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First Photos of MIT $100 Laptop
An anonymous reader noted that MITs $100 laptop was unveiled at the Seven Countries Task Force Meeting. It runs a special version of the Fedora linux and it comes with native wireless lan support. You can see the
photo album, and you can pledge to buy one at triple price... in order to donate 2 of them to children.
Awwwww, look at their little ears! I just wanna pet them!
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
The final photo in the set shows three different colours - they all look fantastic - this photo shows the fedora desktop. Also looks great!
It should be noted that the 'horns' are for directional wireless (and also cover USB ports when not in use) - remember that if you want to mock them!
I say kudos to AMD, Brightstar, Google, News Corporation, Nortel, and Red Hat for making this possible. It's a pity Gates & Jobs couldn't join in rather then attempting to downplay the fine efforts of this group.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
You can see the photo album, and you can pledge to buy one at triple price... in order to donate 2 of them to children.
Can I just one buy one at the regular price without being discriminated against (see price discrimination). Forced charity is no charity at all.
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
I don't understand something, these are supposed to be crank powered to solve the situation where there isn't any electricity. On the blog link, you can see the crank in the back. On the Flikr account, I can maybe see it being concealed in the blue-ish laptop but I can't figure out where it is on the other two. Perhaps it is folded up?
Why are they showing us pictures of them just sitting there? Why aren't their pictures of people powering them up or people checking e-mail/forums?
Possibly the biggest problem working on this laptop is its small 12' screen. I wish I could see what kind of resolution that results in but I can't see the screen in any of these shots.
If you want to make the pledge but don't know the specs, check out the Wikipedia article on it.
My work here is dung.
Are they claiming that screen is the production version, or just a placeholder? Because last I heard the (specially lowcost) screen was still being developed...
Just not in that fluorecent green or orange.
cant they sell me a plain black one?
sure as hell would replace my pda/ipod/other crap I haul around
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
It looks liek there are 2 track pads? How would you use those?
Photos have been out for some time, actually.
http://laptop.media.mit.edu/
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
MITs $100 laptop was unveiled at the Seven Countries Task Force Meeting. It runs a special version of the Fedora linux
But.... Does it run Linux???
DOH!!!
I'll pay for three and donate two any day of the week. I'm not rolling in cash mind you, but if I can help by providing something for those that can't afford it, then I think that is my responsibility, especially if I espouse the Free Software ideal.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
I don't think these were running Windows XP were they?
On the 'worldchanging' link on the pledge page, quoth Ethan Zuckerman:
"""
I wonder if the hinges are going to be a problem - the current design requires a hinge for the gasket and a separate hinge that allows 340 degrees of freedom between the screen and the keyboard.
"""
Yeah, right. How about you learn what engineering terms mean before you use them in _completely the wrong way_.
Sheesh, and such blog journalism is the future, eh? ${DEITY} help us.
FatPhil
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
So, does Nigeria really *need* more people with computers and internet access?
I mean, seriously...
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
It's hard to be certain because you can't zoom in, but this may be the coolest example of the /. effect ever.
Is the the first thing I thought. Wonder if we'll see more ears? Maybe a camera nose?
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
doesn't the developing world need clean water and food more than laptops? maybe even the ability of not being dragged out of your home and murdered rather than laptops? i do see what is trying to be accomplished here but there are bigger issues than getting the poor on the net.
The gun is good - Zardoz
I might buy one at $300, but I want to see the final version first. This is just a prototype and the final version might be very different.
Does it come with the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer?
[Insert pithy quote here]
Since when did a Speak & Spell cost 100 bucks?
This is great that the project is advancing, but I was dissappointed that the laptop wasn't capable of changing to other modes as was originally planned. Check out the image in the wikipedia article -- there is a carrying mode, a theater mode, a laptop mode, and a tablet mode. However, this first prototype has only the laptop modes we are familiar with.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
If you have a better idea what electronics intended to be used by kids should look like, feel free to let us know.
http://www.laptop.org/map.en_US.html gives a colour coded map of planned distribution areas
and from the FAQ (laptop.org/faq.en_US.html):
The proposed $100 machine will be a Linux-based, with a dual-mode display--both a full-color, transmissive DVD mode, and a second display option that is black and white reflective and sunlight-readable at 3× the resolution. The laptop will have a 500MHz processor and 128MB of DRAM, with 500MB of Flash memory; it will not have a hard disk, but it will have four USB ports. The laptops will have wireless broadband that, among other things, allows them to work as a mesh network; each laptop will be able to talk to its nearest neighbors, creating an ad hoc, local area network. The laptops will use innovative power (including wind-up) and will be able to do most everything except store huge amounts of data.
The comments on the pledge say that they will not be selling these laptops to the public... only available through government systems. While this idea of buy 3, donate 2 seems great, it won't work if the makers are not even considering selling these commercially. I imagine that they might be taking a loss on manufacturing these and are only going to give them to the poor who need them. In the western world, if you can think about paying triple for a laptop, then you probably also don't have a problem in just giving $200 to world vision or something. Take your remaining $100 and buy an old used Pentium 1 laptop from ebay if you really need one and install something like Damn Small Linux.
Meh.
Actually, they don't look that bad... I was just commenting on how they DO look like kids laptops... because they are! Anyway, I also read that they make them in these stand-out colors so as to prevent theft.
Meh.
Double Doh!!
Meh.
(But yeah, you're right, Jobs "got" this project, whereas Gates displayed his usual defensively arrogant mediocrity.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
If this guy were genuine about his offer to buy a $100 for $300 he would have probably done two things:
1. Bought one unconditionally
2. Pledged to buy a second if 1,000 people also bought one (much more reasonable than 100,000)
To me, it's just a bogus pledge that he posted with no intention of really buying a laptop at thrice the price - hence the exhorbitantly high number of required pledgers and the short timeline.
Move along, nothing to see here. If you want to buy one buy one, but this guy doesn't.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Does this mean the commercials for world hunger will stop? Seriously, what will they look like when they show kids who have no food playing solitare on their hand cranked laptops.
Sorry for being cynical, but every time this comes up, it amazes me. Good idea, but priorities seem out of wack.
Religion and politics, without the flame. godgab.org
If Fisher-Price made them and sold them for $50 USD. Be the ultimate kiddie scripter hardware. :)
Features: * CPU: AMD Geode GX2-533@1.1W * CPU clock speed: 400 Mhz with 0.25 W power consumption. * SVGA 7.5 diagonal transmissive and reflective liquid crystal display used in one of two modes: o Reflective "sunlight readable" monochrome mode with 1200 by 900 pixel resolution (for ebook reading outdoors--this is 200 dpi) o Transmissive Color/DVD mode with approximately 693 by 520 pixel resolution with backlighting (for laptop use) * 128 MB of DRAM * 512 MB of flash memory * Wireless networking using an "Extended Range" 802.11b wireless chipset run at a low bitrate (2 Mbit/s) to minimize power consumption. * Conventional layout alphanumeric keyboard localized for the country of use. * Touchpad for mouse control and handwriting input * Built-in stereo speakers * Built-in microphone * Audio based on the AC97 codec, with jacks for external stereo speakers and microphones, Line-out, and Mic-in * 3 external USB ports. * Power sources: o AC Cord that doubles as carrying strap o two C (R14) or D size rechargable batteries and a hand-crank generator o four C (LR14) or D (LR20) alkaline batteries.
