developing markets being receptacles for unworkable ideas developed by some guy in a suit in NY or CA whose idea of field visits involve brave runs down to the mall.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
How is this better than AMD's 50x15 program and the PIC?
My server
These cheap PC for developing countries seem to be getting quite popular at the moment. Is this just a case of people in the technology industry trying to do something nice rather than meeting an actual need ?
I would have thought that other infrastructure is more important to developing nations than having access to a PC.
I'm a medical student and a technophile. I studied part of my third year clinicals in a third world nation with Doctors without Borders. Quite frankly, people who keep pushing for computers to be put into 3rd world nations don't seem to actually visit the poorest (and hence the most populous parts) of those places. The fact is that even a $100 put towards a computer can be better put towards generic versions of prescription drugs. Clean water, food, medical care and education are more important than any internet connection, laptop, or cellular phone. Unfortunately, Slashdot folks don't get it. A computer is nothing more than a tool that only matters when an educated and healthy population can utilize them.
Intel is pushing WiMax while the $100 is going with a mesh approach. Which will be more successful in those hard to reach places?
aww, c'mon mods. -1 redundant on a first post? bad form.
-1 stating the obvious, maybe.
/. is what happens when geeks talk. get used to it.
I can't see these pc's running anything other than windows. Which brings us back to when Bill Gates mocked the $100 MIT laptop in favour of powerhungry broadband windows boxes. Nevermind that some of these third-world children don't have electricity, let alone broadband. But damnit, with the combined forces of Intel and Microsoft, i'm sure they'll make it work!
Lets see, high on a rational priority list would be (just off the top of my head here):
...
1) Convince the Muslim clerics in Nigeria that the polio vaccine is not a Western conspiracy to kill off Muslims.
1a) Fix polio.
2) Stop the hysteria over genetically modified food, so that people can grow 'golden rice', rice modified to produce beta carotene, so that people who live only on rice, at least get some nutrition from it.
3) Provide real birth control options for developing nations.
4) Stop pouring money into China.
5) Get the French out of the Sudan, so that the UN can actually fix the problems there.
1001) Get them all laptops, so that the power of the Internet can Change Their Lives.
Seriously folks, stop the laptops-for-everyone circlejerk, and fix the real problems.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
From the article: Intel's Community PC is designed to withstand temperatures of 113 degrees Fahrenheit and up to 85 percent relative humidity, and has a removable dust filter.
See, this is a concrete example of the intelligent engineering behind this particular PC For The Poor. Negroponte's $100 laptop has a hand crank for powering it, but I do not recall hearing how it handled heat and humidity. (maybe he said somewhere but I don't see it)
Still, as someone who works for an international nonprofit that works to improve healthcare delivery systems in "Third World" countries... I am afraid that we are putting our attention and investments into some of the lesser problems. Can you e-mail food to a starving person? Can HTTP protect you from malaria? Honestly it's not the end user who needs reliable computing power and Internet access; it's the medical professionals, ministries of health, NGOs, etc., who need up-to-date information and communication capabilities.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
Really.
Someone needs to hit these people with 2x4s.
Let's see now. If I want to help people in the third-world.. hmm. Well, they obviously aren't starving, have -spectactular- medical care, there's no problem with HIV, and we made sure they all have clean water and nice 2-story ranch houses. Crime is at an all-time low and there aren't -any- despots or tyrannical dictators that let American corporations in to use their citizens as dirt-cheap overworked labor for pennies.
So, lets get them all cheap, ubiquitous computing.
(You show me a man who can eat a $100 laptop, and I'll show you someone who needs affordable health care)
If firefighters fight fire, and crimefighters fight crime, what do freedom fighters fight? - George Carlin
It seems to me that a combination of the two approaches might be the best idea. Although the mesh mode is a great idea in concept, it still needs a way to get out to the greater part of the internet. Enter the kiosk: this could stand as a sort of hub or gateway to the internet for the mesh network, allowing the $100 laptops to reach those services. I don't know if that type of cooperation would be possible, but we can hope.
