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?"

Comments

Q. What's new here?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

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.

Re:Q. What's new here?

[digTro]

From TFA:

Most consumer PCs are not designed to withstand unusually adverse climate conditions or handle fluctuating power supplies, and that has severely limited their use in parts of some developing countries.

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. To keep the motherboard cool, the chassis houses an integrated fan.

Wild power fluctuations (and frequent power outages) are quite commmon in rural India and the summer temperatures in many parts of the country average at 38 C (100 F). I for one would welcome such a PC. The only other option to build a cheap sturdy PC is to buy the components off the shelve and build it yourself, which is a highly unlikely option for the intended population.

Re:Q. What's new here?

[Acer500]

It depends on the area it seems. Here in Uruguay, cyber-cafés (kiosks or whatever you want to call them) are everywhere (including 100 person villages in the middle of nowhere), and so it is in Argentina (one fifth of their population uses them according to the Buenos Aires government), Chile and coastal Brazil at least.

All three countries (Uruguay, Argentina and Chile) already have a similar plan, also sponsored by Intel - see http://www.mipcuruguay.com.uy/plan_antecedentes.ht m , but I'd say that it's behind the times - there are several sellers of "clone" computers that beat that price, often with cheap AMD chips, and sellers of used European and US Pentum IIs that are more than enough for Internet access.

According to the C-Net article, this is basically more of the same program, but aimed at developing countries with harsher conditions (India, Africa I guess, tropical Brazil and Mexico).

Just what the world needs

[liliafan]

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.

Been there seen that...

[xtracto]

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...

Re:Been there seen that...

[cnettel]

There are lots of places where $1 an hour would be a very significant blocking point against general usage. In locations where a "normal" Internet cafe is commonplace (and affordable), I think that both this device and the hand-driven $100 laptop would be little more than an oddity.

Re:Been there seen that...

[Verteiron]

Yeah, the biggest problem I have with the $100 laptop idea is that unless you give these to -everyone- in that Remote Village (TM), they'll quickly be sold and/or stolen for food, drugs or women. And even -if- they give them to everyone, what use is a wind-up toy laptop when you're barely able to eat?

Re:Been there seen that...

[Xyleene]

Mexico a developing nation??? Hope that isn't flamebate... Mexico's nominal GDP is 675 billion or 6494$ per capita. Not exactly America's but not in the same class as developing nations by a long shot (which are less than 1000$ per capita).

Re:Been there seen that...

[xtracto]

My question is do you have an internal monetary transfer system to the poor regions from the richer ones or an appropriate taxation system in place? We have one in Canada called equalization that transfers money from the rich provinces to the poorer ones(granted we aren't in the same fiscal situation).

Well, this is quite complex, I believe there are programs developed to help the poors. Although the taxation systems are *not* developed to do this (we have a 15% V.A.T.). Also, unfortunately we do have a lot of corruption and usually the people in the government are more concerned in grabbing all they can from the public funds.

As an example, I have a friend that worked on the Transport and Communication Secretary [SCT] (in charge of roads and transpoprt and communication permits through all the counry). He worked as a sysadmin in the secretary office on La Paz, BCS (far south of the California Peninsula near "Los Cabos").

The thing is, there was a hurrican in the state and a lot of roads got very damaged. The governor of the state declared "disaster zone" and was granted a big sum of money from country federal funds. Specifically, some funds went to this SCT secretary. My friend told me that of that money, the director (Secretary) in charge of the state grabbed (read stole) a paert of that money, from the money that was left, the sub-secretary grabbed another part and other high rank members did the same.

The rest was used to make some half baked low quality roads in order to make it appear as the money has been spent.

Oh, and the same happened similarly in Chiapas (the place I told before), where the government asked the Natural Resources secretary for funds to make a "crocodileraium" (lique an accuarium but for crocodiles) and the money given to them again by the federal authority. After some time, the Natural Resources authority sent an inspector (who was my friend doing his PhD btw) to see if the money was spent rightly. To his [not really] surprise the crocodile place was really bad, people had just spent the minimum required to do that thing (I wont go into details but from what my friend told me it was like they spent something like $200 dlls, when the government gave something like $7,000). All the rest of the money of course was stolen by the people over there.

My friend returned and made a report. Of course as it seems everyone in the government has a tail, nobody made anything.

Btw, I have been to Canada. I was in the west side of the country and it was really beautiful. I went to some national parks like Banf (I do nto remember the name of the others). I went also to Vancouver and Edmonton (I loved the underground malls, and when I saw a rollercoaster I was completely astonished).

Also, I remember reading (or hearing) somewhere that in Canada, people that does not have a job still get a check for some good cash and that there are places where they can spend the night and all that.