Intentionally omitted features: * no motor driven moving parts o no hard disk drive o no optical drive (e.g. CDROM or DVD drive) o no floppy drive * no IDE interface (as there are no drives with which to interface) * no PCMCIA card slot
Meh.
If they were running XP, that'd be at least $100 right there!
Wow, it's a Navi, nice.
is like flusing your money down the toilet.
A laptop for every child is great and all, but they'll get to where ever you want to send them and then..
a) Gov't Officals will gladly help 'dispense them' - ie sell them.
b) They'll be stolen and end up on the black market
c) They'll end up busted and being more caustic crap in a landfill somewhere.
I'd rather give laptops to under privilidged teenagers in eastern europe. At least maybe something would come out of it (hopefully not linux viruses).
When you look at that machine, imagine a little kid in a third world country using it... to spam and scam the crap out of us! After all, with the spam/scam market so lucrative, putting a machine like this in the hands of someone desperate for money is like handing a book of matches to a pyromaniac. Sure, matches aren't dangerous by themselves, but what are the circumstances here? If I can't afford a 100 dollar computer, I probably have trouble affording much of anything... and likely would be desperate enough to scam/spam if I knew I'd get some cash for it.
stuff |
wow! looks like those guys at MIT have reinvented the speak and spell http://www.ritilan.com/archives/images/blogimages/ 040304_speakandspell.PNG
Looks like someone got a couple of iPods.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Fedora seems to be too large of a desktop Linux to put onto these machines... same with Mandriva, SuSe, Ubuntu or Mepis. Why not a customized version of Damn Small, Puppy or Vector Linux? Would seem to be better choices in my opinion.
Meh.
Haha, you've just made a real plonker of yourself by confusing Fedora with RHEL.
With those horns, shouldn't it be running BSD? :)
Lets put a real world Slashdot effect to good use. I think I can manange to scape together $300 in the next year. Getting the bulk of slashdotters to sign up would go a long way toward the pledge goal.
Yes, Yes they are not offical offering the thing up for sale, and it might never happen, but its worth it just to show support for the idea.
If it came to be I'd more than likely donate the third machine too...although it might also make an interesting hack project, see how much effort it would take to add a real power supply and/or battery.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
And we all want one for $100, and we'd all gladly pay up to $400 for one. I've got a PowerBook, and I'd still love one. I wouldn't have to worry about it, but it would be really handy.
This may indicate a market for such a device. Not a PDA, not a full-on "outfitted for war" laptop, not a (god damned useless) e-reader, not a handheld gaming rig, but the space between.
This is the space for essentialy a portable, truly open device that will let us surf the web, and run shells, and edit text files or to-do lists, but that won't break us financially if it's snatched from us on the subway.
MIT is showing us the market, and they're refusing to compete! Why have none of us embraced this yet?
My formula would be a Gumstix and an eInk display, maybe? Anyone have any better ideas?
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
This is a good one to slashdot. No, I don't mean kill the server with our traffic, but increase the number of pledges. I think I can see the beginnings of /. effect already. The fag end of the graph looks nearly vertical.
I'm much more funny, interesting and insightful than the moderators think
Collecting relatively old USB HD to give one with 10-20 of those laptops will be usefull. 512MB of storage can be OK, but only if backed up by a shared storage (that they also could use as a public library).
Wow, that was great! Mod up!
Meh.
I don't see how this fights terrorism.
We get a promise in writing that we'll never see a T.V. commercial with Sally Struthers whining about poor kids with no laptops...
It's better to light a candle than to sit and curse the darkness.
Backward%20compatibility%20is%20over-rated
They recently made the announcement that they will have some sort of pedal rather than a hand crank.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
What's cheaper about CentOS than Fedora? They're both free as in speech and as in beer.
You are not the customer.
Why would that make a difference? They're both freely downloadable.
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
I wonder if $100 laptop finally will be the thing that will curb population growth is Africa?
Native wifi support for only $100? It's about time! Toss the laptop and keep the OS!
300 dollars for a laptop ain't much especially an open one. Especially a cute one!
Also this one seems to be small. And if the stories of the handcrank are true then they are 100% perfect.
I don't need number grinding, I need something wich just bloody works. It being cute enough to attract girls is just a bonus.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
So I guess the less obnoxious version of your comment would be "because $100 computer users don't need an enterprise OS, just a personal one".
OTOH, users of such puny computers have even more improvement than most in combining the power of multiple computers into a networked enterprise.
--
make install -not war
In that red/orange color and with those ears/horns, it kina makes me think it should be running bsd.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
There are actually at least four different design concepts for this marvelous project.
So the one shown by Peter is just one.
I think that the crank operated recharger is an important feature that the orange design is missing.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Did it ever occur to you, that maybe, just maybe, all those bright people involved with this project were aware of the fact that fedora proper would be too heavy for these machines and that for this very reason they developed and now use a heavily modified fedora version?
I think internet shops are of much greater use to very poor countries/people than these laptops.
The laptops would still be broken or stolen quite fast. Also, without an internet connection and printer they would be of little use.
Internetshops with a good/fast internet connection and a low hourly rate are of much greater use imho. It would be a lot better if every village had one or two computers with a fast (wireless) connection, that the entire village can use.
(-% TwistedMind %-)
This isn't for areas where people are starving. This is for areas where people have food but now need to advance to the next level. Education is the only tool to prevent people from collapsing to starvation again.
Why PC's instead of books. Because 1 internet capable pc can contain all the books in the world in their most recent version with an infinite amount of paper and pencil.
Books are expenive as hell, ask any student, and schools in poor countries often got to work with hopelessly outdated material and practice books that gotta be reused time and time again.
Cheap PC's make sense, not in starvation areas but in those countries were the basic needs have been taken care off and now education is the most pressing concern.
Because hopefully educated people will be more concerned with creating a better world and not with waging war on each other. Right?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I could have phrased my premise more clearly. CentOS, the enterprise version, is better for combining the low-powered machines into a more powerful network.
--
make install -not war
It has a 7-inch screen, according to wikipedia.
What will that run, 640x480?
Green wins by the way. Not only does it miss the hump of the blue one but it got Neko ears instead of bunny ears. Neko for the win!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
This is nice and all but if you want to donate $200 do it here:
http://www.redcross.org/donate/donate.html
Getting computers in the hands of the many in under-developed countries doesn't seem like such a bad thing to me, IMVHO. If indeed it takes off, and these are delivered en-masse to kids in outbound places, it will be a good thing. If only a few kids get to break a cycle of poverty (obviously, lots more are desirable, but I'm speaking of "at least" here...), the program would seem to have been worth it.