As regards medical supplies and the like: there is no doubt that this money could be used for other things. I do not venture an opinion as to which is right or better; everyone has their own agenda and beliefs. I suppose the idea behind the computers is education. Many experts think that education is really the only long-term solution to these over-populated countries and that through education we can begin to turn the overwhelming tide. Just throwing money at the problem is not a solution, but that is what is done at first (in the form of drugs and/or laptops) and then the hope is that some sort of training or education will come along with it and remain long after. I wish them all luck
In Vino Veritas
Intel is of course not happy with the $100 laptop since that runs on the AMD Geode processor. Intel is of course focusing on the "fully featured" "community sharing" idea because they want to stop the idea that having a limited CPU is sufficient for most tasks. I think that is the elephant in the room here: For most common tasks, like web browsing, document editing, and e-mail, a top of the line processor is simply not really required. Ars Technica has said it well.
Another thought: apparently "The Community PC, according to Kwan, will also include a printer port." Will the ink and paper resist heat, humidity and sand, too? A printer requires consumables... more work, more cost, more to break.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
Apparently everyone wants a slice of the "manure powered apparatus" pie. I've got to go find out what I can put into a developing nation and get powered by manure (thus providing more jobs for their fragile manure based economy).
Take it to the limit, everybody to the limit, come on, everybody fhqwhgads.
Giving the capitalists something else to rent out to the oppressed masses. Just what the third world needs. Great thinking guys. This model already works out so well for everyone with sharecropping and worker dormatories. The "community" pc indeed. this paragraph sounds particularly humanitarian: "The Jaagruti kiosk Community PC platform will have certificate-based access that will allow lending banks remote-access control over payment plan participants."
... and not the words of some hypocrites. It is very spectacular to build nice projects, run big ad campaigns. But when will they start to give something? I guess the answer is never. These guys give 5$ to the red cross, and that is their yearly offer for the poor. And I agree: we should first help them with food, medication and education. If this [wikipedia.org] is not a good reason for sticking to this order, then what? To say the least: I can't code when I'm starving or when I'm ill.
Wanna provide developing nations a PC for under $100?
DONATE your old PC.
Stop being a let's catch the headlines bullshitter and adress the PROBLEM instead of YOUR CORPORATE EGO.
'Developing Nations' have been developing for decades, yet they are still in poverty.
Now why is that? Shouldn't they be developed enough to create wealth and an educated populus? It seems to me that they are kept in poverty to suit the needs of other countries that exploit them. I hope a PC will help them, but I doubt it. Things need to change on a global economic scale first, then these nations might have a chance at creating a 'first world' society.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
It would be nice to see a mil-spec PC that didn't cost an obscene amount of money. The common PC is fragile, flimsy, and quite picky about power sources and environmental conditions. I have some mil-spec (Mil Spec 810 C/D/E) two-way radio equipment that is nearly indestructible and wasn't that expensive.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Read tribal chiefs or village elders or whoever is the traditional boss, who will use the PC to make money and further disadvantage the people who can really make a difference - the educated youths, workers, and free thinkers. This will just reinforce the corrupt and stagnant structures that make 3rd world countries 3rd world. When an aid team goes into a village to build a well for a clean water supply - where are they told to build the well, not in a public area where everyone can use it! No, the best place for a well is always in the chief's compound or yard. Odd that isn't it?
A computer is nothing more than a tool that only matters when an educated and healthy population can utilize them.
Educated how? About what? So your way is that everyone learn to read and write but no computer skills? Nothing beyond basic farming techniues? Tou must think there is no such thing as the EMERGING FUCKING DEVELOPING WORLD? Ever heard of it? Not everyone is starving and dying. This laptop is so that EMERGING DEVELOPING COUNTRIES can gain the skills to enter the economically advance world faster. You comment about cell phones CLEARLY demonstrates you are a dumb fool, because cell phones are being bought RAPIDLY in developing countries. There is a huge demand for them because of the amount they boost quality of life and economic participation.