Also, an uncle told once, when my brother started studying vetrinary something I found may be insighful. He said that, it would be good for my borhter to go to Canada, as, in those kind of countries they tend to spend more money on pets (cats and dogs insurance and all that triviality [triviality for people in Mexico for which having a dog means putting a plate with food rests outside the house so the street dog has something to eat =op]) because over there the government has almost all the social problems solved. In mexico people is more concerned about what are they going to eat so everything else is trivial.

Missing the point again

[MadFarmAnimalz]

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.

Re:Missing the point again

[MadFarmAnimalz]

I'm sorry, I was assuming we were talking socio-economic development, not lets-give-photogenic-villagers-computers-and-pat-o urselves-on-the-back-development.

Fact: The availability of relatively reliable electricity does not translate to ubiquitous computer literacy. Computers are too expensive.
Fact: The urban population can contribute to bridging the digital divide just as well as the villager can (arguably better; sorry, it's economics)
Fact: Speaking more pragmatically now, it's more effective to work on computer literacy in urban areas and in Egypt, the percentage of urban to total is high and is increasing rapidly.
Fact: People with lower standards of living do not regard a computer as anything vital when compared to water, access to fair markets for produce, etc.

Now, a hand-cranked machine doesn't target this market as much as the rural areas, true. Which makes it, ultimately...

An ineffective tool of socio-economic development through technology

I do this for a living. I know. I've seen too many moronic ICT4D projects to let your comment slide.

Sorry for being abrasive; it wasn't intentional. There's just too much techno-fancy-pants'ing in ICT4D these days.

Re:Missing the point again

[MadFarmAnimalz]

If it's unworkable, how come it'll generate higher sales?
Did I say it would? It won't. Not here.

Also, your trickly down comment is ignorant. As one of the elites of Egypt, I am sure you are unaware of the needs of the poor.

1. Ad hominem isn't constructive.
2. Without giving out my bank statement on /., suffice it you know I'm not an elite. I'm not poor either, for that matter.
3. I think I have a good idea of what low-income Egyptians need. It isn't that difficult to tell. If they're dying of bilharzia, then there's a good chance that they need focus on health issues. Freshmeat is devoid of a software solution to bilharzia.
4. I've worked with microfinance, information systems for socio-economic tracking to monitor the effects of development projects, and grass-roots Linux advocacy (and also govt. advocacy, but let's stay on topic here). If I don't know what the country needs for economic and social advancement. Plenty of exposure to the impoverished segments there.

how much does electricity cost over there?
It's subsidized; not very much unless you're running a lot of A/C or oil heaters. As an elite, I get the monthly average of maybe 5 or 10 dollars maximum.

The cost of electricity isn't the issue (what with the Aswan dam and all). Water's a bigger issue, really, and until the Egyptian middle class discovers water cooled UT gaming rigs, I'd say that more efficient computing won't help there. Offtopic, we did do some GIS development for managing national water resources at my old job, so yea, if there's a technological solution to a real problem I've been there.

Clearly if many governments are buying into the $100 laptop, there's either not enough trickle down hardware or there is a need for them

So if the govt. invests in something, it's a good idea?

As I said, there's enough trickle down hardware but there's no mechanism for it to trickle down (support, installation, marketing, etc.)

Why don't you go about improving the process, seeing as how new yorkers and californians supposedly can't do it?

I'm half Danish; what do you think I'm doing here?

AMD's 50x15?

[CTho9305]

How is this better than AMD's 50x15 program and the PIC?

Do the developing countries need these ?

[jonv]

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.

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Why?

[HomerJ]

Anonymous Coward:writes:

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.

If I had mod points, I'd just mod you up, but I'll just do a "me too" post. What good is a computer, if you're drinking the same water you took a leak it yesterday, and have children dying of diseases a $5 vaccination would cure?

Re:Why?

[jacoplane]

Nicholas Negroponte on why he is developing the $100 laptop: "... if you take any world problem, any issue on the planet -- the big ones, peace, the environment, poverty -- the solution to that problem certainly includes education, could even be just education, and, if you have a solution that doesn't include education it's not a solution at all."

So on education he would agree with you, however, access to text-books and information is of course the number one requirement for education. Giving people water, food, medical care etc is of course also extremely important. However, I'm reminded of the proverb by Maimonides: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

Re:Why?

[suv4x4]

"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."

Come on... all they need is a computer and a local Chrisitian church missionary base to teach them they are poor since they don't accept Christ. Right? ... Right?

Black humor aside, computer *is* education. This is 2006, networking is not just for porn and chatting anymore, Internet is by far the fastest way to educate yourself on any kind of matter, and noone actually is claiming a computer will feed you or heal you, but it's still a critical component for getting the developing nation actually develop.

It would be nice if the $100 laptop could run Windows CE since it's closer to the most popular platform in the world (thus easing the porting of various educational tools and software), but then they wouldn't be $100...

In the web era I guess a capable web browser would do as well.

Re:Why?