I love the Apple stickers all over the meeting attendees' laptops (not the $100 laptops) in the pictures. Product placement maybe? [giggles]
A Passionate Independent Musician
I see lots of stuff about power consumption, but I see nothing about scalability. Poor is a relative term, and while some places really have to worry about power, other places do not. For example, if they "ramp-down" the wifi (according to wikipedia) to fit within a certain power scheme, then they should allow you to scale it back up if you want.
The same could be said for the RAM and hard drive ( just a flash drive). This device could provide a base for a entry laptop that you could upgrade if you wanted.
If they did all this, then more power to them (no pun intended). I just haven't seen anything about it.
Why CentOS? Do you think third-world children need clustering? Perhaps MySQL? Oh, now I know, they must need squirrelmail+cyrus-sasl+IMAP. Yeah.
How about just leaving your bias at home? CentOS is a great OS if you need a server that is basically identical to RHEL but free. Fedora is for desktops and is free. CentOS is basically the Fedora for servers, and it is also free. What benefit do you expect to derive from using CentOS, other than bloat? Strip out all the default packages from both and you will be left with an almost identical OS anyway.
Did they just dig an old Speak 'N Spell out of a closet, dust it off, and throw in a cheapo modern CPU? That thing is hideous.
Of all the comments so far, I like yours the best, so I will respond here.
It makes a lot of sense for countries that need education for this project. I can defintely see the benefits to it. You are right that handouts only make a system worse.
Thanks for you replies.
Religion and politics, without the flame. godgab.org
I hate those things.
I'd rather have an IBM/Dell style "pointing stick" in the middle of the keyboard......if it had one of those I'd probably be sold on it right now.
anybody know what the tech specs are on it?
Question everything
They're both free, but CentOS is an enterprise version. Cheap machines get more benefit from enterprise scale integration, compensating for low power with higher scales.
--
make install -not war
Spam is not limited by number of boxes or processing power. You can get either of those for quite cheap on specialham.com, from your favorite broker of zombified PCs. The trick is getting proxies or servers with IP addresses that aren't already on all the blacklists. Since these laptops don't come with an Internet connection (merely connectivity), they no more increase the spam threat than Intel introducing a faster CPU does (yay, thats more unique spam messages you can generate that get /dev/null'ed because your machine is blacklisted).
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Why would a 9 year old need a DARPANet?
I'm biased in favor of cheap little machines in poor people's hands combining together to get power. Which poor people are often better able to do than people with more money to spend, bringing working techniques for collaboration out of the streets and into the network.
CentOS is the enterprise version that lets little desktops combine for that kind of power. Fedora is the desktop version that leaves puny desktops isolated and puny.
Anonymous sarcastic Coward, examine your own bias before you dismiss the chance to learn from the actual answers to your assumed rhetorical questions.
--
make install -not war
Like George Carlin says:
FUCK THE CHILDREN!
The day these things become available, they will immediately be the coolest computers on the planet. I'd buy several at 300-500 if the overcharge was going to pay for a few computers to poor people. This is a terrific idea. Anybody who's looking for faults in this program has zero soul. Steve Jobs made the offer of OSX just to get his name associated with the project. If a $100 laptop that actually ran OSX ever hit the world, Apple would lose a ton of revenue. A computer with a crank? It sounds like everything I need in a laptop. When I want to play Far Cry, I use my supercharged desktop. I'm a little bit creeped out by the fact that Negroponte is doing this great deed for mankind while his brother is setting up secret prisons and torturing people, but I guess we can't pick our family.
You are welcome on my lawn.
In a couple of months, I am actually moving to an orphange in Africa. (Note to other telecommuters out there: get out there and make a difference!) Some people have questioned whether or not the computers are really a good idea for the kids. Well, the director of the orphanage has asked for only two things besides the volunteer work we offered: clothing and used computers. Suppose you're 10 years old and you have food. What else do you need? Well, shelter. Next, education. I think this is great.
awesome pic...
25 Anniv. Mac, but cooler looking.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
MIT has another initiative that is trying to address the guide part of this. You should check out MIT's OpenCourseWare. This is another part of this solution that dovetails nicely with the laptop project. It's a website with all the MIT course materials made freely available. They have also received a donation of hard drives to supply mirrors of the site to places like Africa.
oops... now they see exactly how behind this idea we TRULY are! wtg MIT, Negroponte et al!!! thanks for hope for humanity! enable the people to help themselves!! Negroponte for president!
if I claimed I was emperor just because some watery tart lobbed a scimitar at me they'd put me away!
Snorted a granola bar through my 2 meganostrils on that one.
Moderation in All Things... Especially Moderation - gurutc
I used to have a 12" powerbook that I was borrowing from my dad. 3 of my friends asked me if I was going to sell it when I got my new computer. All 3 just wanted simple web browsing/word processing, they liked the small smooth form factor of the apple, and none of them had much computer experience at all.
$300 for a laptop, and they just need to buy a nice little external harddrive and they would be set. I think this is the perfect thing for a lot of people who do not know anything about pentium 1s or damn small linux, and I don't have time/energy to set up something like that for each of them. Hell if I had just a little bit more disposable income I would totally buy one of these!
"how can they call it a MINE if everything here is THEIRS?!?!" -Straight Jacket
Another post, insane one, commented about how these machines would be used for spam. Right. Well spam and scams are there for one reason only, because people fall for them.
Don't hate the spammers/scammers, hate their victims. Really if you transfer a small fortune to someone for helping them send you millions I can do nothing but laugh. Fools and their money should be seperated as soon as possible.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
When one of these toys gets destroyed by a child, who pays for the repairs or replacements? Or, is it decided that the kid only gets one at the $100 price?
See, having kids of my own and having a wife that's a teacher has taught me that kids don't take care of their things. Maybe in countries where the kids have little in the way of material goods, they will do better, but in the US, I suspect more than a few of these will be out for curbside collection within a few months of the initial distribution.
== First cross river, then insult alligator.
What really sticks out is China and India - seems to me, with all the bitching on Slashdot about outsourcing from the West to those places, China and India ought to be on their own in funding this program.
If I were to pledge is there any way to be chose the recipient country?
If the laptops are donated proportionally based on population, almost all of them will be going to one of those two countries...
Sounds like a great deal for China - get paid to manufacture them, then have them donated to their citizens too!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Hardware is cool, but what about software? What, if any, tools/languages/whatever will be available to develop apps for this laptop?
Reminds me of my computer. It is a 2 year old cheap Compaq Presario with a Taped on Apple Sticker (Old Rainbow logo, circa 1995). Yet some people still think I have an iBook.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
Sorry, but I think MIT is hoping Fisher Price will call and label this "My First Laptop".
So the big question is, does it cost $100 to make? Of did they just make it look like a $100 laptop?
Hopefully Leap Frog is looking at this and might come out with their own version before Christmas for $50.
In all honestly, I still don't see the reason for this laptop, especially since they are gearing it towards 3rd world countries. I have always said, and I stand by it, that these people need access to clean drinking watter, food, and medicine before they need the luxury of internet access. Even as an educational tool, this laptop is pointless as I am sure any kid or parent would hawk this thing in the local flea market in order to get enough money to pay the rent and/or just pay for food.
