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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.
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...
Consider it computing using a sliding price scale - just like many medical care centers use. The people with great insurance or who pay in full outright, because they have the means to do so, effectively subsidize the care for those who can't pay as much, or anything.
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
RTFA:
"""
The suggestion has been made that he also offer it for sale for ~$300 to the rest of us so that we do have an interesting macnine and can help to support the cost computers for the developing world.
"""
What bit of "also" do you not understand?
FatPhil
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
And if they do intend to engage in price discrimination, I hope they have found a way to prevent arbitrage, or else people may make businesses out of buying them at $100 and selling them at ~$200 in the countries where the negative price discrimination policy is in effect.
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
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
How is it forced charity? Forced charity would be if we were paying taxes for third world orphans to get gov't-funded laptops.
This is just like being nice and giving to public radio, and they give you a sweet tote bag in return. Here, you're paying $300 to charity, as a nice, charitable human being, and you're getting a laptop in return.
Don't be so whiney.
Wah! I live in a developed country and I don't want to pay more than someone in a developing country for something I want! Why should I subsidize something for poor people!
Tell you what. Why don't you move to Africa with no money or resources, try to find work or an education, with little food, little to no medical care, the constant threat of violence, an unstable government, while relying on the kindness of strangers to even have a stab at making a decent life for yourself?
Then we'll let you pay $100 for a laptop. Hey, maybe someone will even pay $300 to buy one for themself, and you can get one for free!
Until then, STFU and pay $300 for the privilege of owning a toy you'll probably barely use.
"This is your world. These are your people. You can live for yourself today, or help build tomorrow for everyone."
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.
It's hard to be certain because you can't zoom in, but this may be the coolest example of the /. effect ever.
And if they do intend to engage in price discrimination, I hope they have found a way to prevent arbitrage, or else people may make businesses out of buying them at $100 and selling them at ~$200...
Yeah, the free market is a bitch like that.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Does it come with the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer?
[Insert pithy quote here]
Did you even read the pledge to buy one page??
It specifically stated that it was not associated with the MIT project and that infact that MIT has specifically stated that they cannot garantee that this is even possible. BUT it was implied that given a large enough order it may be. So some guy setup a website to see if he can meet a goal of 100,000 pledges in hope that MIT will agree.
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
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.
That's also price discrimination; it only works because you can't easily resell medical care.
Otherwise, I'd find some bum on the street, pay him fifty bucks to go into the medical center and get my "care," then buy it off of him for less than I'd actually pay.
There's a reason you don't see too many 'sliding scales' used for physical goods: it's too easy to turn around and resell them. Really, you can only vary the prices by less than it would cost to transport the good to an area where prices are higher. (Unless you have some artificial scheme for preventing the movement of goods, i.e. DVD region codes.) Otherwise, it doesn't take Adam Smith to figure out that people will just ship the low-priced goods to the areas where they sell for more, undercut the "official" channel, and make a profit.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Well, you might have had a tough life, but you are still an ass. And no, having a tough life is not an excuse for being an asshole. You are just pissed because people in third-world countris can have this laptop for 100 bucks, whereas you have to pay $300. Well, cry me a river. Don't like the price? Then don't buy it and stop your whining.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
I'm sure you'll find *plenty* of organizations that are in need of money to handle this kind of aid, if you just try to google for it..
This is just a new interesting attempt in another direction, if you don't support it feel free to contribute for something else.
(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.
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
Oxfam does this. But if you actually gave a shit you'd know this already instead of blindly bashing the $100 laptop project. After all there's more than one way to try to help others and nobody is forcing you to do it their way.
How does a 7-person democracy cut a pie? Into 4 pieces.
The group producing these is producing them for charity. Not so you can get a cheap PC. It's not a corporation with servicing you as a customer in mind. It's a charity trying to provide things for less fortunate people who need them.
Why don't you try going down to your local soup kitchen and tell them you want to buy a meal, but they better only charge you want it costs to make the food, because you don't want to have to donate to the other folks standing in line. See what kind of reception you get.
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.
Addressing your point, however, how do you expect kids to learn about IT without access to computers?
These boxes aren't exactly powerhouses. In an industrialsed country with a normal second hand market for computers, this box is probably not the best way to spend your $200.
sudo ergo sum
Wow, it's a Navi, nice.
"a decent properly educated teacher and some new high quality schoolbooks"
Sorry to break it to you, but in most countries $100 per student will not provide the above, nor even come close. So if you are willing to donate significantly more than $100, then by all means please do and perhaps you will be able to make a lasting impact on one student`s life.
However, if you only have $100 to donate, this laptop probably will have the largest impact on a child`s life. I personally like to get the biggest bang for my buck, so I will be donating to this project, even if I do end up donating more than $100 (so that my money is able to help more than one child).
Cheers.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
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.
It's better to light a candle than to sit and curse the darkness.
Backward%20compatibility%20is%20over-rated
Can't remember where I read it, but I think they're planning on NOT letting local warlords into the distribution loop. How they'll get access to the countrties without paying said tribute (or getting shot) I don't know.
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
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.