[should_be_linear]

Sending food and medicine doesn't work. Why? Because we are able/want to send much _less_ food/medicine/water then it is needed. Reason: Sending 10% of your money (that would be enough) for food in Africa will not win you any elections anywhere. In case this is true (it is) we should keep with plan B (building education there so that they can feed themselves). If you are growing apples Africa, it is _big_ difference if you can use cell phone and sell your products without going 20 miles away or simply negotiate activities with your family elsewhere. Cell phones will have huge impact on productivity of people in Africa just like it had anywhere else. I am not sure about _computers_ however. Anyway, "bring them food instead of cell phones/computers" attitude equals to "do nothing" in practice. Nobody will bring food to Africa even if we could. Fact proved by history.

Help the developing world

[Gothmolly]

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.

Re:Help the developing world

[Vellmont]

Lets see, high on a rational priority list would be (just off the top of my head here):

Contrary to popular belief, "the developing world" isn't a single place, but a vastly different collection of places and people at differing levels of development.

Help is also not a zero sum game. It's not as if Intel not doing this kind of development opens up greater possibilities for priorities 1-5 in your numbering scheme.

Is this something that can help some people in developing countries? I really don't know. But attacking the idea on the premise that there's other people with other problems is really missunderstanding the entire situation.

Re:Help the developing world

[suv4x4]

"Seriously folks, stop the laptops-for-everyone circlejerk, and fix the real problems."

Do you expect Intel to work on fixing the polio vaccine and "stop the hysteria over genetically mofified foods"?

The people who work on these issues aren't just an entity called "folks", they are different organisations capable of addressing different issues. MIT and Intel are doing what they are specialised in: provide access to information, processing power.

Let's not nag them for doing what they can do, instead of what they can't.

Re:Help the developing world

[metlin]

Please stop trolling.

On every article on technology development, there is always someone who comes up with similar arguments.

*sigh*

Just why? I mean, do you really think that development should happen only if everything else falls into place?

Hell, the US has its own set of problems - are you going to stop everything and everybody from coming up with and using technology until they are all solved. Development is not a single task, nor is it for a single place.

Often, development is the coming together of a lot of things. While the points similar to the ones you mentioned should not be ignored, that in no way means that everything else should be put to a standstill while those problems are solved.

If all the money and everyone were bent on changing the world to fix the "problems" first, we'd never have any progress.

Like another poster said, the developing world is not a single place. It's a bunch of places, with differing cultures and needs. There is no one single solution.

I mean, what if a developing nation, say India, had focussed entirely on solving its problems and not on fostering and using technology? Do you think the software industry in India would have picked up? Do you think millions would have the jobs they do now and have a better standard of living?

To think that people should solve all the problems before doing anything else is ridiculous.

There are always problems, and while they need to be solved, they should not be the reason enough to give up looking at other ways of enhancing people's lives.

Issues and Specs

[Dekortage]

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.

Whoah.

[cephalien]

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)

Re:Whoah.

[Senzei]

That's exactly right. See, how things work is that there are three, strictly seperate, formally defined, qualities of life. You have:

• Third world countries: Where people are dirt poor, bath, cook, and wash their clothes in rivers of pee and chemical waste, eat dirt pies for lunch and crow for dinner, suffer from rampant disease and have doctors who couldn't find their own assholes with two hands, a map, and a guide.
• Developed nations: Where everyone has more or less every need fulfilled, access to the education system is plentiful, and 2-story ranch houses grow on trees, so people give them away to keep them from cluttering up the yard.
• The super rich: I have no idea what really goes on here. I have heard tell that they have copyrights and patents on entire colors and smells, enabling an experience of the world that the rest of us simply cannot comprehend. They also have pills to make their farts smell like flowers.

Or maybe there are people who are above the "I-lived-on-earth-and-all-I-got-was-this-distended -stomach" level but not quite ready to move to the suburbs. Perhaps, just perhaps, this laptop is meant to help them develop further so there are more people capable of helping out the extreme low end of poverty.

Then again that makes for a crap sound bite, so maybe you are right after all.

A combination of the two approaches

[Kevbo]

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

How important is the CPU?

[jacoplane]

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.

Addition to other community things...

[VorpalRodent]

Based on what we've learned from previous articles, we have to assume that this computer will be powered by manure.

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).

Third world needs help...

[vitya404]

... 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.

Big brand bullshit

[z4pp4]

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 = Permanent Poverty

[digitaldc]

'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.

Pure Marketing Stunt...

[vhogemann]

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

Only a dollar???

[Aphoric]

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.

Re:What's the point?

[Cheeze]

What a better way to teach democracy than to sell one computer to one village and let one guy become the wealthy/ruling class.

100.00 laptop

[panxerox]

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.

Re:In some ways, quite useful. In others, not.

[EatHam]

Our poor people can go to the library to use computers.

Some people do

[tiggles]

(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.