$2000 laptops should not be made because rich people are better off eating caviar. Any person who believes otherwise has clearly have never hung out with rich people.
I have lived in multiple developing countries and let me tell you're full of shit. Everyone I know in these countries are excited about it. I dont give a crap whether you supposedly did shit for MSF or not. Anonymous Coward. How many times does it need to be said that THIS LAPTOP IS NOT FOR THE POOREST PEOPLE. The poorest people are left to starve and die cause the $100 wasn't going to the ANYWAY (you have people like this AC blocking that money too with excuses like "the warlords take the money"). This $100 laptop is PAID FOR not by your f'ing negativist asshole tax money but by THE GOVERNMENTS THEMSELVES. It's not up to you to force people to spend THEIR OWN FUCKING MONEY according to the way you see fit. Take your negativism elsewhere, and let people who actually want to make a lasting difference do it. I dont see you raising $100 for anybody. If these laptops are so useless why are you afraid of them?
The much ballyhooed $100 laptop (handcrank, mesh network and all) ain't gonna happen. Nine months from volume production and no working model. Pretty plastic cases but no input, no output and no computing between.
Intel, on the other hand, knows a few things about actually shipping product.
Look at what Bill Gates has decided to do with his money. Love him or hate him, consider this:
He has a pile of money to through around. He's throwing it at two things: the smaller portion at improving educational resources in the US, and the larger portion of it to help provide immunizations in the third world.
He made choices - first world | second world | third world. High tech | MS shilling | honest good.
You could be cynical and think he's doing it to aggrandize himself - but he's up there with Elvis, Jesus and Coca-Cola already.
He could do it to make people think nice thoughts about - and therefore buy more - MS, but there's no succinct path that leads there, and they could easily get further with more good advertising.
He didn't buy every village a PC. He didn't give everyone a copy of Windows. He didn't try to shove technology down the throats of people who are dying by the thousands daily of diseases we'll never see in person.
Also - the MIT project isn't in this arena - OLPC isn't going to give them to every starving kid or one per starving village - they're focusing on countries that have a working educational infrastructure but dead-end at technology.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Does the developing nations need computers? Maybe...
Does the children at these nations need computers? Pehaps...
Does they need better EDUCATIONAL and WEALTH DIVISION policies? You can bet it!
I live at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. And I can tell you that most of the children here already has acces to computers. But they don't use them to study, they prefer to user them to play Counter-Strike.
Distribute free computers among the poor populations, and dump them at public schools has NO USE when the average teacher is underpaid... When there arent enought schools... When there is no social programs to make sure the children stay at school... When lots of children go to the local drug dealers to make money, because their mother are unenployed... When these children has a drunken dad, or no dad at all!
Don't get me wrong. I think that it would be fantastic if every children here at Rio de Janeiro, or at Brazil, has access to a computer. But the problem is, nobody is thinking what these children will do with these computers! How they fit within the current brazilian school model?
Computers are not the priority right now. And I gues this is the same situation on every other developing nation. Lets get the basic stuff first, like EDUCATION, and JOBS, and HOUSING... Then the governaments can start giving away free computers to garantee some more votes on the next election.
Just my $0.02
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
why do you have to be such a homo?
As another Anonymous Coward, let me ask a truly provocative question: Wouldn't money be better spent on tubal ligations for poor mothers who have more than one starving child? The whole problem of poverty seems to be an overabundance of demand in a geographical region (and political region) of scarce supply, in other words:
Demand > Supply
One can try to solve the problem by increasing the supply by simply asking for a handout, which is what has been going on for half-a-century. "Rich country, please give us money, medicine, and food". However, this only increases the demand:
demand
while (true)
{
Demand
}
This is like a feedback loop. A feedback occurs when the output of a system is fed back in as an input, similar to holding a microphone to its associated loudspeaker -- hold your ears as noise gets amplified into a loud pitched scream. Therefore, in the Demand-supply equation, the population just grows and grows and grows, the demand just grows and grows. The screams you hear are the screams of starving children.