You're right, books are important. Those $100 should be used to buy books for schools in developing countries, instead of buying useless gadgets for them.
Hey, I have an idea! Instead of buying paper books, it would be better if we spend that money on e-books, so they can get new and updated books every school year, at almost no cost. But in order to do that we would need an e-book reading device...
I hope someone came up with such a device...
Oh wait...
It depends. Are they classified as a non-profit in the US?
Why not a customised version of, get this, Fedora!! Damn Small, Puppy and Vector don't have as huge a community or any commercial backing to help with the customisation. They don't have as broad a range of software to choose from. With the exception of Vector, they are horrible to use.
Your comparison is apples and oranges anyway, as you assume that the Fedora install is near-default and compare that to a customised version of other distros.
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.
The children have to be taught how to spam. It doesn't come naturally.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
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.
I agree, although I would also consider ObscureLinux and WTFLinux. Or perhaps we could create another 10 competing new Linux distributions specifically for this project? That'll help...
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]
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.
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
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
I laud your efforts to benefit our fellow human beings in the way you see fit. Certainly I have no criticism for you on that count.
What you suggest, by way of your post, troubles me:
1) Children must be taught, or compelled to learn
2) Material must be dumbed down because children aren't capable of assimilating it in its original format.
3) Teachers will only accept this abbreviated "curriculum," perhaps due to their own incapacity to teach directly from the masters, or because teachers must be mass-produced and don't have time for deep learning.
4) Learning doesn't happen without a curriculum.
The $100 laptop is merely a tool - one capable of providing access to the greatest library that the world has ever seen.
I'm reminded of a story that Richard P. Feynman told, about how he used to check books out of the library when he was a boy. One day he brought a book about calculus to the librarian, with the intent of checking it out. He then related the criticism that he received from this librarian, who couldn't conceive how a book on calculus could possibly be useful or interesting to a mere boy. You remind me very much of that librarian. That a child should step out of the commitee-mandated curriculum and pursue advanced topics of interest is inconceivable!
It may be that much important literature is written in language foreign to many people. The mind would necessarily need to be expanded in order to understand the principles of those great individuals who originally thought them. And what is wrong with that? You discount the power of human passion, once that desire to learn has been ignited. We have classics suitable for all types of people, and need only the right access to them. Instead of teachers, they need mentors to inspire them.
I'm sure we can find a place for "school" somewhere. Unfortunately, most of us waste too much time in that pursuit for entirely economic reasons. When has school ever produced a master artist or statesman? Instead we make employees and complacent citizens.
It may be that your ideals are realistic in our estimation - we live in a mass-produced utopia every day thanks to our state-mandated curriculum and business-sponsored systems of bureaucratic education. Having all found good jobs, we're now too busy to pursue our real interests (recreation makes us feel better about this sad loss), and certainly there is no time left for reading classics. Let's not export these chains to our neighbors who we wrongly consider less fortunate.
If anything, access to the world's literature is a prize worth more than many a mediocre teacher.
Just my opinion on the matter. As it is, the $100 laptop might end up becoming yet another way to export our Western excesses and vices (gambling, porno, etc), and not be used as a learning tool at all. I'm worried about it in that regard.
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
The number of write cycles a flash bit can go through have improved, but only slightly. The biggest change improving the longetivity of flash memory is the rotating-block circuitry integrated into flash modules/controllers. Your average SD card (or similar) receives requests to write data to a certain block; it tells the OS it's done so, but writes it to a totally different block, and remembers which virtual blocks map to physical ones. It uses a LRU (least recently used) algorithm to decide where to write a block of data to. This is probably all way more simplified than the way it really works, but the upshot is that most flash manufacturers have gone from rating flash memory storage devices at 10,000 writes to 100,000 writes. I would imagine this only works particularly well when the device has a lot of free space, and you are writing smallish files that don't fill it up.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yes, I know that points 1 to 3 above aren't correct, but that's just the impression that is given out.
You can't do anything to improve conditions untill the governments, and whatever priesthood (generic term), that is in power wants those better changes. It's corruption that keeps the citizens in poor conditions, not the lack of available laptops. So now they will still have poor conditions, but now they'll have a laptop to play with... perhaps even to sell in order to afford food or rent for that month. Having a few cheap laptops around isn't going to fix the irrigation system you mention. That problem came about mainly because the people that set it up didn't leave documents or instructions on how it operates. Someone shows up, installs something beneficial, then leaves without proper instruction. Laptops will show up, nobody will have proper instruction, and in a few weeks it's being used as a doorstop or something to set a hot kettle on.
Cheap laptops don't address the issue that there are a great number of countries in Africa, for instance, where superstion runs rampant. The connection there is that superstition is a sign of blatant ignorance, and there's no way to fix ignorance (you can't really fix stupidity either). The laptops will just be turned into plastic bricks.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
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.
The screen alone on those things probably costs more than $100. They can't go with CRTs and still hope to be dynamo-powered, so I don't know what kind of goldmine they've discovered as far as LCD screens go.
God help them if they're relying on the largesse of their suppliers.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
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.