Negroponte Responds to $100 Laptop Criticisms

teefaf writes "Wired News is running an article on the most recent developments surrounding Nicholas Negroponte's (of MIT) $100 laptop project. The project aims to make 'cheap' computers available to children in developing countries. In the article, Negroponte responds to the inevitable criticism from Intel and Microsoft, "When you have both Intel and Microsoft on your case, you know you're doing something right", and elaborates on his vision for the future of the project, "He also said the display and other specifications could change as enhancements are made. In other words, he seemed to be saying to his critics: Don't get too hung up on how this thing operates now, 'The hundred-dollar laptop is an education project,' he said. 'It's not a laptop project.'". The article also states that the initial production cost of the laptops is expected to be $135; the $100 price-point probably won't be hit until 2008. It's possible that the cost could drop as low as $50 by 2010."

Comments

Some people will complain about anything

[Baseball_Fan]

The project aims to make 'cheap' computers available to children in developing countries. In the article, Negroponte responds to the inevitable criticism from Intel and Microsoft, "When you have both Intel and Microsoft on your case, you know you're doing something right",

They are making a laptop that will cost $100, and perhaps $50 by 2010. Who cares about the specs, it will not be a buisness machine.

Even if they stuffed a PII 400 mhz and had a 12" screen, it would be very usefull. People could write reports, surf the web, and compile programs. When I was in school, I compiled Java programs on a PII266 without any problems. Sure, I could not run a fancy IDE, but it was good enough to get the job done.

I think a $100 laptop is important. The poor get screwed, and go without. Many poor families will be able to afford a $100 laptop. Also, if I was a charity with $5000 to give away, I would much rather give away 50 basic laptops than 5 thousand dollar laptops.

100 dollar computers?

[bmo]

What about shipping your old stuff overseas?

http://www.worldcomputerexchange.org/offices/bosto n_contacts.htm

There are plenty of takers for your old equipment. Why fill up a dump?

--
BMO

Re:The critics ignore reality

[ezavada]

I find it particularly amusing that Bill Gates is one of Negroponte's critics. Of the two, Negroponte is much more of a visionary. This is really obvious if you compare Gates' book Road to the Future with Negroponte's Being Digital. Negroponte identifies things that make you smack your forehead and say "oh, wow! Of course!" (Not that I had a sore spot on my forehead after reading it or anything like that). Gates talks about minor evolutions of things that most people in the industry wouldn't find terribly surprising or imaginative.

Not to be logically fallacious...

[MarkChovain]

You should realize that this Nick Negroponte is the SAME GUY that whored himself to Swatch to promote their ridiculous "Internet Time" initiative.

Re:Publicity

[humphrm]

Actually, it was Bill Gates who raised the publicity flag first, by mocking the project. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060316/tc_nm/microsof t_gates_dc. But if you're talking about MIT announcing the project, and daring to keep working on the project after Bill Gates mocked it, and responding to his criticism, I guess those soulless bastards are guilty. Frankly, I think Gates feels threatened in two ways: someone is out-tech'ing him, and someone is out-charitying him. Poor guy. He must feel like such an insensitive clod. Too bad he's clueless, this isn't about someone paying $100 bucks for a PC, a poor African child can no more afford that than a $3000 PC. It's about making a PC cheap enough that an NGO can afford to give them away. And that's a far cry from anything even the holy Bill and Melinda Foundation are trying to accomplish.

Re:Why

[Kadin2048]

It won't need troubleshooting, it will run Linux.

You had me, right up to there.

The only computer I've ever been near that "didn't require troubleshooting" was an Apple IIc. And even there I'm not sure that it's a true statement -- it's just that the troubleshooting was so simple, the group of 1st graders that I saw using it could do it themselves.

Put disk into drive. Turn on computer. Computer runs program. When done with program, turn computer off. Remove disk. Repeat.

Now that's the kind of computer they should be laboring to build. Maybe make it run on little optical cartridges or something instead of 5-1/4" floppies, but the same idea. Put the disk in, turn it on, it runs. Anything else is needlessly complex and will require support infrastructure.

Now maybe, like the old Apple II, you could have it do something special, an "advanced mode," if you will, when you turn it on without something in the drive. The old Apples booted to a text prompt where you could program in BASIC. Probably only 1 in 1,000 users will ever see it, and only 1 in 1,000 of them will ever bother to try to go further and figure out what it means and what they can do from there. But maybe you'll teach that 1 in 1,000,000 kid something, and he'll turn out to be the next Linux Torvalds. I can accept that.

However, if the machine is anything approaching the complexity of today's PCs, which most literate, educated people can hardly understand, much less troubleshoot and support, I think you're setting the whole thing up for failure. IMO, any device you're tossing out there like this ought to be like a Gameboy: just enough onboard, hardcoded intelligence to make the thing turn on and load code from external modules. That way no matter how bad you hose the software, you can't "break it." Plus it makes them a lot easier to share: one person can pull out the cartridge/disk for whatever they've been working on, and another person can plug theirs in and it's like they're on a different system.