I can see this being ideal in G8 countries. Kids living below the poverty line still should be able to access the top rate schools in those countries, but without being able to afford a computer and thus the tools and technologies that could give them an edge, they fail to be recognized or qualify for scholarships and grants that could allow them to turn their life around.
But I just don't see some child in Ethiopia ever having the same access to education that even the poorest in America has. A laptop isn't going to turn this child in Ethiopia into a doctor or a MIT engineer. There are easier and more ideal ways to ensure this child will be able to read and write and have enough understanding of life in order to hopefully get a decent job to provide for his/her family, but a computer isn't one of those ways.
This is a pipe-dream (most likely literally) by some university students that have this rosy idealistic view of the world that maturity and experience eventually dashes. Its still a novel concept and something that will make computer more ubiquitous and offer more people a chance to gain technological skills, but this isn't going to change the state of affairs in most 3rd world countries. Without the basic infrastructure in place in these countries to provide basics like food, medicine and water, how can one expect to target a luxury device like a computer with internet access?
In the end, this will become a novelty item branded by Fisher Price or Leap Frog and sold at Walmart in the toy section.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
... for the cost of the Iraq war.
The USD 100 laptop hardware specs can be found here for the sake of completeness.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Who is going to support these rigs in the field?
I would love to donate some of these to needy children! Once Sally Struthers figures out she CAN'T eat these then they probably WILL get to the children.
The red and yellow model resemble the old Speak'n Spell. Here is a picture: http://atlanta.metblogs.com/archives/images/2005/1 1/speak_spell.JPG
DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
The crank still exists, but it has been moved to the AC adaptor and will no longer be on the main unit.
Neat. Definitely considering buying/donating. Selfish question: I can't tell from the photographs, but can we please please please have a Unix keyboard with Control key to the left of the left pinky and the escape key to the left of the numerals, rather than up with the function keys?
That pledgebank thing seems to be /.ed, but has anyone verified that it is even legit? The OLPC pages from what I've found all say that they are still investigating the possibility of making these things available to the general public. How do I know that pledgebank isn't just a spam mailing list (or worse), what information do they ask for?
/. editors do any verification on this (not that they don't always do excellent pre-publication research!)?
I saw Pledgebank mentioned on the Flickr page (as a comment) but I see no direct linkage with the project. Did the
About time!
Why, the cranks are implemented in software of course. With a budget of only $100 there's really no room for any of that hardware-based crank nonsense.
BTW, are these laptops only for old people or what?
You quoted The solution to AIDS is obvious. Abstinence is guaranteed to be effective as if to imply he thinks abstinence is the only solution, conveniently leaving off the rest of what he said: Condoms help a lot. There is no magic drug that will make people practice either of these which shows he is not the Nacy Reagan Just Say No type at all.
If you would focus on what he said, not what you wanted to read, you would realize he is not talking about 100% AIDS prevention, but only the part that can be controlled thru personal behavioral changes. Sure condoms don't always work, but they are good enough to put a huge dent in AIDS victims, if they would only be used.
Besides which, yes, abstinence is 100% effective, for that segment of AIDS causes that it applies to. Certainly there are other sources of AIDS, but we don't let known murderers get awy with it just because there are others we don't catch.
Infuriate left and right
Ha, a lot of people have made the same point as me by now. We're all vigilant for posts like your original one, because it's an ego boost when we get to say things like that. I think I believe you that your point was more complex than what you presented it as, but I'm amazed that you didn't foresee these smartassed rebuttals and make your point more clear in the first place.
I can't quite make out the keyboards, but they look vaguely like the common English (American?) keyboard. This is reasonable for a prototype built at MIT, but not appropriate for most of the intended recipients. I haven't read anything about this, and google doesn't seem to know anything, either.
...?
So what's the plan for including appropriate keyboards? Special keyboards for each locale, that only work there? Some scheme for a general-purpose keyboard that can be easily be used by children who speak/read/write Macedonian or Greek or Arabic or Cantonese or Mongolian or
I'd really be interested in the latter. I've been trying to develop "internationalized" stuff, and I've found that information about how to enter the above language on my keyboard is pretty much impossible to find.
Of course, this could be because I'm in the US, where vendors see no reason to provide any help for any language other than English.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
... that the $100 laptop looks like something made by Fischer Price?
OS X wouldn't even begin to fit on this laptop, and without having free source, not only could they not slim it down, they couldn't use it is part of the learning environment it is meant to provide. He knew the requirements, he knew OS X was useless, so his offer was nothing but grandstanding.
Infuriate left and right
What does he tell his girlfriend?
Infuriate left and right
Do you want the next generation of rural kids to grow up thinking that we were nice for buying them laptops and giving them more educational opportunities?
Or do you want them to not know, and remain under the Party control, without knowledge of what else is out there?
Right now a large number of rural kids in China don't even go to school. They used to, back before Westernization these last few years. But the government no longer pays for it, and the parents in rural communities can't pay the fees - less than 1 cent US per year, according to the recent Frontline documentary "Tank Man." So what makes you think their government is going to find money for $100 per child, when they can't find 1 cent per year?
And what it is the point of giving away computers to the needy when content owners/providers are hell bent on charging for everything. Fine the laptop might be a great learning tool - but only if it has access to educational content that no doubt will come with a price tag.
And what happens a few years down the line when the machine is hopelessly out of date and completely incapable of doing anything but the very basic task, for the simple reason it can't interact with newer technology.
AC because I have too many passwords to remember.
What makes you think any donated laptops in China won't be labled "provided to you by your local party commitee?"
I've been selling complete 486 systems for $99 for years. Full keyboard, mouse, and monitor, and minitower case with a real 640 mb harddrive and a real OS. Keep more computer junk out of the land fill that's already been made, rather than making more junk.
No self respecting kid would be caught dead seen with one of these things. Where's the pointer on it I wonder and string, so when you pull it it says "and the cow says... mooo! and the dog says... bark bark!"
meta-mods, please fix this.
Or is flash getting better, so that this isn't the concern that it once was?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Shit it's looking totally different, this is at least the fifth "final design" of this little machine I've seen announced :)
It looks hot, though, I don't agree I gotta pay triple the price and donate 2, however, they're pushing it.
The initial plans of selling it for $200 and donating one were more sane.
For a school project, my daughter sponsored a showing at our house.
Needless to say, everyone who say this DVD was greatly affected, we discussed the issues, and donated money.
Now, think a laptop will make a difference in these kids lives?
Give out cheap laptops if you want to, but in the end, the true suffering will carry on until people face the difficult problems that don't have easy solutions.
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
The orange model looks like an old Ti speak and spell. I loved those things.
There are few things you do not understand about CentOS. It's RHEL fork. RHEL is Fedora Core fork. The main difference is whatever works and becomes stable in Fedora Core will be forked into RHEL and CentOS eventually. As far as I am aware of, CentOS doesn't develop or package in parellel with FC or RHEL branch, however CentOS will package after RHEL release their source in dev/test/beta/prod branch. Knowning slow RHEL dev cycle, it's not ideal for workstations and personal computers. The most benifitial platform will be stable and seldomly changing server platform with support of hardware vendors. This is due to maximum customer support and reduce frequent bug patch release.