Fibonacci's number calculates (roughly, and using a very simplified model) how quickly a population can grow from generation to generation:
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181, 6765, 10946,
Imagine that each number represents the number of mouths to feed. Factor in teenage mothers giving birth, and the situation gets worse. Factor in large families -- sometimes with ten children. The screams are more numerous.
Isn't it more worthwhile to attack the problem from the "demand" part of the equation? In other words, mandatory tubal ligations (to prevent further pregnancies) in exchange for aid. Condoms don't really work, because the men refuse to use them. Preaching abstinence doesn't seem to be working either. Tubal ligations would be the only 100% way to solve the problem. It breaks the cycle; it breaks the feedback loop. Disconnect the microphone from the speaker, and the screaming goes away.
Yes, it would be unpopular initially. However, look at Canada and other industrialized nations with high per capita income. What you'll find is that rich people prefer to have small families, not large ones. In fact, Canada is experiencing more deaths than births in its population, which is why it now is trying to encourage immigration in order to bolster its national subsidized health care. Therefore, I would argue (anonymously of course) that initially people would hate to have the one-child rule, but as time goes on, everybody affected becomes wealthier as supply gradually exceeds demand, and suddenly the country transforms from a net importer into a net exporter. That's when a country goes from being a Third World country into a First World country. The problem is solved.
Wait a minute. To us it's only a dollar.
You can provide food and clothing for a child in a developing nation for a few cents a day, but they have money to pay for internet pr0n? They need to stop spending their money on teh internets and buy some damn food then. I'm glad I didn't sponsor one of those spoiled little kids then if they are just gonna use it to get internet access to send me spam.
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
The feedback program is revised to show in more detail why the current system doesn't work:
:= 10 := 1
// Loop forever := Demand + (population growth due to donated food/medicine) // This will never execute
demand
supply
while (true)
{
Demand
if (demand supply)
print "The problem is solved!"
}
And when I said "one-child", obviously I'm not setting up legislation here, so revise "one-child" to be "two-child" or "three-child" to whatever is palatable.
Each and every country was "third world" status at some point in time. There's a reason the "developed" world became "developed" and it all starts with the rule of law, security, stability, a free market economy and, in most cases, democracy. If you really want to help you should be less focused on cheap laptops and more focused on what I've just listed. It reminds me of the old adage: "Catch a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime". If we can encourage the rule of law, security, stability, a free market economy and get these nations on a path toward democracy then all of this will be a moot point because they'll either be building their own laptops or have the means to buy them. Don't treat the symptoms, cure the disease.
(corrected due to less-than symbol getting filtered in previous post):
:= 10 := 1
// Loop forever := Demand + (population growth due to donated food/medicine) // This will never execute
The feedback program is revised to show in more detail why the current system doesn't work:
demand
supply
while (true)
{
Demand
if (supply > demand)
print "The problem is solved!"
}
And when I said "one-child", obviously I'm not setting up legislation here, so revise "one-child" to be "two-child" or "three-child" to whatever is palatable.
Not that much meat on a pony....
1 person using a 100.00 laptop for 10 hours a day or 10 people using a 1000.00 laptop for an hour a day each. While only an hour that person could probably get more done than with the 1000.00 kiosk machine and more people could gain access too it.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
I think the kiosk idea is a good way to start introducing computers to a society where they are an oddity.
It seems from many of the responses that this is already the way computers and the internet are accessible in many developing countries.
