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Intel to Make Cheap Flash Laptop

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the where-have-i-heard-this-before dept.

sien writes "In a similar vein to the One Laptop Per Child computer Intel have announced that they intend to produce a similar cheap laptop using flash storage.The entry of Intel and the declaration that Microsoft intend to get Windows running on the One Laptop Per Child machine suggests that there may be a general market for a cheap, robust laptop without hard drive or optical storage."

2 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. It's a simple business reaction by suv4x4 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Intel and Microsoft are big corporations. Big corporations:

    1. can't afford to take chances when there's even slight chance a startup may become a viable competitor
    2. can afford money-wise and resource-wise to react to even the silliest of those potential competitors

    I'm not saying OLPC is silly, but I'm just saying: don't make a big deal of it. Intel/MS just want their options covered.

    Let's not forget that cheap computers for poor countries were made long before OLPC (and all failed) and will continue to be made. The least thing: it'll be fun to watch the development in this "market".

  2. not looking hard enough by zogger · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Agriculture is one of the more intensively computerised industries out there right now. I am in agriculture and we use computers all over. In the house, in the buildings, in the equipment, and having a lot of it net enabled is a big help. I mean there is an A to Z list of where computers are useful and are being used in everything from the backyard garden to the highest levels of commercial production. There's some pretty darn neat stuff too, for example, we just bought a few truckloads of corn for our beefers. The guys we get it from use an autonomous tractor to work their fields. That's right, no humans drive the thing, GPS and a computer does it once the field is surveyed once to define the limits and shape (by driving the perimeter once), a computer analyses it and determines the most efficient planting and harvesting pattern, and then goes and does it with little human intervention. Where we live part of the operation is poultry and the houses are heavily computerised, everything, temperature, feeding, watering, electricity supply for all of that, all mostly automated now, and net enabled so it can be remotely monitored and trouble-shot if needs be.

    If I was joe farmer in the developing world, I would want at least one computer and net access, for the weather, looking up parts and suppliers, monitoring the markets, learning about new techniques and improving technology, etc, etc. All good stuff and useful. Heck, I use the net just to look up weeds to see what they are sometimes, or to look up more exotic seeds to try for instance, or to look at new breeds of animals, etc. I've ordered a lot of old weird parts for machinery online, because that is a lot more efficient than driving around dealer to dealer. I use the net all the time for stuff like that.