This makes Fedora Core more attractive than CentOS or RHEL. You may argue for stability over bleeding edge, but in order to reduce overhead yet increase support from stable and solid community (Red Hat/FC community is one of the oldest while CentOS is recent and uncertain of its future), Fedora Core makes better sense. This is evident if you match software package release within OSS community. You will run into many more Fedora Core packages while you will run into CentOS pacakges which are not part of distro.
Hope this clears few things up for you.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
What's the incentive? Is it to get a unique machine for yourself and the good feeling of giving to poor 3rd world kids? Screw that. If I paid $300 for three of these, I'd just donate all of them. Whether I can afford to or not is a whole other issue.
Currently theta testing the prototype "Event Horizon" server-scaled desktop box with a 50 Gigameg of Ram.
I'm with BillyG, this is clearly the work of the devil.
The only one I am familiar with (Steve), offered free Mac OS X licenses to this group for all the laptops.
Yeah, helluva donation... OS X is ready, paid for, so giving it away costs him nothing and serves only as a publicity stunt. Or free marketing, whatever you want to call it.
And huge tax writeoff... Just sit one day and do the math: how much some software company makes "donating" their software to schools, government agencies etc. Because, giving away single license for a program that costs $100 while boxed, on the shelf, is a $100 loss. And the bonus is that those people will be already trained to use their software, while making software purchase decissions later...
If he wanted to donate some funds for R&D etc, I bet people from OLPC would accept it gladly. But they don't look like morons to me.
Robert
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
What part does News Corp have in this project other than contributing money?
a beowulf cluster of these things.
lol perhaps if you learned to use nested mode at -1 you fucking n00b idiot nigger
OK now imagine around 300 million (or more) of these little babies distributed around the globe, all happily playing, and most importantly sharing Mp3 files and movies which can be conveniently stored on any thumbdrive attached to them.
Where does that leave Vista and OSX initiatives to lock down media with DRM? In shambles.
Not to mention the fact that if these can create a network between them and the range is long enough, we could each buy one and network 'da hood'...no ISP's, no subpoenas, yep
Abstinence/monogomy assumes that the person has the ability to change their behavour. In many parts of the world women have no rights. They can not decide to whom they wed nor have the right to abstin from sex from their husbands nor the right to devorice. That is why you often see faithfull women (and their children) with HIV/AIDS who have only slept with their husbands. Adding condems to the mix to dampen the general infection rates help even those who chainge their behavour.
Why has no one mentioned incorporating these little machines into our own school systems? They're significantly cheaper than Win or Mac notebooks, and have no easily damaged moving parts. Some school districts are already loaning kids notebooks, but why not take it a step further and offer a standardized version of the this machine for everyone? It wouldn't take for MySpace/chat extensions to start springing up all over the place, so that kids could basically behave the same way they already do with their Windows boxes.
a speak'n spell. Even at my young age of 23 I remember those things. Its pretty nifty that they have multiple colors, sort of like swatches. Collect'em all! lol.
Seriously though I have to applaud these guys for creating something that will help out a ton of kids/people around the world. Congrats guys.
"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty."
but he didn't leave himself enough slack for the /. effect.
His site's down.
Hell! I was going to buy one and give away the other two just for the fuck of it.
But...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Why on earth are these mit wankers getting so much press ? this is a total BS project: you can go down to compusa and buy a laptop for 400 bucks, or even less on sale - a real product, that actually works.
so, companies in the 3rd world could easily make and sell a 100 dollar laptop today, if they wanted to. That they don't is their problem: if, of all the people in india and china and indonesia and nigeria and brazil, not one person wants to step up and make a 100 dollar laptop - screw em.
One thing to consider: China may attempt control the internet, but with lots and lots and lots of laptops with wireless connectivity designed for the purpose of creating mesh networks, it'll be a lot harder for them to police it.
So, giving OLPC laptops to China may be a great way to help undermine the authoritarian system.
Of course, if the Communist Party realizes this and blocks them, well, then China's next generation may be at a great competitive disadvantage compared to the countries that don't take that step, reducing the ability of the government to meet the material demands of the population while maintaining authoritarian control, and increasing the chance of the regime failing to maintain the support it needs to survive.
So, as regards China, I see OLPC has having the potential to be Win-Win for the cause of advancing freedom in the long term.
The crank was inefficient and made it impossible to power and program at the same time. Foot powered is the current paradigm.
Can you please explain exactly *how* CentOS "lets little desktops combine for that kind of power"?
And none of that "It's an Enterprise OS" tripe! What exactly does CentOS do better for kids in third world countries that Fedora does not? Sorry didn't mean to sounds somewhat harsh, I'm just not understanding your point of view, but would like to.
"Personal ownership is a hallmark of conservative capitalism. And I don't believe I am entitled to anything that I did n
Saying that developing countries need food is actually stupid for two reasons.
Reason one: Ya think? Reason two: Giving food won't solve the famine, it will only increase the number of people the famine can sustain, hence causing a larger problem. This has been proven and demonstrated time and again.
Education is the key. These kids need to learn a better way of doing things, they need to learn to think for themselves. They need education so they can learn enough about their problems to be able to solve them. The internet is the best tool for learning since sliced trees. Education teaches them how to be resourceful and build their own farming equipment. Teach them to dig down for water. Teach them to irrigate. Education first, solution will follow, it isn't an immediate fix, but just giving food is no fix at all, it only adds to the problem.
On a jokey sort of note, I wonder how long before Africa gets targetted by the RIAA...?
How about the IT industry big players donating all of the refresh program/refurbish PII, PIII and other PCs to the thirdworld, rather than tossing them in the trash, or scrapping them cause they belong to the competition. One good example is that some companies that outsource IS/IT (say HP) first thing they do is ripout all of the Dell, Cisco (as an example) infrasturcture and put their own. What to they do with the Dell/Cisco HW? Who knows. Most likely its trashed since they don't want to to promote the competition. Now you have this project here where we're making new/cheap laptops that we're planning to SELL, vs. take out all of the existing deprecitated PCs, Switches, Hubs, etc, give it to a charity , and let them refurbish these units and re-distribute them ...
Family starving? Get a laptop!
Need a job? Get a laptop!
No running water? Crapping in a ditch? Get a laptop!
yeah, this will help those people out.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Paul Otelini is at it again.3 511700.htm/
http://www.hindu.com/2006/05/24/stories/200605240
How will we be able to continue to exploit the third world if they become educated?
You could probably get a used notebook (check eBay, seach for sub-$300) that would weight less and have 10x the performance. Or you could just stick with what you've got, and save youself $300, and still have less weight and 10x the performance.
Shit, you could carry around a SACK of iPods, PDAs, and used notebooks and STILL have less weight and 10x the performance.
This is not supposed to be a yuppie convenience machine! It's supposed to be a barebones tough-as-nails learning tool for kids who won't have access to anything else! The only reasons I could see any sane person with normal options (ebay) buying this would be:
Feel free to rebut any of the above, or just pass me the crack pipe you were smoking when you thought this would be a good replacement for your current items.
the kids will be hunched over their keyboards with something to do instead of being bored and hankering for a few dollars to relieve their boredom.