I think the kiosk idea is good because it provides a centralized location for maintenance and support of the devices. The target audience won't be able to maintain their systems initially.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
this thing is complete junk. The box is huge and really ugly. Beige is out but ugly is in and even if this is cheap it still sux. Plus Intel is kinda late for the kiosk market in developing countries. Kiosks exist only in cities large enough to have enough userbase and most of those computers use Celeron CPUs as far as I know. I was kinda surprised to find out how popular Celerons are in developing countries when you really don't hear anything about them in the US. But then the price is a lot better so it's not that surprising. Anyway all this aside this has no chance compeating against the $100 pc project. I am pretty sure this will cost several times as much and the worst part is that while the $100 pc actually brings new ideas to the table and think in terms of how to best server an environment that is totally different from the US one, Intel only took an idea that already exists i.e. kiosk pc. Hey if I was some one with a really low budget and had to choose between the 2 products I would go with the $100 pc any day. Plus if you live in South Africa you might actually get one for free. ( well the covernment pays for it but it's free for the end user ) What I want to know is what happened to the ultra slim mini mac lookalike pc that Intel demoed not long ago? Is it really that expensive or did they sell the design to Apple?
The real way to help these people is not to send them money, food, or even prescriptions. The real way to help these people is to help them attain the skillset required to be a valuable part of the modern economy. You can look at India as a prime example of what happens when a nation of hungry people learn a little bit about computer technology. They become a massive work force. That's what these businesses are about. They want to create cheap labor. This relationship will be mutually beneficial to our economies and theirs. We will get some cheap labor for things we don't particularly care to do. They will get income and technology necessary to complete their job tasks.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
It's about wealth *creation*. Wealth is not a zero sum game, it's about creating new wealth. Yes, corruption and monopolies are a bad thing. But so are confiscation of wealth generated from those who are making it in the first place. That's a negative reward for them to create new wealth.
I agree, forget about the computers for third worlders until the western world has gotten it's crap together on how to deal with bannana republic corruption or warlords that we allow the World Bank to keep pouring billions into those rat holes. Find a couple of third world nations that have relatively honest governments and heavily target those as model nation that third world nations need to follow.
For those crap holes that need to be fed, regardless on what warlord or bananna dictatorship is in power, have in every sack of flour/wheat/rice, a sealed page of before after pics of those targetted nations in the end user langauge of "why not you?"
Kiosks my ***... those are called "Internet Cafes" and they are expensive (more expensive than owning your own computer).
bs
I clicked your slashdot id and saw your last 24 posts .. I see that the guy who "doesnt know how to make a point" seems to fair much better than you as far as mods. And you state that there was no point made, yet a post right after your was in agreement with a point that was made. Also, someone modded the post interesting. So let me ask you, what was the point of YOUR post?
On negatives, he did have a "flamebait" post with 19 responses. And an "offtopic" one with 9 responses.
This goes out to all of the naysayers who've posted about how there are much more important things to do for the third world than get them computers.
You're right.
Pharmaceutical companies should be doing ever more to handle the issue of medication in the third world.
Educational organizations should be doing ever more to teach in the developing world.
Food producers should be doing ever more to deliver much needed food to the developing world, and agricultural engineers should be doing ever more to enhance the production of crops in the developing world.
Computer and technology companies - like Intel - should be doing ever more to give the developing world access to information and services online. Do you want pharmaceutical, educational, or agricultural organizations doing that? No, you want tech companies doing that, and Intel is.
So - don't get down on Intel for doing for the developing world what Intel does for the developed world, even if what they're doing is a lower priority concern than some other things. Consider that other organizations might take a cue from Intel and do what they do for the developing world.
Now, maybe Intel's motives are more along the lines of getting in on an existing market, considering that there are many internet kiosks in the third world already. Look askance at Intel for that, if you must.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
All these people and companies fighting it out for top spot on the "nice guys list" seem to have overlooked an important lesson from the religion that many of them claim to follow. Jesus had something to say about people who seek fame and recognition for their "good deeds", basically he said they were hypocrites and that if they really cared about people they would just get on with making the world a better place and not expect recognition (profit) from their actions. I think that Siddhartha would have agreed with him.
i.e. JUST SHUT UP AND DO IT, STOP THE "LOOK AT" ME ANTICS!