Give 'em cheap laptops not expensive AK-47s.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$100_laptop#Software
Bill offered a version of Windows for free for the laptops. Negroponte mocked Bill before Bill mocked him.
The 'ears' appear to be port covers. They swing out of the way to allow access to ports on the sides of the machines.
That's what my first glance suggests, at any rate...
I'm curious what will come of this PC from a software development perspective. /. audience is a great place to start. What possibilities do you see for this hardware? It can do a lot more than an Atari 2600 or Timex Sinclair. But what exactly are it's limits? Assuming you do not add any memory or drives to it, what could you do using this machine to limit your reliance on hardware and instead rely on l33t hacking skillz? /. be up to sponsoring one? Or OSTG? Or any major tech companies?
Given how many people whine about how new graphics capabilities have reduced modern games to chrome-festooned crap, I wonder what people will/can do with this limited hardware. Yes, for games, but also for other things. How well can this hardware be hacked to give impressive results?
And, it seems to me, that this
Perhaps there needs to be a hacking contest...would
There could be many different categories such as best communications hack, best educational hack, best use of hardware (physical hacks), etc, etc. It would be a win-win with hackers getting to hack, and unfortunate children benefiting.
led to a backroom, tied down and beaten to death.
The education department creates one that is the 'least challenging' that they think they can get away with.
The teachers get the curriculum and try to see how little of it they can get away with teaching.
The students get the teachers 'edict' and try to see how little fo it they can get away with learning.
I'll take an interested person who learned stuff any day over one who was been taught, then closed his books and his mind.
You're the sort of academic wanker who made pedagogy a specialized field instead of just noticing how kids learn.
They LEARN because they DO learn. Children are sponges for facts and knowledge. You never know what they are soaking up. That thirst for knowledge keep them (and me) young too.
You should know that you can't TEACH anything.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
These latops are cute, extremely so. They will sell like hotcakes even in developed countries, where most people care more about the form than the function. Apple had a big seller with the toilet seat iBook. This will repeat that experience.
Not only that, but these laptops, if they sell as well as I think they're going to, are going to be the first real danger to Microsoft's worldwide monopoly. Additionally, I now understand why Microsoft was going bonkers critising this thing and why they've recently come out with their braindead rented computer for the poor idea. They are crapping themselves because they know what this can do to their markets.
I like it, but having two small kids I can tell you those ears WILL be broken off within days. They really should talk to Fisher-Price for durable design ideas and not just the color scheme.
... a beowulf cluster of these!
You'd have the power of a conventional PC.
Show a fisherman how to make fishing line ....he'll not depend on you to get fish thrown at him and his neighbourhood as charity.
Allow those that can feed themselves to learn and be aware of modern tools will help to develop the region and hopefully get rid of hunger....
I am sure MIT can work out the technical issues, but how are they proposing to make sure that the laptops stay in the schools and with the kids?
While most people in developing countries are scrupulously honest--far more than in developed countries in my experience--, this laptop will be by far the most valuable thing many families, schools, or even villages will own. And it comes in an easily portable package. In many countries, $100 represents the annual income or multiple monthly incomes for families. So there will be a lot of temptation to sell or hawk it in dire circumstances. For example if selling the laptop means getting medicine, or paying for an operation, or paying for food in a drought, what would you do? No mention of WWJD? Let your mom die to be able to hold on to your MIT laptop?
There might be ways to instill enough community pride for this not to be a problem, but even then, they will still be a huge temptation for the few bad apples. Think some urban hoodlums being able to get out their pickup, drive to a village, break into a school, scoop up $3000 of laptops and selling to someone who either hawks them to more affluent people or puts them on eBay for the tech geeks in the US, Europe or Japan.
Remember, in a lot of places on the planned distribution list, people dismantle power lines to sell the copper, or burn down a village by drilling into an oil pipeline to tab 5 gallons of gas.
Cabling them to the desks is not an option if you've even seen what the desks in rural African schools look like, there are no secure rooms, and even if, the locks are more valuable elsewhere. Harsh penalties would be very counterproductive, non-liberal, and would only be enforced very selectively. The only way would be flooding the countries to such a degree that the devices would be essentially worthless. That means: enough for every citizen, plus all the ones someone can sell on eBay.
I know someone will bring up cell phones, but the big difference is that the phone has little intrinsic value--what's valuable is the contract.
Keeping someone alive but not educating them will only keep them alive as long as you are around, giving them everything they need. Of course people are not going to sit down and use a laptop when they haven't got anything to eat and don't have clean water, but if people don't get educated they will never be able to support themselves.
Nice and cute, but is this a $100 laptop?
I believe manufacturing will cost around $300 laptop.
The hope is to have it subsidized by donations so they can actually sell it for $100.
Unless I see a materials list with part cost that show they can manufacture it for $100, I will not believe it.
Does anyone have a cost breakdown of these models, or this this just hype?
"Fix it"
Wow, I've never seen anyone more clueless than you. I only said I wanted to see what the resolution looked like ... like an upclose shot of a text editor or e-mail. I never said it was bad, I only said it was a potential problem. These displays were rumored to cost under $20 to meet the $100 limit and I'm very curious to see what kind of resolution they actually are capable of.
One way or another, Microsoft would not allow kids to start growing up using Free Software. They would sooner pay kids to use Windows than let them grow up using some Linux-based OS.
Allowing that to happen would be disastrous for their future sales. People use what they are used to. It might be a good idea to try providing this laptop in US schools, but only as an attempt to get Microsoft to offer a better deal than they currently are. It could have an unwanted side-effect, though. Proprietary software companies could gang up on all of the people who produce Free Software, suing them for software patent infringement.
Try 16 or 32. I used to run Win95 on a Pentium/133 with 16MB of RAM and it worked fine. With 98Lite, 98 is essentially 95 with bugfixes.
+++ATH0
That's because from the outset they insisted on totally free and open source code *only*. These are going primarily to developing nations and they wanted an absolute guarantee that the code would be available in it's entirety for the budding devs there to tweak on. OSX, even if given away "free" as in beer right now would still have no such guarantee or access to all the code forever, unless apple wants a change of heart and GPLs(or very very close) all their code, which I doubt was part of their offering to the project when they said "free"..
Did they modify the design of the green model ?? They design at the homepage of olpc shows the screen standing on a standard that can fold nicely into the back, thus enabling it for e-book use. A video showed the laptop to be detached from the screen (usb I guess) .... I serliously wand that model (INCLUDING sling windup option !)
However, seeing the pics at the link from slashdot it seems to be very different.
The Dutch will inherit the earth. If not, we'll settle for a bit of ocean. Beta delenda est!
That's true -- and perhaps education will help curb their risky behavior as well. If a husband infects his faithful wife with AIDS, he got it first. It's in HIS interest not to engage in that behavior just as much as it's in hers.