The reality of the situation is that 3rd world countries can't AFFORD it. The people need to be given computers with the help of grands, and not have Intel try to milk the few dollars they do have. I'm sure they can be using that money for something else needed for survival. It's a sad thing Intel chooses to ignore this.
You should check your facts before you go spewing made-up stats. Check out the Red Cross's page for major donors:m l
http://www.redcross.org/sponsors/corporatelist.ht
Among them:
Dell = $1 million annually plus matching up to $1 million in employee donations
Intel = $1 million annually plus matching up to $1 million in employee donations
How much money have you given to charitable organizations this year? Was it even $5???
About 90 Billion USD in development assistance have flown to developing countries in 2005 from the DAC member countries alone. And at least guys like Negroponte don't even want to sell their extremely helpful products via retailers, they try to get the money directly from the developing countries' governments. (Heck, why give local retailers or anyone else a chance to profit from this - just generates unnecessary interests and all that... naah, keep it simple, eh?)
BTW, measured againt gross national income the US rank at one before last in the list of development assistance spenders. So where will most of the money come from that African countries might spend on 100$ laptops and other gadgets? You do the math.
Anyone in any decent-sized town with electricity and halfway decent communications needs affordable access to decent computer with decent internet capability. If paper is used locally, a decent printer too. Rentable kiosks fit the bill.
Almost everyone needs affordable access to communication with the world. Any place with a phone line can do email overnight to the nearest big city a la '80s BBSs.
Places without cell phones should have a village satellite phone with text capability or a radio and computer that patches into the phone network at some point. All you need is electricity to keep the batteries charged.
As far as $100 laptops, I think most not-quite-third-world countries - places where most people live in huts or houses with electricity - would find a $50 used or new-but-cheap computer and re-used old CRT monitor much more affordable. For better or for worse, environmental regulations make it difficult to donate unwanted CRTs or old computers to people in other countries.
With a little engineering, a "$100 laptop" minus the LCD screen should run closer to $50 than $100.
These pictures show you just how out of touch Intel is with the market these Kiosk based computers are suppose to serve. I mean who are they kidding?!
http://news.com.com/2300-1041-6055894.html
I'm sure they will run Windows, and have hardware base DRM, and be locked down to only allow a few very basic operations. Where as the MIT project will basically allow anything the user desires.
I think Intel was snubbed as a provider of the processors and they are now trying to squash the MIT project big dollars.
Kirk: "I found this ancient artifact in the Federation Museum of Vaporware. What do you think it is?"
Spock: "It appears to be a prototype for something known as a 'Community PC'. If memory serves, it was part of an ill-fated attempt by manufacturers and content providers to support higher prices and perpetuate certain legacy technologies."
Kirk: "Why didn't they just put some Linux PCs into a library and let it go at that?"
Spock: "Ultimately, the library was deemed superior to the Community PC. Logic would have ended this experiment sooner, but marketing sometimes defies logic."
Kirk: "Ah yes, I remember that's how the Federation got stuck the the Excelsior."
Spock: "Indeed."
How many articles on the net are written in Bantu, or some other African language or dialect? How in the world are people in Africa (or other 3rd-world countries) going to get "education" from an Internet that is mostly in English, Spanish, and French?
I'm constantly reminded of the quote about when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail... why can't your average Slashdotter see that a computer is not the soultion to all the world's ills? Reminds me of the Wikipedian who said that the soultion to Africa's problems was 10,000 laptops with Wikipedia on them. It's hard to picture a more assinine statement.
...corporate America exploiting them with our lovely subscription model (read, recurrent revenue) way of life.
I have another term for them. Leeches.
(I live in China, I used to live in a poor province.)
I have a friend who just finished her bachelors degree in computer science, what's really strange is that she doesn't own a computer -- she never has. I still can't wrap my head about that, I don't understand how you can learn computer science without one to abuse.