It's about time someone got the starving and AIDS infected children of Africa laptops with Open Source Software preinstalled.
http://www.redcross.org/
Why not just 2 for a pledge to get one, or even just sell them outright at 150$ (if they can actually be made and shipped for $100), with the recipient getting one laptop and 50 bucks donation towards the project? I am not so sure they will get 100,000 pledges, but perhaps. If they only get 99,000 pledges does that mean the whole deal is off, or what? Even the official project is not committed to this effort yet from reading the commentary there. The "first world" is awash in charities that all want our "spare" money,so I think they should be more realistic on this.
Instead of laptops, what if this was the "Teach the World to Read" campaign. Does this sound acceptable?
...everyone in the third world is starving. Most are not, just not eating well. ...everyone in the third world doesn't have a job. Most do, just not good ones. ...everyone in the third world doesn't have access to clean water and sanitary conditions. Most do, just not plumbing.
"Family starving? Learn to read!"
"Need a job? Learn to read!"
"No running water? Crapping in a ditch? Learn to read!"
If so, why? Don't the same reasons for teaching people to read apply to teaching people to use a computer? If not, why not?
It is foolish thinking to believe...
1.
2.
3.
What a computer in their hands does is open up a whole world of possible advancement and improvements to all of the above. It helps their economy, micro and macro, to rise to improved nutrition, better jobs and better infrastructure. It adds to their own self-sufficientcy and capabilities.
I have been to a few poor parts of the world. In one example, I have seen a water/irrigation project that a generous group from the US installed some years prior. It was in complete disuse and decay because the locals did not know how or have the resources to maintain it.
In the long run education and local knowledge are more important than support programs and one-time gifts. These computers are intented to help create the long term and local solutions to these issues.
If you don't want to be part of OLPC, fine, consider going down to your local adoption center and finding a child you can personally raise - that's what I'm doing. Or visit your local elementary school and find out how their mentoring program works. Or join Big Brothers if that's available where you are.
Or, more simply: stop bein' such a downer, man. Be a POSITIVE force!
To me, it looks like some kind of possessed version of my old Speak-N-Spell.
Karma: NaN
This is not a A64 running at 400Mhz. Hell it's not even a Athlon XP or Athlon. It's a Geode -- a x86 lower powered chip designed for embedded apps. Basically at 400mhz, it's probably the equivalent of a Pentium 175Mhz. While OSX or Windows could "run", they would both be so slow it's unusable.
What does that even mean? That because we have computers, those dirty primitive third worlders couldn't possibly want or need them too? Seems to me that the people who endlessly criticize the idea of making technology accessible to the worlds poor are the ones who are "first world centric".
Most places now use credit-card like account-debit systems, rather than bearer stamps, for their "food stamp" programs, making this much more difficult to do.
You could I suppose borrow someone's foodstamp card, buy stuff with it, and then give it back, but you can't just buy x stamps and walk away with them. Not that there aren't junkies probably willing to trade the whole card for enough cash, but it doesn't allow for the sort of black-market arbitrage that used to exist with the real stamps.
YMMV, of course -- but it's been a long time since I've seen actual stamps in use, though. (This is in New England.)
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Yep... ironic, yet reality - is it not? I once looked into getting some injection molding done for a plastic case, and discovered that although many engineering firms in the U.S. are happy to help with the initial design, they practically all recommend you have your "thousands of units" pressed over in China where the labor is much cheaper.
Most of those laptop parts are being assembled in the 3rd. world too, like the LCD screens and components that go on the circuit boards.
At least they'll be building devices they can actually benefit from afterwards, instead of only working for someone else's benefit.
I'd happily donate one by paying double, that should be enough. Charging triple seems like gauging, especially when there are plenty of impoverished kids IN THIS COUNTRY who could use a kick-ass $200 laptop. I'm one of them.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
>I'll pay for three and donate two any day of the week.
I appreciate you doing that. 'Cause I'm gonna buy one of your two donated ones for $50 on eBay.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Ok, so someone has to have mentioned it is insane to purchase one for 300 just to have it, giving 200 to the cause to have 2 for some other saps less fortunate (I'm out of work too), and then eventually compete for the same job I want. I think I'll pass on this offering. Last time I checked Walmart was offering higher quality systems for 387 USD prior to Xmas last year, I'll wait until xmas this year to wait in line for such an offering. I do have to say, the colors and flippy up ears on the machine are attractive to rab(bi)d(t) programmers like me :)
Wow, Fisher Price has to be pissed about this one. I'm still gonna buy it though.
Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time is enemy action.
Does the use of the QWERTY keyboard layout mean that another million plus children get to ride a cheaper track toward carpel tunnel syndrome and early-onset repetitve strain injury because of an oversight in the midst of the visionary whirlwind that neglected to notice the inherent benefits of the much more reasonable DVORAK layout?
Funny how, when there is a healthcare crisis in other countries, the U.S. solution is to pour billions of dollars into direct healthcare services for those countries. But when there is a healthcare crisis in the U.S. ( U.S. has second worst newborn death rate in modern world), the U.S. solution is to privatize healthcare, maximize profits for the healthcare industry, and essentially tell its people to "go get an education and a job".
If education and employment is the solution for the healthcare crisis in the U.S., why is not not a plausible solution for other countries as well?
If it hasn't been said already it needs to be.
The places in the third world these laptops are destined for have far greater problems than access to computers, cheap or otherwise. Clean water, ample food, adequate shelter, basic medicines and rudimentary health care, physical security and relief from sometimes severe forms of oppression and exploitation are all greater needs by orders of magitude IF outside influence and interference can ever be justified, warranted or desired.
At times we look at the third world or even the second and ponder the pleasantness of a simpler lifestyle. By the same token we look at the mega living complexes build in the far east for example, those skyscrapers in their multitudes souring hundreds of floors, each one a self contained city where people can live within it and never need leave in their lifetime. Manufactured human habitat of concrete and steel, completely designed and managed for the maximum efficiency and productivity of human labor.
Merely the latest fashion in high technology oppression and exploitation? Perhaps the only natural grass a child born in that environment may ever see is on display in the lobby and viewable for three tokens? Never to climb a tree or jump in a puddle? That the "natural" environment becomes a well supervised McDonalds plasic playland found disbursed on every third floor? Where the old and the sick are elevatored to the basement incinerator for mechanized disposal at the actuarial end of their lives? Better?
I understand this is the opposite extreme, perhaps slightly imbellished for effect but therein lays the underlying question. What is best for an indigneous people and who are we to decide? Is wrenching these people into the modern world doing them any favors? And if not, who is the beneficiary? Global Corporations? Does an Email account and an Ipod make peoples lives all that much improved or does it simply serve to placate a penetentary existance in a concrete jungle? So an African tribesman risks being gored by a Credit Card company instead of a Wildebeest? Which risk is greater? He knows the Wildebeest.
For however hardscrabble life can be found in many places you don't find the kind of depression and dispair that permeates our more modern, technologically advanced society where the value of human life has been reduced to a number on a paystub or ones asperations held within annual reviews perpetually on file and indexed. It would be hard to argue that the complexities of modern life is not in itself debilitating and it is likewise difficult to weigh the benefits of first world imposition.
The 'Hundred Dollar Laptop' is a design and manufacturing challenge that many have been caught up in. I myself find it an interesting subject even though I have serious doubts whether such a device should be implemented as envisioned. I think the vision is flawed and the motivation suspect. Just because we can do something does not necessarily mean we should and that it may be better to leave the indigneous people of the world well enough alone in their natural environs. They may be the only survivors of a species hell bent on self destruction.
In a way this is the Kwanzaa effect where Evangelical Christians found it abhorrent that godless savages where being left out of the joys of Christmas and so set about rectification with self righteous reverence in pious imposition. In result Evangelical Christians feel much better about themselves and the displaced reinactors of African culture twenty generations removed have another drum to beat. I doubt the indigneous savages much care.
is the poster child of the rift between first and third world.
no third world family is going to spend the equivalent of $100 of their local money(despite the fact that it would most likely be at or over a years worth of income for them) on this. they would rather spend it on essentials such as food and water. even if it was given to them they still would not find too much use for it.
the money spent to make this would of been better used in helping the poor in the third world get better access to water and fight the world bank in it's pursuit of making water a commodity and not what it really is, a necessity needed for life.
i know i will be modded down and shouted at by libertarians because i soiled their 'all mighty free market god'. that doesn't hide the fact that i am speaking the truth here.
I think you mean the 20th Anniversary Mac, and Lain was first aired a year after the 20th Anniv. Mac came out, so the Navi might have been inspired by it.
Who is covering up anything??? From day one, the project originator Negroponte has said that this device would be designed to run on purely open source software. Read those words again until you understand that part. If me saying that out loud is a "coverup", that is a rather strange view. OSX is not pure open source software. The software they will be receiving is. It's open now and always will be. OSX is not, even if steve jobs offers the first install free as in beer. That is raw verifiable data. The MIT project wants pure open source so that developing nations can move freely into the computing age,this is the long view they have, from a cost, customization and useability factor, to not face the prospect of having to compromise or jump through hoops some time in the future-which could happen with closed source propietary stuff, that they will have access to all, not part, ALL, the souce code they need without licensing worries forever, at least the chance at it, and he doesn't want the kids fooling around with closed source when free and open will allow them a lot more freedom and flexibility and save them-their nations on down the road,a lot of money in the long run. these kids who are going to be getting these laptops ARE going to be these various nations devs later on, not all of them, but a lot of them, a lot of them WILL BE coding their first on these machines, that's part of the deal,and that's how this stuff works, kids grow up, learn on the way, get jobs, become productive members of their nations societies. With total open source it makes it a lot easier for them to pull this off.
This is just *data*, it is not debateable opinion, you can go google around yourself for what he has said about open source versus the alternatives, I just checked, a lot of references. That's partially what the project is about, exposing them to both the hardware and the software, the hardware gets subsidised and provided as inexpensively as possible, and the software gets donated free and it is also FREE. That's it, that's the project. And OSX or Windows just don't fit that capital "F" free deal there, even if they offered an intro small letter "f" free version.
Like I said, negroponte isn't hiding, go argue with him over it, call him up, send an email, whatever, I was just reporting what I have read of what he has said on the subject of open source,numerous times, paraphrased. He's not even close to being hard to understand on this point.
Looks like a lot of room for corruption to creep into the system. They also said their primary target for customers are governments; when have governments ever paid in advance? :)
How much better off would children be, in general, if the resources that went into making these cheap laptops were instead used to design and build inexpensive, village sized solar water distillation units?
- 03/2005-03-17-voa34.cfm
After all, what's the leading cause of death in the world?
It's not a cheap laptop deficiency:
http://http//www.voanews.com/english/archive/2005
The World Health Organization says that every year more than 3.4 million people die as a result of water related diseases, making it the leading cause of disease and death around the world. Most of the victims are young children, the vast majority of whom die of illnesses caused by organisms that thrive in water sources contaminated by raw sewage. VOA's Jessica Berman has more on the story. A report published recently in the medical journal The Lancet concluded that poor water sanitation and a lack of safe drinking water take a greater human toll than war, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction combined. According to an assessment commissioned by the United Nations, 4,000 children die each day as a result of diseases caused by ingestion of filthy water. The report says four out of every 10 people in the world, particularly those in Africa and Asia, do not have clean water to drink.
Yeah, but who cares about Gates and Jobs... Nicholas Negroponte (head of MIT's Media Lab, the guy behind this) is the brother of John Negroponte (United States Director of National Intelligence). Think John asked Nick to put some sort of back door into these, spread 'em around the Third World and give the Evil Empire (U.S.of A.) access to everything that's done on'em? Michael Hayden are you listening to me? Lenovo, what a buntch of pikers!
I going back to Stop'n'Shop for another roll of tin-foil, thank yew.
Or does this thing look like a childish toy?
I love the idea of this project, and I intend on suporting it for Orphanage outreach, as it is one of the many things they could use...
But with the single computer they have, all they know is Win 98 and Ubuntu. Would it be possible to manually change the O.S?
No wonder it's only $100.. it's a Speak & Spell with a flip up screen.
"Now shpell: Gerahh"
"X - X - X - X - X - X - X..."
Heh heh.. those were the days.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
these arguments always come up whenever the OLPC is ever mentioned.. some of my thoughts: * i don't think this laptop is intended for the poorest people in the world - yet there would be benefits for everyone whenever the middle class in these countries grow and become more influential.. * would people use the same arguments if MIT was aiming to provide textbooks to every child? a $100 laptop would actually be CHEAPER than the production/transportation costs of some textbooks. there's a great deal of children in the world who assemble for schooling 5 days a week - in a school with a MAJOR shortage of teaching materials and staff. there may even be a 'subversive' effect when children/families suddenly have wikipedia at their fingertip - development of critical thinking. its a well intended gift from the developing world - and nothing is going to change overnight - but that no reason not to try. my prediction for the near future: we'll be seeing news reports of government troops smashing down doors taking about laptops that've been used for {$imaginary_anti_social_reason}. that'll be when we know tyrannical governments are getting worried about the effects of knowledge and critical thinking..
Mr. Gates is a complete stranger to philanthropy.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Hey, laptops in schools hasn't helped here in the U.S. The school systems are still cranking out major league dumbasses. It's the 'want' to learn, not the tool used. You can give the average Joe the finest brush in the world, but don't expect him to create even a mediocre painting with it.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
...they ease the installation of BSD-based operating systems! ;-)
"Good news, everyone!"
Those laptops remind me of the Apple's eMate, but with a better choice of colors.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
A friend is running OS X 10.3 in a iMac G3 333 Mhz, 128 Mb RAM just fine. A stripped down version of OS X could run fine on the $100 laptop hardware.
Now, on your 2nd point, from Apple's perspective, they will not lose anything, since the $100 laptops doesn't overlay with any of Apple's offers/market. The key point is that OS X is not Open Source, just the kernel, but, if Apple released Newton OS under an open source license, this would be the perfect match for the $100 laptop proyect.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
They all look a tad wierd if you ask me. The images on the screens are badly composited and the lighting is all wrong. Am awaiting the day they actually show a real one.
sorry, my bad
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
No worries, I only found out that info because I wanted to see a picture of one.