My list of multiplayer
You can use it to develop nations? Holy shit, I want one. ... ...oh.
Adjective, not present partisciple. Gotcha.
-- n
Wow, that sounds like highway robbery compared to here (China) the internet cafe across the street from where I used to live was 12 cents an hour, less with a membership or bulk discount.
They had no CD drives, access to USB and if you wanted a decent (>1 Ghz) computer, the price could go as high as 37 cents (US).
My list of multiplayer
Not a criticism, I just want to change your numbers to a $500 laptop (which is what I'm using right now, or I was until I upped it to 1.2 gigs of RAM). Bought brand new in the third world, and apart from a blown microphone input, it's been holding up quite well.
$100 might be hard to do, but $1000 is way too much.
My list of multiplayer
... with the 100USD laptop initiative, Intel should develop a bicycle powered PC. Here's how it works. You have to paddle to run the computer, so you do also physical exercise and it does not use any power outlet (so you don't waste electric resources). As to be used only outdoor, so you get to breath fresh air. Put OSX (not the proletarian Windows), so you appear as a pure enthusiast. Make it minimalistic, no keyboard, no mouse, just a pen and a touch screen. Market it to the same users of hybrid vehicles. mmm. I am skeptic about the price though. Maybe price it in the 3000USD range, sell it only in the green states. It'd be a sellout!
...Windows Vista Starter Edition? Just kidding :) !!
How does this stack up against the $100 laptop, in terms of helping the developing world?"
Rather than presenting them as alternatives or competitors, I'd suggest viewing them as "better together than alone".
The major purpose of the $100 laptop is as an educational tool for people without access to libraries or other information sources. Without a disk, it's mainly a network terminal. To function as one requires network connectivity, which is rare in most of the developed countries, and nearly nonexistent in most of the developing world.
The $100 laptops are to include a wireless "mesh" network capability, so they can use each other as relays to reach the Net. But somewhere in the vicinity, they'll need a real connection to the Net. This is where a good, cheap "PC" could come in handy. If it could function as a hub and gateway for a flock of the $100 gadgets (for which we need a short name), it could help greatly in the effort.
But one thing that I suspect from reading the article is that this may not be the intent. TFA has no mention of the software that Intel's new PC will include. This makes me suspect that they intend to deliver it with MS Windows. And since the $100 laptop is a competitor (non-Intel hardware, linux and OSS software), the PC will be designed to make the $100 "toys" look and work as bad as possible.
So I suspect that this is an anti-Negroponte marketing tool, not a serious contribution to the effort to bring information to more of the world. I'd love to be proven wrong, but frankly, Intel's track record isn't encouraging.
Of course, if we could sneak in a CD or DVD with Koppix or Ubuntu with lots of server software, it could really enable the "kiosk" owner as a local network provider.
Maybe we should suggest delivering it with software like this, and see how Intel reacts. This might tell us whether they're trying to be part of the problem or part of the solution.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
There really is nothing generous about offering your proprietary OS to the 3rd world. It's a disengenuous attempt to gain market share in the future. Steve Jobs is a business man, not a philanthropist.
WOW! How do I get my hands on one? I would develop an island nation where only purely hot chicks are allowed, and IT geeks are worshipped : P.
While the parent is totally overreacting, it is justly based in an attitude that prevails; just as with cell phones, personal computers are still regarded by many as some kind of geek toy only - because they were something of a game console/luxury typewriter for their first 15 years. A quick reality check reveals that the internet has filled the role of telephones, libraries, free press and a few other old-school intellectual tools combined.
In that way the parent is right, if we (the industrial world) want to keep a substantial portion of the developing world growing bananas for us, they won't need computers. If we want their political climate to change for the better with all that follows of economic improvements - personal computers may be the best solution available in 2006.
There's no 'on' position on the Slacker switch!
I'd like to say it'll be useful to the $100 laptop. There would be no other reason for nations to have internet access if there's just a bunch of laptops. This way the community has a real reason to setup internet.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve