A Million-Dollar Laptop Created

aluminumangel writes "For those of you who don't know what to do with all your money, why not a one million-dollar laptop from the U.K-based company Luvaglio? With 128GB of solid state disk space, Blu-ray, and a detachable rare diamond that acts like a power button and a security key."

Comments

solid state storage, diamond "key"....

[gardyloo]

... and batteries by Sony! Dude, you're getting a bomb.

Re:solid state storage, diamond "key"....

[jellomizer]

Just wait a couple of years you can get it off ebay for $100

Re:solid state storage, diamond "key"....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and the security key will auction separately for $9,998,500. If not purchased as a package, the laptop will come with a fake, clear plastic security key which only permits access to the first 1GB of disk space, and not on weekdays or during Jihad.

S&H extra.

one.. million... dollars

[User 956]

a one million-dollar laptop from the U.K-based company Luvaglio?

so that's what he wanted the money for!

Re:one.. million... dollars

[dgatwood]

Can we put frickin' lasers on its head?

Re:one.. million... dollars

[Rude Turnip]

BluRay lasers...on the read head, duh!

Re:one.. million... dollars

[Arwing]

I would hope one million dollars laptop will get you lifetime upgrade option.. .. A new hardwares spec every 6 month?

Rare diamond?

[dkoulomzin]

I'm not that impressed when we talk about how expensive a laptop is on account of its rare diamond!

Re:Rare diamond?

[Itninja]

Indeed. Why not take a $4K Thinkpad and dip in to gold, and then take that and dip it in platinum, and then take the whole thing and roll in spotted-owl feathers?

Better yet, just tape a check for $996,000 to it?

Re:Rare diamond?

[kabocox]

Indeed. Why not take a $4K Thinkpad and dip in to gold, and then take that and dip it in platinum, and then take the whole thing and roll in spotted-owl feathers?
Better yet, just tape a check for $996,000 to it?

Better yet, take one of the One Laptop per Child laptops and sell it for $4 million (Only change a sticker that says "I paid $4 million for this!" on it.)

Re:Rare diamond?

[WasteOfAmmo]

Actually, from TFA it looks like they at least tried to avoid the $996000 diamond + $4000 laptop image. Since it is /.'ed and taking the chance of being rated a karma whore, here is part of the article that drew my attention:

Luvaglio CEO Rohan Sinclair Luvaglio told Gizmag earlier today: "Unlike many of the highly priced products being released, we took our time to develop something out of the ordinary with real attention to detail. "

"I didn't want us to simply re-house a laptop into a diamond studded casing, or diamond encrust the entire thing simply to make it expensive. We've put thought in from the keyboard down to the power charger. There is an integrated screen cleaning device and a very rare coloured diamond piece of jewellery that doubles up as the power button when placed into the laptop and also acts as security identification. We have used diamonds elsewhere but have given them purpose."

According to Luvaglio, "the brand is committed to re-defining luxury in a few sectors, technology being one of them.

"Many claim to produce luxury goods but we believe that the true element of luxury is having something that says "YOU", that money can't buy.

"At present and from our previous luxury work, our initial clients will be chosen from this selection as we have already established trust.

"The range to be released shortly would allow the owner to become the creator and visit our showroom at two or three well known upmarket stores we are in discussion with, whereby our selection of materials, finishes and accessories will be available to view and a choice selected.

"The choice will be based on our selection but of course other colours and finishes can be done on request. We have access to diamonds that are simply rare and near impossible to get hold of, so are able to offer a very embodied choice.

"The presentation boxes are of course supplied and finished in the choice that is selected by the client. Exact figures I am unable to provide at present due to negotiations but will certainly be more obtainable then our master piece."

The first such masterpiece will sell for more than US$1,000,000.

Re:Rare diamond?

[maynard]

I wuz mocking with ya until the quip about dipping that laptop into a vat of spotted owl feathers. I gotta say, were I rich I'd want to buy that. I mean, nothing says 'I've got more money than you' like covering your overpriced depreciating asset in material from the death of an endangered species.

I say we need to add elephant tusk too!

Re:Rare diamond?

[FunkyELF]

I'll save a link to this and visit it in 10 years and laugh at it.

They could have made a million dollar laptop 10 years ago too.

Or in the early 90's a million dollar Zach Moris Saved by the Bell-type cell phone that is laughable a couple of years later.

Re:Rare diamond?

[zero_offset]

I thought about posting that same quote... but you know, a 17" screen really makes me question their devotion to the concept he describes.

Re:Rare diamond?

[anotherlogan]

Imagine what a beowulf cluster of these things could do.

Re:Rare diamond?

[Joebert]

Indeed. Why not take a $4K Thinkpad and dip in to gold, and then take that and dip it in platinum, and then take the whole thing and roll in spotted-owl feathers?

I'm pretty sure that voids the warrenty.

Re:Rare diamond?

[leuk_he]

Bigger is better,

that might go for diamonds, but it needs to be a laptop, not a luggable tv. TH e concpet of anything bigger on a laptop that should be transported (other than arround on your bosses desk) seems strange except for some nice users to me.

If you do not mind... i take the money and leave you with the laptop.

Re:Rare diamond?

[jayhawk88]

Indeed. Why not take a $4K Thinkpad and dip in to gold, and then take that and dip it in platinum, and then take the whole thing and roll in spotted-owl feathers?

Also there are eagle feathers under the CD-Rom.

Re:Rare diamond?

[FunkyELF]

Mmmm... an Ivory keyboard

Re:Rare diamond?

[zero_offset]

I have a Sager with a 20" screen and it's plenty portable, thanks.
Apple seems to do ok with larger screens, too.

I'm just saying, for a million bucks, I'd expect top-notch EVERYTHING. But I do agree, they can keep the damned laptop. If I have a million bucks to blow on a laptop, I probably also have a lackey to follow me around and type things into my laptop for me...

Re:Rare diamond?

[richlv]

does that count as a sign of corruption of this world, if i can imagine actually somebody buying this thing ?

Re:Rare diamond?

[modecx]

I say we need to add elephant tusk too!

Is that all? You're clearly forgetting how much a couple shark fins, a tiger penis, a pair of manatee eyeballs and a bald eagle beak could add to the design of such a luxury item. It still seems like I'm forgetting about something.... Mmmm! Oh, and we could give it a black-footed ferret foot for use as a kick-stand!

Re:Rare diamond?

[modecx]

Bigger is better, that might go for diamonds, but it needs to be a laptop, not a luggable tv. TH e concpet of anything bigger on a laptop that should be transported (other than arround on your bosses desk) seems strange except for some nice users to me.

Oh, for crying out loud... Why do you think anyone who would care to afford a million dollar laptop would also be bothered with carrying it around? That price should include a 50" LCD, and a couple Sherpas to lug it around until it becomes obsolete. Now, that would have been an inventive feature, but nooooo....

Re:Rare diamond?

[AvitarX]

You must have missed

I didn't want us to simply re-house a laptop into a diamond studded casing, or diamond encrust the entire thing simply to make it expensive. We've put thought in from the keyboard down to the power charger. There is an integrated screen cleaning device and a very rare coloured diamond piece of jewellery that doubles up as the power button when placed into the laptop and also acts as security identification. We have used diamonds elsewhere but have given them purpose.

The diomonds have purpose, that's what makes it worth the $1,000,000. That and the flash, I mean if I were to by all that flash it would cost at least a few percent of what they are charging.

This is a great deal.

Re:Rare diamond?

[Anonymous Coward]

I say we need to add elephant tusk too!

Is that all? You're clearly forgetting how much a couple shark fins, a tiger penis, a pair of manatee eyeballs and a bald eagle beak could add to the design of such a luxury item. It still seems like I'm forgetting about something.... Mmmm! Oh, and we could give it a black-footed ferret foot for use as a kick-stand!

Four black-footed ferret feet. After all we want good cooling on the bottom of the laptop. ;-)

Re:Rare diamond?

[Dannon]

Imagine what a beowulf cluster of these things would cost!

Re:Rare diamond?

[naoursla]

I probably also have a lackey to follow me around and type things into my laptop for me...

Surprisingly, the $1M price tag includes a lackey who will follow you around for one year and type things in for you.

Re:Rare diamond?

[suggsjc]

Nope, its relative.
There is a huge income gap across the world's population, there is no denying that. But I'd be willing to bet (since your using the internet) that you've got "disposable" income and that you've probably bought something that wasn't necessary for survival (ie do you have an iPod or cellphone or computer or car or ...?). It may seem unfathomable to spend a million dollars on a laptop to you (and me), but spending even $5000 on a car when there are people that are starving can seem just as extreme.

So yes, the numbers are larger, but the concept remains the same. There are people who purchase non-essential goods and people who are starving. Is there a magic number of when it becomes "a sign of corruption"? I for one do not want to be responsible for setting it, probably because I do wish I had the cash to be able to purchase such a machine...and also donate to charity as well.

Re:Rare diamond?

[cp.tar]

... and then you give it a fancy name like Gryffon.

Re:Rare diamond?

[maxume]

For a measly 1.1 million, they could offer lifetime yearly upgrades to the internals.

Re:Rare diamond?

[AoT]

Apple doesn't have laptops with screens bigger than 17".

Re:Rare diamond?

[drinkypoo]

I have a Sager with a 20" screen and it's plenty portable, thanks. Apple seems to do ok with larger screens, too.

Which Apple has a larger screen? MBP tops out at 17" (I have the same panel, or at least another panel with the same size and resolution, in a compaq in front of me.)

Re:Rare diamond?

[zippthorne]

Perhaps, but the $300 you might spend for an iPod video pays for features. Not some useless overpriced semi-precious carbon allotrope with rare impurities causing red tint. If you buy an iPod, and decide to get rid of it the next day, chances are you could get pretty close to the original price for it on eBay. But diamonds depreciate to almost nothing as soon as you get them off the lot.

Re:Rare diamond?

[calags]

Until I read about the diamond I was sure that the price difference was because of the Hyper/Uber/Premium/Diamond/Infinity/Vanity version of Windows Vista!

Re:Rare diamond?

[maxume]

Worry when the vomitorium makes it to socially acceptable. Worry a lot when death sports become common on broadcast television. Everything up till then is a curious use of resources.

Re:Rare diamond?

[namhash]

Imagine a thread that didn't contain this ubiquitous comment every time someone talks about any technology, Karma whore.

Re:Rare diamond?

[zero_offset]

Somebody else pointed out they don't. I was wrong. Not really an Apple guy (to put it mildly), I just thought I had read about a monster-screen laptop from them.

Re:Rare diamond?

[suggsjc]

Hold on, I'm confused...is this side conversation about rate of depreciation or about the overall purchase?

Also you are (a little off) base on your diamond comment. *Most* diamonds behave as you describe, but rare (as mentioned in this article) diamonds are actually pretty stable. Meaning your flawless 1ct diamond will depreciate, but a 8ct yellow diamond will probably fare (a little) better...

Re:Rare diamond?

[moosesocks]

Less than the Iraq War costs per day.

*ducks*

Re:Rare diamond?

[MythoBeast]

If you can't afford people to carry your laptop around for you, what are you doing spending a million on a laptop in the first place. While you're at it, pay them to do your typing, too. And your web surfing, and your pron collecting....

Re:Rare diamond?

[Delkster]

Imagine a Slashdot where being moderated "funny" doesn't help karma.

Oh, wait, that's how it is already.

Re:Rare diamond?

[billcopc]

Ok, since they're such uber leet laptop design gurus, why don't they make a non-P.Diddy version with everything but the bling, and sell it for oh, 4-5 grand or so ?

Oh, right... because then they wouldn't be making 990k profit on the thing. Stupid me to think in terms of tangible value!

Re:Rare diamond?

[geobeck]

Has anyone actually bought one of these yet? If not, it's not really worth a million dollars. It may be priced at a million dollars, but it's only worth what someone will pay for it.

Having said that, I'm sure some rich bastard with money to burn will buy one for his spoiled teenage daughter so she can play Grand Theft Poniez: Malibu.

Re:Rare diamond?

[bobcat7677]

Is a hot tub full of filipino sex slaves and a mexican house boy an option?

Re:Rare diamond?

[newt0311]

and less than what social security, medicare, and medicade cost every minute. I have no problem with bashing excessive spending but atleast go after the big ones first.

Re:Rare diamond?

[naoursla]

Nearly anything is possible if you have enough money. Although you will need to find your own supplier. I know nothing of such things.

Re:Rare diamond?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just that this model has so much more eagle.

Re:Rare diamond?

[ResidntGeek]

Why not go after the least necessary ones first?

Re:Rare diamond?

[profplump]

What makes you think those are different?

Re:Rare diamond?

[Anonymous Coward]

But diamonds depreciate to almost nothing as soon as you get them off the lot.

Tell that to these guys:
http://ekati.bhpbilliton.com/
http://www.diavik.ca/
They seem to be doing pretty well at adding value to diamonds right "off the lot" (mine). To the tune of ~12.6 million carats / $2.0 billion annually.

Try buying in bulk and setting them yourself as opposed to buying your girl (now there's real depreciation ;)) an overpriced piece from a retail outlet that pays outrageous rental overhead in a mall.

Re:Rare diamond?

[zippthorne]

Those guys are the "lot."

Here's an old question you might want to ask yourself: Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?

I think a similar problem will result from trying to sell a used diamond encrusted laptop. IOW, it's not worth $1e6. That's just what the company is charging for it. The buyer immediately loses a significant portion of its value just by purchasing it.

Re:Rare diamond?

[Anonymous Coward]

Social Security and Medicare may not be all that great, but at least they are not ruining the county's reputations and making us less safe by encouraging terrorism.

Re:Rare diamond?

[Capsaicin]

Ok, since they're such uber leet laptop design gurus, why don't they make a non-P.Diddy version with everything but the bling, and sell it for oh, 4-5 grand or so ?

Dude, 5 grand won't even pay for the brand name!

Re:Rare diamond?

[buhatkj]

you need your very own godwin-rule like forum law named after you. the moosesocks rule, when you mention the iraq war for no reason other than to derail the conversation...

as for the article, i read it, and all i could think is "how incredibly stupid!" i mean, what happens if you drop it? is that a million bucks just totally blown? not to mention all of the way more interesting and better things that could be done with a million dollars. for 1 mil it better get up and make me some freakin coffee when i ask it to.

Re:Rare diamond?

[phlegmofdiscontent]

It's kinda like those "most expensive drinks in the world" articles. I think it's cheating when they take some fine liquors and then throw in a $100,000 diamond. Screw that. Just give me the $1000 bottle of cognac or 50 year old scotch and we'll call it even.

Re:Rare diamond?

[NayDizz]

I would at least expect it to come with a $1500 keyboard.

Re:Rare diamond?

[Heisman]

Yeah, but does it void the spotted owl's warranty?

Re:Rare diamond?

[JimDaGeek]

Why did you have to say Gryffon. I was getting tired and ready to head to the sack. Now I need to grab some beers and play some type of fantasy game with Gryffon's!

Re:Rare diamond?

[JimDaGeek]

For 1 mil, it better do much more than make coffee IMO. Some sweet little Swedish chick should be included in that price :-)

Re:Rare diamond?

[CrazyTalk]

RTFA. They said they didnt want to just encrust the thing in diamonds to make it expensive for the sake of being expensive; the diamond that they do use has a purpose, and other aspects of the design also add to the cost.

Re:Rare diamond?

[blitziod]

the war is still a better deal

Re:Rare diamond?

[Fordiman]

Query: How is karma calculated? I'm honestly curious.

Re:Rare diamond?

[Fordiman]

My computer is necessary for me to acquire money, which in turn makes it necessary for survival.

Re:Rare diamond?

[krotkruton]

Does a million dollar cell phone impress you? How about the million dollar martini? (actually, the martini doesn't cost that much because you pick the diamond and they are usually around $10,000, but still).

I agree with you that these things aren't very impressive. They're attaching the value of aesthetics to a functional object, which happens a lot but just isn't special when the aesthetic value completely dwarfs the capabilities of the object. You really aren't buying a $1 million laptop, you're buying a diamond worth close to $1 million with a laptop attached to it.

Re:Rare diamond?

[cp.tar]

My work here is done...

Re:Rare diamond?

[klang]

I don't know about the rare diamond but a 128 GB solid state hard disk is pretty expensive at the moment. Probably the most expensive part of the whole setup.

Re:Rare diamond?

[klang]

Luvaglio's website, their fucking website is by appointment only..

Re:Rare diamond?

[rucs_hack]

it's not calculated. You make a post, people moderate it, and the result is your 'karma'

Best = 'excellent'
worst is troll I think, not sure, never been there.

Re:Rare diamond?

[Arclight17]

Personally, I can't wait til death sports are all the rage in reality television.
Just think of all the morons that Darwin will knock off for us.

It's really a step forward in the evolutionary chain.
And bonus points if you can get the owners of these laptops to play the death sports.

Re:Rare diamond?

[Fordiman]

Hm. I don't think I see the point, then, of supposed 'Karma Whoring'. I've had an 'Excellent' rating since my first month as a registered user. And I can be a dick. I swear I've gotten 'Troll' moddings as often as 'Insightful' or 'Interesting', or even 'Funny' (Honestly, I think 'Troll' and 'Funny' are sides of the same bit of relativity; I've seen some funny damned trolls).

Could it be that some people here are so adept at pissing others off that they can't get their rating up?

Re:Rare diamond?

[rucs_hack]

I think you've got to be a deliberate and constant prick to get a low rating.

Karma whoring is (I think) a term from the days when karma was a lot less organised.

Re:Rare diamond?

[Lt.Hawkins]

No, its a sign of capitalism, and the free market will determine if this sells or not. I'm sorry, but here, outside of your little Marxist utopia, luxuries are not indicative of moral or ethical deficiencies.

Re:Rare diamond?

[richlv]

good point, but there also have been some replies that covered my views a bit already (i'm not disagreeing with you, but i still despise showing off ;) )

basically, of course, there is no strict limit (comparing a ring with a house does not seem practical) - so it always would be a bit subjective.

one factor would be "how much would i get if i tried to sell it" - difference would show how large a gap would be. note that it would be pretty huge to show a sign of stupidity - new car loses quite a lot of it's initial value after the first purchase.
of course, then there are people who buy sweaty actors' suits, so this isn't exactly the best measure...

other could be "functionally, in durability and by other factors, what would an identical solution cost ?" or "how much does the device costs to make, and how much am i paying for the shiny status ?".

i remember a story about two stores in moscow (probably the story was exaggerated, but it kinda shows the point ;) ) - the stores were one across the other, one was for common folks, other - for the new russians.
you could get slippers in the first for 1 rouble, in the second - for 300. they were identical.

as for me... i can't think of anything that would have provided me value for being pricey. of course, i have spent money on non-essential things (ice cream ! ;) playing cards, wireless router), but all of the purchases have had a value of their own, and most of them have a decent resell price (well, except the ice cream).

Re:Rare diamond?

[Dan Hayes]

Karma whoring comes from when karma was a number displayed in your profile and before they capped it at 50. It comes from the actions of a user called Signal 11 who basically posted the most obvious pro-groupthink comments to every article in an attempt to get 5 rated posts... I think he got up to a karma of about 1300 before he started boasting about gaming the system and Taco implemented the cap - although pre-existing karma wasn't reset, so for users from before the cap they can have quite a lot more karma to burn through before dropping down to the maximum for newer users.

Re:Rare diamond?

[Bazer]

That wouldn't be exactly the "poor man's supercomputer", eh?

Re:Rare diamond?

[troc]

Yep, we old'uns can say what we like :)

Re:Rare diamond?

[maxume]

If you killed 1000 people a day, it wouldn't have a noticeable effect on just the US population. 100,000 people a day could be handily absorbed by the global population. After years and years and years of it, you would just have billions of 'morons' to deal with. How nifty.

Re:Rare diamond?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it'd be durable as hell -- diamond is the hardest metal known to man. This laptop could be run over by a car made of diamond weighing OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND tons, and still survive.

Re:Rare diamond?

[the_lesser_gatsby]

i mean, what happens if you drop it? is that a million bucks just totally blown?

No, but it is if you drop the bloody diamond!

Re:Rare diamond?

[jeffy210]

I kinda miss that. I was happy when I finally broke 100. I still wonder if there is a numerical record in the system just that it's not displayed to the users anymore.

Re:Rare diamond?

[bobcat7677]

I guess nobody caught the Camp Chaos reference...

Re:Rare diamond?

[MechaStreisand]

For what it's worth, you can get 8 gig SD flash cards for about $100 nowadays, so 128 gigs would be only $1600. That's 0.16% of $1,000,000. A purpose built flash hard drive would probably cost somewhat less than that. The flash can't account for the large price tag.

Re:Rare diamond?

[Dan Hayes]

A quick perusal of the Slashcode CVS tree shows it still is a numeric value. Ah, the old bitchslap script, now that brings back memories!

Re:Rare diamond?

[revengebomber]

Or HDMI and a 120gb hard drive!

But...

[CommunistHamster]

But does it run Linux?

Re:But...

[drinkypoo]

Actually, I could see it running Linux, if only because Linux is so much more customizable than Windows etc. If you were showing off your laptop, would it be more impressive with Vista, or with Linux (or whatever) with Beryl, using truglass or some other engine that gives effects that are dramatically more sexy than, well, any other common GUI? I think we all know the answer...

Re:But...

[swehack]

For one million dollars i would expect that it comes with Vista. You would pretty much cut it's value in half by installing Linux.

Re:But...

[saskboy]

When you spend a million dollars on hardware, it's important to have a free Operating System, because you'll have no money left for anything else.

Re:But...

[jeevesbond]

But does it run Linux?

Exactly what I was thinking! Moreover, E17's bling bling look would suit that laptop really well. Perhaps Novell will use it in their next ad campaign?

' [...] And I'm Linux, yo'

Re:But...

[FunkyELF]

Yes. But then it would be a $999,200 laptop.

That doesn't have as nice of a ring to it.

Re:But...

[TimothyJones]

No, but it does come with a free offer for a $10-Off coupon for Vista Ultimate demo disk.

Re:But...

[cHiphead]

Ever more importantly...

Does it BLEND?

Mmm, diamond dust.

Cheers.

Re:But...

[iminplaya]

Don't know where you get your figures from...it would actually be $999,301

Re:But...

[Dieppe]

For 1 Million Dollars it'd better run whatever OS I want it to run. Even better run Mac OS X if I want it.

Or Solaris Intel. Or HP/UX on Intel.

Ah hell, only 128GB solid state disk? For $1,000,000 why doesn't it have 256GB solid state disk??

And a battery life of 10 hours? For when I'm flying my LearJet from Seattle to London? Not to be a demanding rich person, but I expect a lot for my one million dollar laptop.

At least the security isn't biometric. That way the thief doesn't have to cut off my index finger, or kill me for my retina. "Uh, here---take this expensive looking rare diamond instead..."

Re:But...

[FuzzyDaddy]

More importantly-

If you don't agree to the EULA, will they give you a discount for removing Windows?

Re:But...

[Malc]

Oh surprise surprise! How predictable was that moderation? /.ers don't like being reminded that many of them are small-minded and ignorant. They don't like to be reminded that they act like collective sheep because they're individualistic geeks who "think different (TM)". Ugh: me Tarzan, you Jane. Linux good, Windows bad. Baaaa. Baa-aaa.

Re:But...

[jaseparlo]

No, you'd cut its cost in half by installing Linux. You would increase its value sevenfold by installing Linux.

Creating it is only half the battle

[Anne_Nonymous]

Now if we could just figure out how to provide one of these for each undernourished, undereducated child in Africa.

Re:Creating it is only half the battle

[CommunistHamster]

So, would that be the OTTOALPC (one ten thousandth of a laptop per child) project?

Re:Creating it is only half the battle

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a problem since the cost is related to the diamond...which is mined in Africa by said poor child

Re:Creating it is only half the battle

[voice_of_all_reason]

I call the any key

Re:Creating it is only half the battle

[Anonymous Coward]

We Provide The Laptop, You Provide the Diamond.

Re:Creating it is only half the battle

[Joebert]

Now if we could just figure out how to provide one of these for each undernourished, undereducated child in Africa.

Yes, so that instead of having the rest of the internet flame them for being poor, they can instead be flamed by the rest of the internet for having a $1 million laptop & barely anything to eat.

That would top even the 1981 Buick Roadmasters with $6,000 rims on them.

Re:Creating it is only half the battle

[FunkyELF]

You've got a point. They could just "bring their work home with them" and duct-tape it to their OLPC laptop.

Re:Creating it is only half the battle

[Anonymous Coward]

Because naturally, giving a starving, illiterate child a laptop is going to solve all their problems. If you're gonna try to be funny, at least make sense while doing so.

Re:Creating it is only half the battle

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that to the clowns pushing OLPC.
And yes, I agree with your first sentence 100%.

Re:Creating it is only half the battle

[Debug0x2a]

Nah, I think its still OLPC: One laptop per country.

Re:Creating it is only half the battle

[Brandybuck]

Economics in half a lesson: A mountain of diamonds won't feed an undernourished child, nor will it teach an undereducated child. But then again, neither will your whining. If you want to feed and teach children in Africa, stop worrying about what other people do with their own money, and start sending them yours.

Have *you* done anything to directly help undernourished, undereducated children in Africa? I'm not talking about voting for hypersensitive politicians with overactive tearducts, I'm talking about actually sending your own money to where it can be directly used to nourish and educate. Have you "adopted" a needy African child? Have you given to a charity that sends food and books? Have you ever dropped a quarter into a World Vision collection box?

Give, don't bitch.

Re:Creating it is only half the battle

[Chandon Seldon]

Have you donated any money? If so, do you have any evidence that your donation actually goes to feeding starving children rather than - say - just going to whoever happens to be the most corrupt politician in the area?

A reputable private charity is probably better than foreign aid is, but...

Re:Creating it is only half the battle

[Brandybuck]

I do take an effort to find out about the charities I give to. But even if they aren't 100% perfectly efficient, they're still a damned site better than foreign aid.

Don't act like your taxes are some sort of carbon offset that absolves you from helping others. Don't act like voting for the politically correct candidate is a substitute for charity.

Re:Creating it is only half the battle

[Chandon Seldon]

I was in no way implying that foreign aid was a good thing. Foreign aid keeps people starving and poor, while funding the army of whoever is currently in charge - preventing any sort of revolution that might make things better.

Like I said: A good charity is probably not as bad. A bad charity may be worse.

I donate no money to charities intended to help the extremely poor on other continents - I'm too far removed from them to really understand what's going on, and I'm unwilling to give people (charities) money on the blind assumption that they'll "do the right thing".

Re:Creating it is only half the battle

[djw]

Don't act like your taxes are some sort of carbon offset that absolves you from helping others.

"Absolves"? No one has any duty to help anyone else, thus there can be no absolution. Freely giving to charity is a beautiful thing, and it would be great if more people did it, but claiming that people are just doing their "duty" by giving denigrates a selfless act. Don't do that.

Forcasting the Future

[moore.dustin]

So in other words, the fastest depreciating piece of hardware ever has been produced and is now available for you to waste money on.

Re:Forcasting the Future

[yada21]

It will not depreciate, because diamends have nearly as much intrinsic value (95.3%) as gold, which always goes up. It's a good investment, I might buy a second one for my other trailer.

Re:Forcasting the Future

[N3WBI3]

How so? Lets say as a laptop its completely worthless in three years uts still going to be worth 99.9 percent of its value (and thats assuming diamonds and gold dont appreciate. Compare that to a 4k dell which will lose 99.9 % of its value in that time frame.

Re:Forcasting the Future

[drinkypoo]

The problem with this idea is that Diamonds depreciate when you purchase them. Period. This is a result of De Beers' influence on the market. They have let it be known that if you want their diamonds you'd better not be buying used diamonds for anything like what they're worth, or for that matter selling used diamonds for anything close to new prices. That devalues their new diamonds, of which they have enough to where if they released them all at once diamonds would be only a semi-precious stone.

If this laptop had enough significance to be an art piece, then it could still appreciate. But since it's basically consumer trash fused with jewelry, the diamonds will depreciate as normal (which is to say, instantly and irrevocably) and it will be worth comparatively nothing until enough time passes to make it antique.

Of course, if someone rich and famous buys it, it could appreciate for that reason as well.

Re:Forcasting the Future

[Anonymous Coward]

"It will not depreciate, because diamends have nearly as much intrinsic value (95.3%) as gold"

Bullshit. You just try to sell a diamond. You'll be lucky if you manage to regain 50% of its purchase price.

De Beers still maintains his old grip!

Detachable rare diamond

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a formula for an unbootable laptop.

Man oh man...

[brennanw]

I would hate to lose that key.

Re:Man oh man...

[sBox]

A key? For a million bucks they could have biometrics, or better yet a full-time bodyguard.

With a price of $1M

[w.p.richardson]

I am sure that it's the Blu-Ray drive that's responsible for the price. Seriously.

Re:With a price of $1M

[Anonymous Coward]

and it only plays in region 6666

Re:With a price of $1M

[91degrees]

Yup. And that's the sort of hit Sony are taking on every PS3 sold!

Slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sorry, we're currently experiencing heavy server loads. Please try again in a few minutes."

Maybe they should trade in a few of those diamonds for some bandwidth.

Only one problem...

[AtariDatacenter]

There is only one problem with a million dollar laptop:
HEAVY DEPRECIATION

Re:Only one problem...

[Rude Turnip]

That's the benefit of such a thing...it's advertised as a laptop with an attached diamond instead of a rare diamond that comes with a laptop. This whole thing is probably an accounting scam to let you buy an expensive diamond, but reap depreciation benefits (ie tax benefits) because in a technical sense you bought a "$1MM laptop." This idea is as flawed as that diamond probably isn't :-)

Yeah, but is it as good as this?

[KingEomer]

Does it have 4TB Drive, 4TB RAM, 6.8G Processor? Only then will I consider its purchase (Atomchip ftw).

Re:Yeah, but is it as good as this?

[brunascle]

no, but you can purchase quite a few by selling it.

seriously, who cares? i can glue diamonds to a Corvair and call it a million dollar car, but it's still a POS.

Give it a few years

[Hoi Polloi]

It'll be sad when a few years from now it will end up in some rich guy's basement next to his dusty TI-99 and 5.25" drive.

Re:Give it a few years

[Nom du Keyboard]

it will end up in some rich guy's basement next to his dusty TI-99 and 5.25" drive.

Of course that's serial number 001 on the TI. After all, the purchaser of this is a serious Early Adopter.

Something for Paris

[theshowmecanuck]

Now Paris Hilton and company can really start distributing porn in style.

For every million-dollar computer...

[Larus]

... there is a five-dollar way to hack it. Huzzah!

Hmmm...

[Firefly1]

...and a detachable rare diamond that acts like a power button and a security key.

Does this ring any bells? Here's a hint:

"The world's greatest cash card."
"It had better not be rejected."

Re:Hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

GoldenEye!

It would suck to have to carry a diamond in your wallet.... what if you sat wrong?

Re:Hmmm...

[WhiplashII]

At first I thought ORAC!

power diamond

[niloroth]

i actually like that idea, kinda wish it was a standard feature. Well without the diamond at least. Maybe get 2 of them with your laptop just like when you buy a new car. I know you can do the same with USB sticks, but something non standard for and with an encrypted key could be very usefull for high security laptops.

Re:power diamond

[HTH NE1]

i actually like that idea, kinda wish it was a standard feature. Well without the diamond at least.

At least until your computer starts making dire predictions, such as, "Space vehicle will be destroyed!" and then refusing to give the background for that prediction.

128 GB of storage

[tepples]

128 GB of solid-state storage isn't that expensive. All you have to do is get a bunch of 1 GB microSD chips and put them in a big fat RAID, totaling under $2,000. So what's the practical use of this product, apart from conspicuous consumption?

Re:128 GB of storage

[darjen]

All you have to do is get a bunch of 1 GB microSD chips and put them in a big fat RAID, totaling under $2,000.

How in the hell are you gonna get that to fit in a small enough form factor though?

Re:128 GB of storage

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy shit! You really, really want to destroy your data, don't you?

Re:128 GB of storage

[solevita]

Exactly. And what happens when you turn the power off? You lose everything on the disk.

If I wanted to install an entire operating system every time I wanted a laptop to work, I'd use Windows!

Re:128 GB of storage

[tepples]

And what happens when you turn the power off? You lose everything on the disk. An SD card is flash memory. It retains data without power.

Re:128 GB of storage

[tepples]

How in the hell are you gonna get that to fit in a small enough form factor though? A notebook hard disk drive is 100x70x10 mm. A microSD card is 15x11x0.7 mm. Theoretically, 600 microSD cards (without any card readers) would fit in the same form factor. Add space for the PCBs that the cards would be soldered to and for the RAID controller, and yes, 128 microSD cards should fit.

Re:128 GB of storage

[Jeremi]

So what's the practical use of this product, apart from conspicuous consumption?

Hmm.... web browsing, email, word processing, maybe the occasional game of Solitaire or Minesweeper?

Seriously, what "practical" use could a $1,000,000 laptop possibly have? It's impractical almost by definition.

Re:128 GB of storage

[solevita]

Ok, fair enough, but how are you going to fit 128 of them in a laptop? And how are you going to make it quicker than a glacial pace? MicroSD might work ok in a mobile phone, but I'm not going to be booting off it any time soon (that's both a personal preference and a technical limitation).

Re:128 GB of storage

[ChameleonDave]

What are you talking about? Flash is faster than hard disks.

Re:128 GB of storage

[suggsjc]

An SD card is flash memory. It retains data without power.

You and your silly facts...they have no relevancy in this conversation.

Re:128 GB of storage

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, fair enough, but how are you going to fit 128 of them in a laptop? He answered that.

And how are you going to make it quicker than a glacial pace? He said "RAID". But I'd prefer a slightly smaller capacity with a RAID-5 for better reliability myself.

Re:128 GB of storage

[Splab]

You know, its not just whacking them together with super glue, theres such things as controllers and cables. Even if you went with duct tape and gave MacGyver a piece of string I don't think you (or he) could make it work.

Re:128 GB of storage

[solevita]

Ah yes, the ever present Slashdot Anonymous Coward genius. I've said this before, and no doubt I'll say it again, but if this was all as was easy as people say on Slashdot, why can't I go out and buy 128 MicroSD cards stuck together?

The race for affordable SSDs is going to make someone somewhere a boat load of money, why do you think they're spending all that time and effort on R&D when all they need is a pile of cards and some chewing gum?

Re:128 GB of storage

[bean123456789]

I find it amusing that you ask the practicality of a product that uses a diamond for the power button.

Re:128 GB of storage

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no way you'd use Flash RAM for that, though. It has limited writes! It would be regular RAM, which is more expensive, plus a battery to keep the data when the machine is turned off. Flash would be stupid.

Re:128 GB of storage

[Anonymous Coward]

Others have said there is not enough room. Well, just put eight 16 GB USB flash drives in it (at $135 a piece, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16820211149). Total: $1,080. Or sixteen 8 GB drives (at $61 a piece, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16820609001 ). Total $976. The former is a little more expensive, but should take up less room, use less electricity, and may be better suited for a RAID (sixteen units seem excessive to me for an array). And the controller is USB, so it is trivial to add more ports to the laptop.

Re:128 GB of storage

[the_weasel]

Indeed. Thats what the paperclip is for.

Re:128 GB of storage

[Anonymous Coward]

No it's not. Flash has a better SEEK time than a hard drive (seek time for it being pretty near to 0 versus 12ms or so for a hard drive), but a slow hard drive can hit 30MB/sec, and faster ones more like 60+. MicroSD might get 10-20. For general purposed I might prefer the flash anyway, since the main source of slowdowns is disk thrash, but MicroSD is in fact slower.

Can you imagine....

[Anonymous Coward]

A Beowulf cluster of these?

- Thank you

I'd be really impressed ....

[mikael]

... if they had an extremely rare diamond that was used as a battery.

Re:I'd be really impressed ....

[Lorkki]

But then you'd just spend every new episode of your life looking for a new one because you overloaded the last specimen.

(Que in the rest of the Star Trek jokes.)

makes sense

[Wootzor von Leetenha]

those who can afford the McLaren's and mansions need something along those lines in a computer. It'll still go obsolete in a year though, no matter how much it costs.

Lappy with diamonds: $1,000,000

[ReidMaynard]

Internet server from dumpster: FREE!

Seeing your chance at success disappear by having your product linked to slashdot, slashdotted: Priceless!

128GB Solid State is not a big deal

[rolfwind]

Pricewatch.com lists 8gb for around $80 and 16GB for about $160.

So lets double the prices for whatever, and we are talking about $2500 of flash. Yes, too expensive to be a component on a notebook today, but really, the prices on this stuff is sinking.

Re:128GB Solid State is not a big deal

[physicsnick]

It's not just price you have to worry about; there's also size and heat dissipation. Though yes, I agree with you, it's nowhere near the million dollar mark.

Re:128GB Solid State is not a big deal

[sootman]

Especially considering how much worthwhile stuff you can do on a laptop with 8 GB. No, you won't capture and edit lots of DV or have your whole music collection with you, but you can do plenty. I really want Apple to make a 10" laptop (my name for it: "MacBook Elite") with a ~1024x768 screen (1400x1050 is Leopard's resolution independence turns out to be as good as we think), 8 GB or so of solid state disk, fast bootup time, and 10 hrs+ battery life. Web, email, iChat for the traveler, it'd be awesome. It should also have built-in CF and SD slots for backups.

Re:128GB Solid State is not a big deal

[sniepre]

I am not sure I agree with this.

The article claimed that it was 128gb of "solid state" memory - they however did not claim that it was flash.

Solid state memory in an application like this could also easily be some custom run ultra-ultra-ultra power efficient ram - say a couple pairs of 32mb chips that are surface-mountable and could be kept backed up in case of mains/battery failure by a pair of watch batteries. That would be incredible performance and I can't see why that couldn't happen.

Re:128GB Solid State is not a big deal

[sniepre]

Edit: typo, I meant 32gb. Or whatever the highest density ram chip/stick is today, I do not know. I just think if it ran slow enough it should be possible to run it on very low power

Re:128GB Solid State is not a big deal

[bryan1945]

"Edit: typo, I meant 32gb"

Actually, if they stuffed the thing with 32Mb sticks, It may actually end up costing a $1M!

They should use it to run the website

[roman_mir]

the website referenced in the story is /.ed Maybe they should invest in a million dollar laptop to run the site from.

Anyway, this is Hedonism for the richest. There is no reason to have a million dollar laptop today, when the most expensive laptops don't go over 10K. The fact that there are dimonds on this thing just show that this is not about a laptop, this is about another pointless status symbol, like an adopted kid from Africa for some US celebrities.

Re:They should use it to run the website

[blahplusplus]

"Anyway, this is Hedonism for the richest. "

It also vulgar, there are people suffocating economically in our society, to think of the money that's being wasted on a fucking toy makes me sick, that people allow themselves to be dominated by rich people and absorb their ideology, when 90% of them will never ever be rich and the hyper competitive ideology is against their own interests.

Re:They should use it to run the website

[LunaticTippy]

It's called the lottery mentality. That's what happens when you don't teach people math and statistics. It's also why people are terrified of child molesters and terrorists and find nothing daunting about driving angrily while talking on their cellphone for 2 hours a day.

Re:They should use it to run the website

[roman_mir]

and the hyper competitive ideology is against their own interests. - you are wrong. Many of those who are extremely rich, became rich by removing competition around them with all available means. I believe that competition in itself is a very sound idea. Evolution is based on competition for resources and on the ability to use resources in a way that promotes survival of the species. The extremely rich become that rich by removing competition.

Re:They should use it to run the website

[ACMENEWSLLC]

It's a way for the UK to get some money back from the oil rich guys that don't know what to spend their money on, like Hugo Chávez.

Re:They should use it to run the website

[demon driver]

No, you are wrong. You don't seem to see that to remove competition is an inherent principle of competition. Every competitor's plan is to remove as much competition as possible, and removing all competition is simply one competitor's ultimate success. It's where all competition tries to go. Which is why governments have laws for economic competition. In the end they cannot really prevent the development of monopolies and monopolistic cartels, though.

And your even more wrong in cultivating the idea that evolutionary principles were a feasible basis for a human society. The opposite is the case; a society is the more advanced, the more it eliminates evolutionary mechanisms (which, in this context, are also known as Social Darwinism).

Re:They should use it to run the website

[roman_mir]

No, you are wrong. You don't seem to see that to remove competition is an inherent principle of competition. - probably I should have qualified that extremely rich remove competition by various means, many of which are not exactly clean or legal. This is the problem, not the competition itself. Competition itself makes a better society, where any element of society, poor or not can enter the marketplace. The illegal manipulation of the market is the culprit of the problem that he GP sees.

And your even more wrong in cultivating the idea that evolutionary principles were a feasible basis for a human society. The opposite is the case; a society is the more advanced, the more it eliminates evolutionary mechanisms (which, in this context, are also known as Social Darwinism). - I disagree entirely, thus in my eyes you are wrong. I live in Canada and this is what I see here, the attempt to remove all competition for resource at the level of the poor, but this propagates into the middle class, which equalizes the entire class of people into a pathetic mediocrity. As the society advances, as you noticed, it tries to remove the principle of evolution and then it becomes a stagnating swamp.

Re:They should use it to run the website

[demon driver]

One problem is, "illegal" activities to help one competing are as inherent to competition (and have always been) as its tendency to build monopolies, to root out all competition. And what is "legal" and what not is always a widely arbitrary decision of those who by chance have the political power at the time, and everyone knows about how political power and economic power are interconnected.

Competition as a main principle for a human society could be discussed, if there were enough resources to be distributed and if competition would see to it that noone has to suffer, while at the same time rewarding better competitors with better supplies. The fact is, and the wealth figures over the last decades prove it, that market economy's competition principle is actually less and less able to provide populations even with the absolute minimum of needed supplies, while the markets, especially the labor markets, simply have less and less use for those who are expected to compete there.

The notion that getting rid of evolutionary inhumanity would hamper society, would hamper man, is just ideology without any hint of scientific foundation - and one of the worst of ideologies for that matter. Fact is that there are many examples where great human achievements came out of personal living conditions which did not involve having to bother at all about earning a living, about competing for ones existence. If your observation of a growing lethargy is true, there might simply be other reasons. Like being doomed to spend more and more energy for the daily chores of earning a living and at the same time trying not to lose the job, while finally understanding that elections don't change a thing.

There's nothing to say about competition as an option, if people choose to compete, or about competition in a game, but as a basic principle just to survive it is no better than stone age. Actually, in many situations competition is destructive even for economic goals like productivity. Competing, people always tend to work against one another instead of working together. The more pressure competition applies, the less effective cooperation will be - which is true for employees as well as managers. In many cases, even in market economy much more could be achieved by solidarity as a principle instead of competition...

Re:They should use it to run the website

[roman_mir]

One problem is, "illegal" activities to help one competing are as inherent to competition (and have always been) as its tendency to build monopolies, to root out all competition. And what is "legal" and what not is always a widely arbitrary decision of those who by chance have the political power at the time, and everyone knows about how political power and economic power are interconnected. - wrong. Illegal activities include violent destruction of competition, I know something about it, my girlfriend's parents have their own business in St. Petersburg, Russia. They are constantly reminded by the competition - other stores, the mayor's office etc., who is who and what can be done without getting killed and what cannot be done, and what has to be done. Once the humans were able to even think of the laws of the land, it became illegal to murder people, however it is still done in the name of profit.

Competition as a main principle for a human society could be discussed, if there were enough resources to be distributed - wrong, before 1917, the Tzarist Russia was mostly rural, it was mostly farmers, plus some other trades, merchants and soldiers. There were enough resources than, there are enough resources now, the question is who wants to be a farmer today, mostly working to feed themselves. There are engough resources, there is no desire.

and if competition would see to it that noone has to suffer, while at the same time rewarding better competitors with better supplies. - it is not the problem of the 'competition to see that noone suffers'. It is a personal problem, except cases when people are just too sick to tend after themselves.

The fact is, and the wealth figures over the last decades prove it, that market economy's competition principle is actually less and less able to provide populations even with the absolute minimum of needed supplies, while the markets, especially the labor markets, simply have less and less use for those who are expected to compete there. - this is BS. On average the standard of living is up from 100 years ago, what you see is some local disturbances, which always happen, which make you believe that the standard of living is lower than maybe 20 years ago. However on average the standard of living is much higher than even 60 years ago. People can afford more for less, this is what competition provides.

In many other countries the standards of living are going up, except for the places that are suffering from wars. Wars do nothing for the countries, where the wars take place, but wars do magic for countries who benefit from the sales of weapons.

You think you are against competition? So far you said nothing that supports that statement. I have a feeling that you are against inequalities in life, you are against the 'injustice'. Normally I hear this kind of stuff from people between 15 and 23 years of age, but it is not impossible to hear the same sentiments from older people as well. I personally believe that a government mandated equality leads to things like bureaucracies that are impossible to maintain, with the worst type of 'national democratic / liberal' in the lead - the aristocratic national democratic / liberal. Those of them that come in the first stages of bureaucracy believe that they are the holiest, sent to this earth to fix the inequalities and the injustices, then come the real aristocrats, those who trully believe that they know better than everyone around them how everything should be. Those are the kinds of people who believe that inequalities of life can be fixed by removing the wealth from everyone by the means of extremely high taxes and by creating even bigger bureaucracies in order to 'take care' of the population.

Surely these aristocrats build a system where they are the most privileged of the people, with both the money and the power. The rest of the population is looked upon as means to get even more tax money on one hand and as the means to stay in power on the other. These peo

Re:They should use it to run the website

[demon driver]

Once the humans were able to even think of the laws of the land, it became illegal to murder people, however it is still done in the name of profit. Which actually was one of the points I was trying to make...

On average the standard of living is up from 100 years ago, what you see is some local disturbances No. Fact is that world poverty keeps increasing and poverty is increasing even in most of the industrialized states. Employment keeps decreasing nearly everywhere, and if you see employment figures somewhere increasing, it's a straw fire that cannot help the trend. In fact, the trend is a quite necessary result of modernization, and China is already being hit by it. Anyway, China and Russia are brilliant examples for the disastrous consequences, both humanitary and environmentally, of introducing full levels of market-economic competition.

I have nothing against "inequalities" per se, I simply think that a society's purpose is the welfare of its members. All of them. If it wasn't, it would not be worth the effort to build a society in the first place. And I'm no friend of authoritarian governments either. But your extremist opposition against government and taxes, while quite popular among freelancers and entrepreneurs, is quite naive. As if their only purpose was to oppress the citizen (and, of course, especially the freelancer and the entrepreneur). And your "welcoming" competition is similarly naive - imagine, like it's the case for many other occupations, twenty or thirty times the competition in your market, or more. Right, you might be so good, you'd still make it - but even then, you probably wouldn't be so happy anymore about income and working conditions. It's not only skill, not only the right decisions, it's a fair amount of luck as well if your welfare, at the moment, is not in danger. And that has much to do with the level of competition which for more and more people reduces living standards to a minimum.

Re:They should use it to run the website

[roman_mir]

No. Fact is that world poverty keeps increasing and poverty is increasing even in most of the industrialized states. - this is simply not true. As I said earlier most of the real trouble present today are within war zones.

Employment keeps decreasing nearly everywhere - ? Nearly everywhere employment is increasing. You are looking at your local disturbance within your particular part of the world. Most of the world is seeing increase of employment opportunities. China, India, the Eastern block see increase of employment, that's most of the world. You are looking at it from a local perspective.

and if you see employment figures somewhere increasing, it's a straw fire that cannot help the trend. In fact, the trend is a quite necessary result of modernization, and China is already being hit by it. - you will have to back this up with at least some facts, I follow the Canadian, Ukrainian, Russian and Israeli news, my Chineese bodies tell me about the land of the Dragon, the modernization is helping all of these economies to increase employment especially in tech areas.

Anyway, China and Russia are brilliant examples for the disastrous consequences, both humanitary and environmentally, of introducing full levels of market-economic competition. -??? What are you talking about? The former USSR and the former China were complete economic disasters prior to the changes they have experienced since about 1991. They were planned economies and failed at it miserably, I should know, I was born in the USSR.

Sorry dude, I don't need to continue this discussion. You do not live on the same planet.

Re:They should use it to run the website

[demon driver]

The former USSR and the former China were complete economic disasters Of course, and we could go on talking about the reasons a long way. But how about the living standards for the population? Do you actually think that the average former-USSR-citizen is better off nowadays? If he's still staying there, I mean?

my Chineese bodies tell me about the land of the Dragon, the modernization is helping all of these economies to increase employment especially in tech areas Ever cared to look at objective figures about China's unemployment situation? You seem to rely on rather, well, "selective" news sources. Rather than "especially", it's more like "only". Though the really cheap de-facto slave labor which is another facet of international competition is helping China's economy, even such jobs gets more and more under pressure from automation.

I don't need to continue this discussion. You do not live on the same planet. There, for once, I agree. ;-)

But does it have sharks with frickin laser beams?

[Dachannien]

Why make billion-dollar laptops, when we can make... million dollar laptops?

BSOD

[phasm42]

I bet the owner will really feel special when their million dollar laptop bluescreens.

Re:BSOD

[Nom du Keyboard]

I bet the owner will really feel special when their million dollar laptop bluescreens.

Actually it's a turquoise screen, or maybe lapis lazuli, now.

Re:BSOD

[HostAdmin]

>I bet the owner will really feel special when their million dollar laptop bluescreens.

No sweat. They'll have their personal assistant reboot it.

AWESOME!!111!!1

[noewun]

I've been looking for something to complement by gold-plated Hummer.

Re:AWESOME!!111!!1

[gardyloo]

Must... not... make... Paris... Hilton... joke... aughhrhrhrhrgh!

Re:AWESOME!!111!!1

[blindd0t]

With that solid state drive, I could use it as an mp3 player in a Bugatti and not worry about loosing all those mp3's when I crash the car. ^_^

Re:AWESOME!!111!!1

[Anonymous Coward]

and diamond studded swimming pools
these things don't grow on trees!

Re:AWESOME!!111!!1

[Anonymous Coward]

I downloaded your song. Sorry.

Re:AWESOME!!111!!1

[edxwelch]

Reminds me of a funny artical I once saw:

MERCEDES-BENZ INTRODUCES SOLID GOLD S430 LUXURY SEDAN
STUTTGART, GERMANY -- Citing their commitment to provide consumers in today's ailing global economy with the very best in luxury automobiles, DaimlerChrysler subsidiary Mercedes-Benz announced today it will offer a solid gold S430 touring sedan in model year 2003.

With a curb weight of just over 87 tons and an MSRP of $462,744,999, the S430 SGE (Solid Gold Edition) will be available exclusively to qualified buyers in Silicon Valley, Monaco, Montreal, and Saudi Arabia. In addition to the S430's standard 62-speaker Bose audio system, 22-position GPS-calibrated reclining heated leather seats, and lifetime supply of exotic swimsuit models or covert secret agents, the SGE will feature the powerful Pratt & Whitney V2500 dual-induction jet engine, capable of accelerating the monolithic vehicle from 0-60mph in just 36.2 seconds, and sustaining highway speeds up to 45mph.

Improving Mercedes' industry-leading automotive safety systems, SGE engineers touted the benefits of the sedan's solid gold body panels, claiming the soft metal will better absorb energy during a collision, and can later be easily hammered or smelted back into it's original shape.

Re:AWESOME!!111!!1

[Anonymous Coward]

"...gold-plated Hummer."

The result of an unfortunate smelting accident?

Better pics?

[Bwana Geek]

Are there any pictures of this thing actually open? "Million dollar laptop created... here are some pictures of a nondescript rectangular thing."

Re:Better pics?

[peterpi]

Maybe Tom's Hardware (or whoever it is) will smash one open on launch day and stick the photos online.

This was on Digg days ago...

[Mex]

Come on Slashdot... Pick up the pace.

Re:This was on Digg days ago...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares what is on Digg? I don't care unless it is on Slashdot (/.) :P

link to OLPC

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this some kind of OLPB One Laptop per Billionare program?

What I would do with One-million dollars

[Enrique1218]

Buy enough servers to handle the load when story of a one single laptop being sold for 1,000,000 dollars broke on Slashdot.

1 Million dollars is not new

[jdigriz]

Computers used to cost millions of dollars routinely in the bad old days. What's new is that this is the first time that a million dollar computer comes in a form factor that's easy to steal.

should have spent R&D on a better webserver

[Brigadier]

Sorry, we're currently experiencing heavy server loads. Please try again in a few minutes. should have spent the $996,000 for a better web server

If there's one thing that shows what's...

[Anonymous Coward]

...wrong with this world, this is it. Some people control enough resources that they can WASTE a million on one laptop, while others could build 10000 laptops with that money. Don't get me wrong: The rich should lead comfortable, even luxurious lives, but this is just wasteful. Its only value is in showing the ridiculous amount of resources that are at the buyers disposal, by wasting them on something that will be out-of-date in at most a year.

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[exi1ed0ne]

Sucker + Money = Woosh

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[Bluesman]

Nah, it's what's right with the world.

How else would you separate very rich and foolish people from their money, aside from forcibly taking it?

The best thing about this is that rich people create incentives for creativity and growth, and spending on luxury items just fuels that.

Think about the laptop maker, web designer, advertising agency -- all of the people who make a living off of the sale of just one of these.

Plus, the $1,000,000 is obviously far better off in the hands of somebody willing to use it for a laptop selling business than someone who would spend it on a diamond laptop.

Besides, someone who is dirt poor in Africa would say the same thing about you. Why do you need to spend an amount of money that would supply a lifetime of food on a computer in the first place?

In a perfect world, there would be no market for $1,000,000 laptops because everyone would be busy creating more wealth by curing diseases and solving energy crises. Since that's never going to happen, this is the next best thing.

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[WhiplashII]

but this is just wasteful.

Incorrect. This is one of the most useful items in society, a way to transfer economic power from the idiots that buy gold plated laptops to the genius that is selling one...

Let's face it, we need to remove as much money as possible from anyone that would buy one of these!

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[Jeremi]

You're assuming, of course, that they are actually going to sell any of these. It may be that even rich people aren't that stupid. (or at least, not more than a handful of them are)

Without any buyers, this story is really nothing more than a web site with a stupid business idea... almost like a return to the dot-com boom :^)

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[rtechie]

Nah, it's what's right with the world.

Trickle down economics is bullshit.

How else would you separate very rich and foolish people from their money, aside from forcibly taking it?

No, you forcibly take their money. Very rich and very foolish people essentially don't exist. Common sense should tell you this. The realty is that most "very rich" people/organizations are very stingy and conservative with their money, that's a big part of why they're rich. The fantasy of VCs and other major investors tossing out billions for incredibly bad investments died during the .com bust. And even then, the average US taxpayer soaked up most of those losses due to various "legal" tricks.

This laptop is almost certainly not being sold to a "real" customer anyway. It's a shill sale to drive business towards move reasonably-price "luxury" laptops.

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[Anonymous Coward]

creativity and growth, and spending on luxury items just fuels that.

No, spending on luxury items fuels development of luxury items. If you can't make a profit by producing food (because the poor who need it can't make you rich), but you can make a killing with diamond encrusted electronic devices, you will not invest in food production. The transaction moves money from one person who doesn't invest in useful things to another person who will invest in more luxury items. That's not helping.

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[tompaulco]

The type of person who would buy this laptop is not Bill Gates, with his billions, but some upper middle class guy who makes maybe $200k a year. He could get rich if he would save his money and invest wisely, but instead spends more than he makes on a McMansion, fancy cars, and gimmicky electronics. He will have nothing to leave to his children, and is probably one paycheck away from having to declare bankruptcy.
Truly rich people reinvest their money to make more money and fuel the economy. They don't buy gimmicky million dollar laptops. The truly rich leave that kind of frivolous spending for the far less wealthy who need to appear to be rich.

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[Thaelon]

It may be that even rich people aren't that stupid.

It has nothing to do with stupid.

If you had $1000 cash in your pocket, would you spend $1 on a pack of your favorite gum?

To a billionaire, that's about what this amounts to. Millionaires don't buy these, billionaires+ do.

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[Anonymous Coward]

Very rich and very foolish people essentially don't exist.

Now you are being silly. The person who made the fortune is probably not very foolish, but that person's heirs could be.

Do you think Paris Hilton is not "very foolish"? If she is over that bar, I guarantee that some other rich people aren't.

forcibly take their money.

How about if we start by forcibly taking your money? You have more money than many people in the world; presumably you could get by with less.

I say we don't forcibly take anyone's money, if we can help it. People who build fortunes are not the enemy, even if they end up being super-rich. (Let's assume that "build fortune" doesn't include theft, or milking a bogus patent, etc.; you can hate that sort of person all you want. But I don't begrudge Michael Dell his wealth, for example.)

the average US taxpayer soaked up most of those losses due to various "legal" tricks.

Not sure I'm buying this. But if true, that's bad and should be fixed. Don't lump in the wealth-creating capitalists with people who do "legal" tricks.

This laptop is almost certainly not being sold to a "real" customer anyway. It's a shill sale to drive business towards move reasonably-price "luxury" laptops.

I agree. They'd be very happy to sell one of these, but it will have served its purpose even if they never sell one and just get the publicity.

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[StikyPad]

What if this laptop cost $2M? It wouldn't seem that much more outrageous than $1M, because they're both equally unattainable for most of us. The same could be said by any destitute person who looks at the lives of the first-world middle class, where $50,000 is just as unattainable as $1M. Maybe we don't "waste" $1M in one sitting, but we probably spend a much larger proportion of our incomes on disposible goods. After all, anyone who would buy something like this would be worth MUCH more than $1M.

Also, it's sort of misleading to call it a waste. The money doesn't just disappear, and it pays the salaries of, probably, tens or perhaps hundreds of people. Yes, it's money that didn't need to be spent, but it's no more a waste than buying a watch that's more than $5, or a regular movie ticket instead of waiting for it at the $1 theater.

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[Jeremi]

If you had $1000 cash in your pocket, would you spend $1 on a pack of your favorite gum?

Perhaps, if I thought that the $1 gum would give me some additional value over the standard $.25 gum. But if they are both equally available on the same shelf, and the only "advantage" of buying the $1 gum was that I would look like an idiot who overpays for gum, then probably not.

Put it this way: If you saw two completely identical packs of gum on the shelf, and one cost twice as much as the other, would you deliberately buy the more expensive pack just because you are rich? If so, then you are rich AND stupid :^)

To a billionaire, that's about what this amounts to. Millionaires don't buy these, billionaires+ do.

Yes, but do they (will they) actually buy them? Or do billionaires really care about having a ridiculously overpriced laptop? (I honestly don't know, since I don't hang around with billionaires very often)

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[The Raven]

First, let me say that I'm a Libertarian.

The best thing about this is that rich people create incentives for creativity and growth, and spending on luxury items just fuels that.

Think about the laptop maker, web designer, advertising agency -- all of the people who make a living off of the sale of just one of these. However, let me also state that this is completely fallacious reasoning. This is just the 'smashed-glass = good economy' fallacy repackaged. All those laptop makers, web designers, and advertising agencies are spending money creating a useless, inefficient product, when they could instead be creating a useful, efficient product.

Besides, someone who is dirt poor in Africa would say the same thing about you. Why do you need to spend an amount of money that would supply a lifetime of food on a computer in the first place?

In a perfect world, there would be no market for $1,000,000 laptops because everyone would be busy creating more wealth by curing diseases and solving energy crises. Since that's never going to happen, this is the next best thing. That said, the later argument is correct... there is a continuous line from practical to useless. In between are things like stereos and TVs... sure, they have SOME practical use (weather channel, news), but a lot of their use is pointless entertainment. At the extreme end we have pure trivialities, like jewelry and luxury sports cars. This million dollar laptop is pretty far toward the useless end. There's no one point along the chain where you can safely point and say 'THIS is practical, but THAT thing right next to it is IMPRACTICAL and sinful'. Anyone who claims they can draw that line between what is OK and what is sinful is ignorant or delusional. It is far more harmful to society to try to legislate sinful (luxury) spending than the actual luxuries themselves.

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[ChronosWS]

(this is not aimed at the direct parent specifically, but at the general tone of arguments against luxury spending)

Most of these arguments revolve around "this is inefficient" or "that is wasteful." This is all dependent on your point of view. Most of the things you (yes you, the reader) currently own are luxuries in many parts of the world and are not strictly necessary to your life. You don't see them that way but someone else does. The fact that you view this laptop that way simply is an extension of your perception based on your (relatively) meager wealth combined with your predictably human hypocrisy when viewing someone else's perceived excess.

The second class of argument which comes out of these is when something is not considered contributing to 'productivity.' Television, sports cars, etc are oft raised examples of this useless excess. However, the simple fact is that we work to enjoy ourselves, and what each of us enjoys differs. We don't work to be the most productive person we can be, so that between the time we are born and the time we die not a minute goes wasted that couldn't have been spent on more productive ventures. Heck, that you are reading this now is almost certainly an example of lost productivity, and another hyporcisy. We spend money on nice things because nice things make our lives enjoyable in some small way. It's human.

As soon as you go around starting to draw lines around what YOU think is excessive and what is not with regards to what people do with their legitimately acquired wealth, you presume too much.

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[Anonymous Coward]

The world is not as arbitrary and without a frame of reference as you paint it. A one-million-dollar laptop is excessive everywhere on this planet. It is also not in any way better than a laptop that costs 2% of that. It costs more for the sake of it. No matter how useless things may look to someone from a less wealthy continent, most "luxuries" of the first world are still bought for a purpose, despite their cost, not for their cost. To say there is no line suggests that there is no difference, but there is: If I show you a gradient from yellow to red, you can't make a definitive cut where red starts and yellow ends, but you wouldn't deny that one end of the gradient is red and the other isn't. This laptop is red.

If the people who control the majority of the resources make too many wasteful resource allocations, the poor will suffer enough to go against the rich. It has happened before and it will happen again. "But I acquired my wealth legitimately" will not save them if they don't use their power responsibly. You can't buy a million-dollar laptop from the bonus that you got for firing a thousand employees and not expect people to act up. (I mean this like an observer, not like an agitator, btw.)

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[Breakfast Pants]

Are you serious? These rich idiots are what is *right* with the world. They controlled a giant chunk of money and spent it on a *diamond*. If they paid to have people dig a big hole and then fill it back up, then we would have some serious waste to worry about. As it is, people like this are just trading for a limited number of worthless trinkets without hurting anyone (except the diamond miners in africa who had their hands cut off, etc. etc.)

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[demon driver]

Your absolutely right. I'd like to comment on "the rich should lead comfortable, even luxurious lives", though. As long as there's reason to believe that the worsening poorness of this world's majorities, including the growing populations of poor the core nations of industrialization, is somehow connected to the ever increasing richness of minorities, it ought to be in order to question the legitimacy of richness itself...

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[rohan972]

There's no one point along the chain where you can safely point and say 'THIS is practical, but THAT thing right next to it is IMPRACTICAL and sinful'.

I have found that the point people use is "just above my level". I have even heard a multi-millionaire critisize the rich(er). "No-one needs that amount of money."

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[Chrisje]

> Think about the laptop maker, web designer, advertising agency -- all of the people who make a living off of the sale of just one of these.

I'm also thinking of the poor African kids who are forced to mine the diamonds.

Frankly, anyone who buys a laptop with a "rare, coloured diamond" is likely to be completely immoral and stupid. The diamond market has been kept expensive artificially by De Beers et al for ages now, while they still use slave labour to actually obtain the diamonds. Of course they deny this, but I don't see the love in the countries where they get 'm. On top of that, there's tech that will allow you to grow diamonds relatively efficiently in any shape and size you want, and without impurities or with impurities to fool the jewelers. Check out http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/2 6/0040204 for that.

So you pay one million dollar for something no one will ever need, with an inherently worthless piece of pressurized carbon on top that is likely to be blood stained in one way or another, and the value of the tech inside will be gone within 6 months from now. And all of that just to demonstrate how dazzlingly little you care about money.

You call that "the next best thing"? I don't mind people buying things that are luxurious, extravagant or any such thing. I don't mind "stimulating" a bit of the old economy. But precisely Diamond-studded commodity tech pisses me off at many levels.

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you have found a viable alternative to market economy, I'd say that richness is pretty much inevitable and desirable in an efficient economy. There is only a problem when people with extraordinary wealth forget why they can be rich, that wealth is a way of giving power to people who make good use of the resources. The rich have a responsibility for the society that protects their individual property through laws and force.

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[demon driver]

I'd say, mankind had better find "a viable alternative to market economy", as under its global master conditions an "efficient economy" is mainly "efficient" as an end in itself and for those few who still profit from it. Where market economy is going gets quite clear from the wealth distribution figures of the last four decades. Appealing to the "responsibilities" of the rich and economically mighty is about as clever as appealing to the next best dictator's philantropy.

On a side note, regularly and feebly appealing to economy's and industry's "responsibilities" towards "the people" and "the country" is something which has become very popular for German political leaders from the mainstream left to the conservative right. As if it were not just those politicians themselves whose job it is to provide for the legal framework so that economy and industry will serve the citizens, not only the other way round as it is more and more the case all over this planet. Even in regions where capitalism and market economy used to seem a good idea at the time, thirty or forty years ago.

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[WK2]

It is important in a free society that rich people have the right to buy whatever they can afford. Of course, they are rich people, so they can buy all the rights they want.

However, anyone who buys something like this is only doing it to flaunt their arrogance.

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have a better idea, let's hear it.

Priceless...

[xtracto]

Kick ass laptop to be the envy of your friends .... $1,000,000
Coffee to show off your laptop in the cafeteria ... $ 100
"Sorry, we're currently experiencing heavy
server loads. Please try again in a few minutes."... priceless

Re:Priceless...

[necro81]

Actually, it is gizmag's server that can't take it. Luvaglio's site is probably quite a light load on a webserver, considering that it consists of just two pages - a homepage that says "By Appointment Only," and a page with contact info. No pics, no specs, not even a product announcement. Are we supposed to take these people seriously?

Re:Priceless...

[The_DoubleU]

Ah, you are just jealous because you didn't get an invite!

Re:Priceless...

[vanyel]

To be fair, the overloaded website isn't luvaglio (http://www.luvaglio.com/) itself, which handles the load be being so exclusive, you can't even visit the website without an appointment. With snobbishness like that, they'd have to pay *me* the $1,000,000 to get me to take it...

Re:Priceless...

[IntergalacticWalrus]

Kick ass laptop to be the envy of your friends .... $1,000,000
Coffee to show off your laptop in the cafeteria ... $ 100

Better ending:
Spilling your $100 coffee on your $1M laptop... priceless

Re:Priceless...

[maxume]

Are you about to spend $100,000 on something that looks pretty? They don't care if most of us take them seriously.

What a complete waste.

[Randseed]

What a waste. For a million dollars, I'd at least want the thing to have a big freakin' laser on its freakin' lid.

More seriously, I'd rather have a bad-ass server controlled by a laptop, and which uses the laptop as its terminal interface, perhaps with a OpenMOSIX-like distributed system.

Re:6 Comments

[gardyloo]

The site is hosted on some cubic zirconia.

WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY

[ettlz]

It better be fucking bulletproof at that price, too. The "one million dollar laptop" — what does it do, go "nanah-nanah-nanah" when you lift the lid?

Re:WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY

[voice_of_all_reason]

It better be fucking bulletproof at that price, too

Fortunately, I think we're all aware that diamond is one of, if not THE hardest metal known to man,

Re:WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY

[exi1ed0ne]

It better be fucking bulletproof at that price, too.

I wonder what their dead pixel policy is?

Re:WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY

[Anonymous Coward]

carbon is a metal now?

Re:WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY

[ajmilton]

Fortunately, I think we're all aware that diamond is one of, if not THE hardest metal known to man

Actually, I think you're the only one who knows that.

Re:WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY

[madprof]

Material. Hardest material. It's not a metal.

Re:WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY

[voice_of_all_reason]

I will leave http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Diamond to explain the truth.

Re:WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY

[turbidostato]

"Fortunately, I think we're all aware that diamond is one of, if not THE hardest metal known to man,"

Of course diamond, being Carbon is not a metal at all.

Even then, while a diamond is the hardest natural material, it's still a crystal, thus terribly hard but still quite fragile: it won't be scratched, but it certainly can be crashed into pieces if you let it drop to floor.

Re:WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY

[maxwell demon]

Maybe he's an astrophysicist. Astrophysicists often refer to all elements except hydrogen and helium as metals.

OLPB

[IchBinEinPenguin]

one laptop per billionaire

Re:OLPB

[RealGrouchy]

Mod parent up! With support from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, and from Bill Clinton's foundation, we can garner enough government support to purchase enough million-dollar laptops for the many uneducated, starving anorexic supermodels in L.A.!

- RG>

But the server running the site...

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously isn't worth $1,000,000 because after the article is up for twenty minutes the site is already slashdotted.

*sigh*

Stupidity?

[id3as]

It's 1000000$ stupidity or what? 10000 100$ laptops would certainly outperform it many times.

Re:Stupidity?

[spydum]

If you can manage to fit 10,000 laptops into your bag, I applaud you sir.

Re:Stupidity?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's 1000000$ stupidity or what? 10000 100$ laptops would certainly outperform it many times.


Nah, this is just to pick up the market of folks who are growing dissatisfied paying only $350 for an MP3 player

Re:Stupidity?

[id3as]

Yep, try to imagining me developing something similar to Google to serve my good purposes, and controlling it remotely.

10000 * 100 = 1000000

[FMota91]

Or you could mesh ten thousand 100-dollar laptops and take over the world or something.

Huh

[26199]

Wonder what the warranty is like.

Re:Huh

[chris_eineke]

It's Platinum support.

Re:Huh

[Anonymous Coward]

bu-dum CHING

Re:Huh

[RobertLTux]

Issued by LLoyds OF London and comes with a 3 pack of hitmen (to "recover" the laptop if stolen and "instruct" the person that stole it)

Oh it has Blu-ray

[CrazyJim1]

Now I can save money by not buying a PS3

Yea But....

[semi-old-geek]

If I get it without an os it will only be $999,899.

Re:Yea But....

[Spacezilla]

No, actually without an OS it will be $1,000,138. :)

http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=226919&c id=18383585

One Word

[Nom du Keyboard]

Stupid.

Re:One Word

[id3as]

Agreed.

But it will it run Vista?

[splatterboy]

I hate to use cars as an analogy but TFA doesn't mention OS, and if its just a windows box - that would make it the computing version of a Ferrari chassis and body with a Chevy/Ford/VW engine... For a cool million I would think it should have Linux/Mac/MS running virtual with a Jeff Han/perceptive pixel gui... Seriously - if the craftsmanship and precious materials are the only metric here - its just a case-mod. Who made the mobo and cpu?

Re:But it will it run Vista?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pft, for a mil it should have a decent OS, like BSD or Solaris.

Re:But it will it run Vista?

[naoursla]

Completely custom OS. The million paid for the development.

Applications that run on the custom OS cost around million too and need a nine to twelve month lead time.

Re:But it will it run Vista?

[Splab]

Now I know you probably hate microsoft beyond anything else, but if you really want a car analogy, microsoft XP is in fact the sort of reliable petrol hungry beast you would get with a supercar.

And I'm definitely getting me one of these laptops right after I got me a Bugatti Veyron.

A man can dream :D

Re:But it will it run Vista?

[mac.man25]

Actually, the Bugatti Viron has a VW Engine.... SO ummm. I think you have your facts wrong about the VW engines.

Re:But it will it run Vista?

[Chaset]

Mobo and CPU?
Each layer of the PCB was hand engraved out of solid gold by an Italian artisan, laid down on ceramic substrate and baked in a kiln high in the Alps for 40 days. Each via was filled by painstakingly applying gold leaf with the tip of a fur from a baby seal.

Similarly, each silicon wafer was hand etched (under an electron microscope) and assembled by hand. Needless to say, all the hardware is custom. Good luck writing software... all the CPU usage manuals come on illuminated parchment scrolls.

Fatal Flaw

[pashdown]

The pop-out caviar tray has holes in it. I give this 1 out of 10 diamonds.

Microsoft Humor:

[davidwr]

Overheard in a Microsoft executive washroom:

J Allard: Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these babies.
Bill Gates: What do you mean, "imagine?"

Oblig.

[Anonymous Coward]

And Vista is still too expensive.

Re:Only one problem...DEPRECIATION

[thewils]

Yep,

It loses 50% of it's value the moment you get Windows up and running on it.

Luvaglio.com

[Fenyx4]

Anyone checked out the actual company's site? http://luvaglio.com/

Expensive...

[Arceliar]

I had heard that Vista licenses were expensive...but damn...

Re:Expensive...

[Glowing Fish]

You are exaggerating, it also includes Office.

for one million dollars...

[Anonymous Coward]

It better include 24/7 in person tech support by something more ~attractive then the geek squad.

One million?

[HomelessInLaJolla]

While the novelty of a one million dollar laptop might be appreciated the only thing that impresses me about it is the 128 GB of solid state storage.

Colored diamonds, big deal. Just a case mod.

[Animats]

Colored diamonds, probably from the factory in Sarasota, Florida.

The diamond industry is coming unglued. They're not that rare, they're not that hard to make, multiple companies are cranking out diamonds, and de Beers lost an antitrust suit, so the monopoly is coming apart.

The resale value of diamonds is about 40% of list price. If that. (The phrase "dump value" is used in the industry.) Look on eBay for even cheaper ones. If you want real diamonds on your computer's LEDs, it won't cost you much.

This is just another case mod project, one with delusions of grandeur.

Re:Colored diamonds, big deal. Just a case mod.

[Achromatic1978]

You're kidding, recommending buying loose diamonds on eBay, one of the biggest home of counterfeit goods on the net?

I just checked out some of the first entries under "Loose Diamonds and Gemstones"... "1ct, AAA diamond", with a "Buy It Now!" of $19.99.

Yeah, I'll get right on that.

Or this, ".75ct, G, SI2" (admittedly a little crappy, but still), "No reserve", currently at $26 with an hour to go.

Re:Colored diamonds, big deal. Just a case mod.

[maxume]

The good news is that fake or not you end up wasting a lot less money than you would have at the jeweler.

Re:Colored diamonds, big deal. Just a case mod.

[Animats]

Yeah, some of them are fake, but there's a huge supply of cheap diamonds out there. It's really hard to sell diamonds.

Industrial diamonds are appearing in more low-end products. Checkout scanner glasses. Low-end knife sharpening grindstones. Heat sinks. I'm surprised that the overpriced laptop didn't come with a diamond-coated screen.

Re:Colored diamonds, big deal. Just a case mod.

[lordofthechia]

Pffft.... diamonds. Just cause its the most expensive gemstone, doesn't make it the prettiest. Now moissanite, there's a nice high tech and beautiful stone to put on a laptop, plus its rarer to boot.

I would have linked Charles and Colvrad's page but it's kinda cheesy, enjoy a wikipedia link instead (if you want to see the stones, check em out at a local jeweler, a web page does it no justice).

Now, the two big companies in the US to watch for Synthetic diamonds since nobody posted the links:
Gemesis: Use the traditional High Pressure, High Temp method.
Apollo Diamond Use a more innovative (and elusive) Carbon Vapor Depositation method.

Re:Colored diamonds, big deal. Just a case mod.

[Reservoir Penguin]

Artificial diamonds made cheaply in a lab has been old news for decades. Put they are not pretty.

And it still can't do what I want it to do

[Paulrothrock]

Run Mac OS X...

Well, that's 10,000 unpriveleged children..

[Channard]

.. that won't be getting their $100 laptops then.

Re:Well, that's 10,000 unpriveleged children..

[maxwell demon]

I don't think those people who might buy that would have payed the money to the OLPC project otherwise. Instead they probably would have spent it e.g. to grow their Rolls Royce car park or something like that.

Benchmarks, anyone?

[Weaselmancer]

With 128GB of solid state disk space

How does that compare with traditional hard drives? I'd love to see some benchmarks on that. What does it do to boot time? Application start? Fun stuff like that.

Yeah, I know it's good to have because it should be more drop-proof than a traditional mechanical hard drive. But something tells me that you're not going to treat a million dollar laptop like a football anyway, so what does this do for the buyer?

Re:Benchmarks, anyone?

[RobertLTux]

the biggest trick is Boot time/ ram/flash overlay (think "ready boost" after chugging LD25 levels of caffeine) so if it has 4 gigs of ram and 128 gigs of flash
it effectively has 132 gigs of RAM.

How much will it be worth...

[popo]

...when you can buy one from Dell that's 100x faster?

What about the warranty?

[aquabat]

I'd be careful when ordering one of these. They don't say how much the extended warranty costs, and you really should get the extended warranty (with accident and theft protection) when buying a new laptop.

Article text

[Anonymous Coward]

As it's /.ed:

March 23, 2007 UK-based bespoke luxury goods creator Luvaglio has created the first million dollar laptop. That's what the first of their luxury laptops will sell for. Full details of the laptop have not been released at this point, but it is known that it incorporates a 17" widescreen LED lit screen with a specially designed anti-reflective glare coating for clear and brighter image, 128GB of Solid State Disk space and a slot loading Blue-Ray drive. There is an integrated screen cleaning device and a very rare coloured diamond piece of jewellery that doubles up as the power button when placed into the laptop and also acts as security identification. Images here, video here.

Luvaglio CEO Rohan Sinclair Luvaglio told Gizmag earlier today: "Unlike many of the highly priced products being released, we took our time to develop something out of the ordinary with real attention to detail. "

"I didn't want us to simply re-house a laptop into a diamond studded casing, or diamond encrust the entire thing simply to make it expensive. We've put thought in from the keyboard down to the power charger. There is an integrated screen cleaning device and a very rare coloured diamond piece of jewellery that doubles up as the power button when placed into the laptop and also acts as security identification. We have used diamonds elsewhere but have given them purpose."

According to Luvaglio, "the brand is committed to re-defining luxury in a few sectors, technology being one of them.

"Many claim to produce luxury goods but we believe that the true element of luxury is having something that says "YOU", that money can't buy.

"At present and from our previous luxury work, our initial clients will be chosen from this selection as we have already established trust.

"The range to be released shortly would allow the owner to become the creator and visit our showroom at two or three well known upmarket stores we are in discussion with, whereby our selection of materials, finishes and accessories will be available to view and a choice selected.

"The choice will be based on our selection but of course other colours and finishes can be done on request. We have access to diamonds that are simply rare and near impossible to get hold of, so are able to offer a very embodied choice.

"The presentation boxes are of course supplied and finished in the choice that is selected by the client. Exact figures I am unable to provide at present due to negotiations but will certainly be more obtainable then our master piece."

The first such masterpiece will sell for more than US$1,000,000.

Posting AC so I'm no Karma whore

Re:Article text

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, just a plagiarizer.

Re:Article text

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not plagiarizing if you don't claim authorship.

Re:Article text

[Some Kind Of Record]

Although not the same article, there are other links out there with pictures:

Engadget
Mobile Magazine (with video)

Re:Article text

[The Great Pretender]

There is an integrated screen cleaning device wouldn't the wiper blades get in the way when you close the top?

Re:Article text

[cshark]

Yes, but I just can't see using it on the bus.

Re:Article text

[madhuri]

better put lo-jack on this one.

Re:Article text

[Anonymous Coward]

ROFLMAO:

"the true element of luxury is having something that ... money can't buy."
"The first such masterpiece will sell for more than US$1,000,000."

Marketing drones, don't ya love em.

In other news...

[A_Non_Moose]

/. headline: A Million-Dollar Laptop Created and has a diamond power button.

In other news' headlines: A 10K dollars webserver destroyed and looks like it was hit with a diamond cutting tool.

Gizmag IT people proudly exclaimed to newspeople "We got featured on Slasduhhh...what's that SMELL!?"

diamond laptop

[laughing canard]

one diamond ought to be enough for anybody!

Re:diamond laptop

[maxwell demon]

That should be: 640 carat ought to be enough for anybody.
But then, I think there is a world market of maybe five million-dollar laptops.

unfair competition

[chaves]

Beat that, Negroponte!

Does this thing even exist?

[Jimmy King]

We've got a few crappy pictures of a closed laptop with what to me looks like a cheap velvet covering. The website is a static site (although apparently using some sort of dynamic capable back end) with absolutely no information and some questionable grammar. I can't find any mention of this company through google other than articles about this laptop and a couple job postings from February 2007 (one of which suggests that they are basically a start up) on gumtree.com, which appears to be an EU version of craigslist, which doesn't really say "Well known luxury company who only deals with the richest of the rich" to me.

How long until we find out the Phantom guys are behind this?

Re:Does this thing even exist?

[id3as]

That is an informative post.

Re:Does this thing even exist?

[tygerstripes]

I think you're dead right about the company, although the case looks more like polished marble (or just grubby black plastic, from a distance).

Honestly, I think this is just some very enterprising case-modder's attempt to make a nice quick profit out of any very stupid rich celebrity who happens across this news item.

OMDLPC

[yoyoq]

that would be impressive, a one million dollar laptop per child.

Rare Diamond Key, Solid State Memory,

[Bobfrankly1]

...and free delivery of your RIAA settlement offer!! Act now! Lawyers are standing by...
-
One in the bush is worth two in the hands...

Diamond bra.. also 1 million dollars.

[kinglink]

There was a Victoria Secret bra that I remember hearing about that had diamonds all over it and it cost a million dollars. Basically it reminds me of this because of one reason. It was just a freaking diamond covered bra, the bra probably cost 20 bucks but the diamonds upped the value, this device probably could cost 1K if you really worked at it (the solid state might make it 3K but still) except for the diamonds.

This is just an example of someone putting a diamond in something. What's next me putting a diamond in the middle of my car and selling it for 1 mill.... wait a second that's not a bad idea.

Re:Diamond bra.. also 1 million dollars.

[Viceroy Potatohead]

There was a Victoria Secret bra that I remember hearing about that had diamonds all over it and it cost a million dollars

The difference is that no-one on /. could get past the security feature on the million dollar bra. :|

Re:But does it have sharks with frickin laser beam

[flitty]

Or why not a Million, $1 laptops? 15 megs of hdd, 32 megs of ram, and linux still runs on it!

Commodities fluxuate in value

[paladinwannabe2]

Gold and silver have bounced up and down relative to the dollar. Diamonds (i'm betting) will even go down in price with time since they can be synthesized (unlike gold which cannot). As the synthesis techinques get better I expect Diamonds (and other precious stones) to get cheaper and cheaper. Saying that commodities 'always go up' is like saying 'stocks always go up'.

Re:Commodities fluxuate in value

[FunkyELF]

Diamonds (i'm betting) will even go down in price with time since they can be synthesized (unlike gold which cannot)

Yes it can...I read it on the internet!
I also read somewhere on the internet that everything on the internet is true

Re:Commodities fluxuate in value

[rbanffy]

I have to say it.

You actually can synthesize gold and it has been done since the first decades of the last century. There are a couple problems, however: It's hideously expensive, it gives you an unstable isotope that, in any decent quantities will kill you if you stand too close to it and, being unstable, it also decays into something else.

Re:Commodities fluxuate in value

[Anonymous Coward]

Commodities fluctuate in value.

Commodities only fluxuate in value if you are preparing them to be soldered with 60/30/10 tin/lead/value solder.

Limited Market

[ewhac]

This looks like the sort of thing a James Bond supervillain would have. And there aren't many of those left...

Clearly, it's for showing off at extravagant parties, not for actual use. I mean, the whole point of a laptop is to be used on a regular basis -- grabbed, opened, closed, typed on. This is a museum piece that will spend most of its time being polished by the help. It's a lovely piece of kit -- so lovely that I would never want to touch it, much less take it out of the house and work on it at the local cafe.

I dunno, maybe the cafes in Beverly Hills or the Cayman Islands have Nerf(R) everywhere to defend against the socialist-leaning ravages of gravity. But, come on, how could even the idle rich make use of this?

Now if it had a prototype SED display, or one of those butane-burning microturbines for a power source, or an ACPI BIOS that actually worked, then it might be worth it.

Schwab

Let me get this straight...

[Philodoxx]

detachable rare diamond that acts like a power button and a security key

There a detachable diamond acting as the security key for a $1 000 000 laptop. Who thinks up this stuff? I can't think of a scenario where having a precious stone as the security key for the laptop is a good idea. If the key gets stolen you're SOL, if you lose the key you're SOL, and to replace the key will probably cost hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[Jeremi]

There a detachable diamond acting as the security key for a $1 000 000 laptop.

That's the beauty of the whole thing. After you detach the security key, the million-dollar laptop is now only worth a few thousand! Take that, laptop thieves!

Million dollar laptop

[MadnessASAP]

May be a million dollar laptop but it sure as hell wasn't a million dollar server.

It's all fun until ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone says, "Can you pimp my laptop?"

Definition of Luxury

[blefler]

"Many claim to produce luxury goods but we believe that the true element of luxury is having something that says "YOU", that money can't buy."

So... the true element of luxury is saying that "YOU" are a POMPOUS ASS?

Uhm, tech support...

[Supergibbs]

I lost my security diamond and cannot turn on my laptop, can I order a replacement?

I assume the diamond is a security feature by being expensive and unique to the laptop. Imagine the cost for replacing that!

F**K the diamond!

[Aelcyx]

Make the thing drop-proof (at least 5 stories), heat proof, bug proof (for use in tropical climates, parks, and beaches), water proof (submergible), with some form of laptop water cooling system, dirt proof, sand proof (for the beach, of course), and everything else I forgot. Give it a good display, a drive bay that can be swapped with CD/BluRay/DVD, all the wireless stuff, including blue tooth, and make it come with a phone you can use to mirror the display wirelessly (assuming this is possible). Give it a huge solid state drive as well, like they have, and you have yourself an ultimate laptop that would probably cost less than a million.

Rare diamond

[Joebert]

What's rare about this diamond, does it have a cloudy likeness of Bill Gates stained into it or somthing ?

And you PC guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

thought our Apple notebooks were overpriced!

does it include.....

[measured_flo]

A solid gold toilet to flush extra money with? Burn Karma, burn

Other site with pics & article

[cwilly]

http://www.uaeforever.com/

I clean my screen

[gelfling]

With the harvested tears of virgins from Compton. Which is why it's so rare.

You got it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

It is at 50% when you install windows. It loses the other 50% when it crashes or gets owned shortly thereafter.

Am I the first to raise...

[Static-MT]

the "Bullshit!" flag on this? C'mon folks! I think this laptop belongs side by side with the Phantom.

linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

do you have a linux fetish?

http://www.allsextoys4u.com/i-rub-my-penguin-p-203 2.html

No way....

[CasperIV]

I won't buy one unless it's got a flux capacitor.

Lol

[Deliveranc3]

And it will STILL be obsolete in 8 months!

Sure...

[FirstTimeCaller]

Just because you can build a million dollar laptop, doesn't mean that you should. Now, please don't do anything so silly again. Thank you.

You can't waste money

[NotQuiteReal]

The notion that money can be wasted (by spending it) is stupid.

It all contributes to the economy, which helps generate more money. In this case, I am sure a lot of the million dollars for the laptop goes into the cost of goods - supporting everyone in the supply chain from the diamond miners to the jewelers and artisans who created the art/wasteful object of your loathing. Then there is the "profit". Either way the money is somewhere. For all you know the money might end up for some use for which you do approve.

There is no difference, in principle, on people "wasting" money on luxury items than there is spending money any other way. When it comes right down to it, nobody "needs" anything more than food and shelter, assuming the world even "needs" people at all.

There is a continuum from needs-wants-excess/your definition of waste.

Personally I would not buy a million dollar laptop, either, however I think it is awesome that it is possible for someone to be able to do that if they so choose.

If you think there is something wrong with this world now, you'll rue the day that it is ruled by people who think they know best how to run it for everyone else.

Re:You can't waste money

[Anonymous Coward]

Money represents resources (work, materials). If you can't waste money, then it must be impossible to waste resources, but that is certainly not true. Resource allocation depends on the investment decisions of the individuals in an economy and if the majority of the investments (by value) goes into luxury items, that's where the economy grows and where progress is made. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, diamond laptops don't make a good shelter and they don't substitute for food. They don't fight crime well and can't heal diseases. They don't even entertain much, because like all electronic devices, they'll be superseeded by faster machines in no time. IOW, making one-million-dollar laptops is a wasteful allocation of resources.

Re:You can't waste money

[inviolet]

There is no difference, in principle, on people "wasting" money on luxury items than there is spending money any other way. When it comes right down to it, nobody "needs" anything more than food and shelter, assuming the world even "needs" people at all.

True enough. But not all efforts are equally efficient. While the actual spending of money cannot -- itself -- waste anything, it can induce wasteful behavior. For example, suppose I spend $1000 hiring someone to stand on their head. By my spending, I caused one person to waste two person-days' worth of effort.

That said, I agree with you: this insane laptop is a great way to keep the wealth moving around. Its construction consumed about $2000 worth of actual effort, yet it liberates a million dollars from a concentration (i.e. from a rich person) to be spread around again.

Ditto with all luxury objects, for that matter. The higher the markup (i.e. the greater the difference between price and the effort to produce it), the more efficiently it dilutes wealth concentrations. Servants, meanwhile, are at the opposite end of the efficiency spectrum: low price but large number of person-hours consumed.

Re:You can't waste money

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think there is something wrong with this world now, you'll rue the day that it is ruled by people who think they know best how to run it for everyone else.

You don't have to be a commie to think there's a problem when the wealth of the world is in the hands of a few people who think they need a million-dollar laptop, but historically the world has usually changed in drastic ways when the people with power disregarded the needs of the poor and used their wealth for one-upmanship with their fellow monarchs/dictators/etc.

Re:You can't waste money

[Anonymous Coward]

"The notion that money can be wasted (by spending it) is stupid.

It all contributes to the economy, which helps generate more money."

Bullshit. The money ***supply*** is limited. Therefore if someones spending a million dollars on a laptop with a diamond, somewhere else someone must be suffocating for that diamond. I hate more then anything people who do not understand the fixed nature of the money supply, and people who mod people up on slashdot as insightful without a deep appreciation for that concept called scarcity.

Money is the lifeblood of peoples livelihood, its energy that determines the quality of their entire lives. Most of the people involved in being paid for this laptop are probably overpaid to begin with anyway, how hard is it to order off the shelf hardware and stick a diamond on it? Not hard.

Re:You can't waste money

[Anonymous Coward]

It all contributes to the economy, which helps generate more money.

Yeah, and breaking people's windows should be rewarded. After all, doing it contributes to the glaziers and thus to the economy!

(Hint: it's called opportunity cost.)

The wealthy...

[Monk Who Says Ni]

....they are like a beast to cannot be fed.

Its so good to know that they're really working themselves over to keep the public happy. I mean, what on -earth- would happen if they were to walk around with anything that looks like what anyone else has? Those diamonds---way important. I can only imagine how over the top the insurance on those ridiculous things will be.

Tech support better get a huge freaking raise to cater to this crap.

"Ma'am, the diamond goes into the power socket. .... ...no. The OTHER one... >| "

Re:The wealthy...

[maxume]

Also, nobody should be allowed to drive a car that is newer than any other car.

Re:The wealthy...

[Dunbal]

Its so good to know that they're really working themselves over to keep the public happy.

      What makes you think that wealthy people owe "the public" anything? With the exception of crooks, lottery winners and (probably) rap stars, those who are wealthy became so by working their asses off, or being smart enough to multiply what their parents gave them instead of blowing the family fortune. Why does "the public" feel it is owed something?

      I'd never buy a $1M laptop, just like I'd never buy a Rolls or a Ferrari. A Toyota is fine for me. But what someone else wants to do with their money is their own business, not mine. /rant

Re:The wealthy...

[Monk Who Says Ni]

A downside of the text is that it fails to display sarcasm properly.

A million!

[posterlogo]

I'd rather take a million $1 laptops. Or, more realistically, 10,000 of the $100 laptops and donate them... Anyway, that's what I'd hope someone who'd by a $1,000,000 laptop might think...

For 1M it better have a REAL video card

[Joe The Dragon]

If this has a GMA 950 board then It will be a SUPER BIG RIPOFF as you can get HIGH-END SLI Laptops for 4K

Early April Fools?

[sherpajohn]

I checked the website - nothing there but a box with focus to enter something. A contact page. An address in London, that does not really parse as a street but a place. Google search on the company name yields nothing but this laptop - all based on the same article. Google search on the CEO yields a now "private" page on a site the "connects" business people. The cached page has a bunch of luxury names in it. Googel images even has a cached image of a young guy leaning on a car.

This sounds like viral cow pies publicity grab or April Fools to me. There's a $350,000+ laptop noted here: http://most-expensive.net/laptop-world - and its covered in gems. There's no way you can justify technology alone making this worth anywhere near $100,000 much less $1,000,000. I call BU-double-hockey-sticks on this story.

Re:Early April Fools?

[sherpajohn]

Oh, and the most I could spend on an Alienware laptop - with the most expensive options is like $5500.

You wouldn't believe what I found on the A train..

[Ralph Spoilsport]

(fiction) So, like, I copped a few joints up in the park, and I was floating around mid town fora while. Then I figured I'd skip downtown for a while. It was WAY too far to walk, so I get on the A train. And I sit down next to some stylin' dude with the Armani suit and gold cufflinks and stuff, and I'm wonderin' whatthe fuck is this asshole doing on the subway, but I figured - WHO KNOWS? He probably has some reason for sittin' in the stink with the rest of us. So, like he looks up and sees the Washington Square stop and like flips out and runs out of the subway.

Well, right next to me is this computer bag, that he left behind and I look inside and FUCK! The thing has JEWELS encrusted in it, and I'm thinkin' what kind of an asshole buys a jewel encrusted laptop - the stupid things go obsolete every few years! What a waste of money! But he did strike me as an asshole, and he DID leave me his laptop, so now I got this TOTALLY STYLIN' laptop. It's got BOODLES of RAM, I am totally stoked. finders keepers!

RS (/fiction)

eyebrow raise.

[downwithpeople]

Victor: The luxurious cd-rom drive is stuffed with eagle down, and the Vista dashboard inlaid with the beaks of a thousand eagles. Also, there are some eagles in the hard drive. Amy: That's an awful lot of eagle. Victor: Yes, and yet-- [He sighs.] Amy: What's wrong? Victor: It is just ... the Ultimate edition has so much more eagle. It saddens me to think of you missing out. Amy: Oh, don't be sad. My parents are paying and they're incredibly rich. Victor: (quietly; to himself) No dog food for Victor tonight.

Wow

[kaizenfury7]

MIT must feel bad, they spent all that time and money to create their one hundred dollar laptop, only to see Luvaglio create a one dollar laptop, and a million of them as well.

fail

[Lord Bitman]

If I bought a million dollar laptop, it would be one that didn't have a diamond in it to artificially inflate the price. This is a laptop with a diamond strapped to it. An expensive one, yes, but if you are sticking diamonds to things, you've gone wrong somewhere.

All I can say is...

[eugenewithanaxe]

...wow. I really wanted to see what a $1,000,000 notebook would look like. Apparently, so does the rest of the 'net. How lame... I guess I'll never understand the privileged. After trying three or four times to see it, I was finally greeted by a page that showed three very lame pictures that I conclude were nothing more than mockups. Now, since this will be running a M$ OS (I will go ahead and assume,) what are the spoiled shits that actually purchase one to do when it, inevitably, gets hosed up from malware? Oh, wait. They will just dispose of it, like they do to the countless souls that they had to trample in order to afford such a luxury. Sorry for the rant. But this is ridiculous.

You're right...

[C10H14N2]

The "truly rich" people don't buy gimmicky million dollar laptops, they buy gimmicky $200 million yachts that cost $35k a day to keep afloat.

Re:You're right...

[tompaulco]

Yes, and I assume a large part of that 35k is paying the salaries of maintenance personnel, deckhands, and other crew. Then, when the truly rich person is done with the boat, he can sell it, with good upkeep, for a substantial portion of the purchase price.

Re:You're right...

[maxume]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_(yacht)

"We're getting close. Call in and ask which helipad they want us to use."

Looks fake

[forgotten_my_nick]

Every review I can find of it has more pictures of the box then the laptop. Even the youtube video doesn't show you anything at all. Their website is even worse.

Three's a crowd

[StikyPad]

why not a one million-dollar laptop from the U.K-based company Luvaglio?

Another one?

I can't get to the FA but...

[cmacb]

Isn't this part of the "One Laptop Per Continent" project?

You aint rich, you just got lots of money

[peterpi]

I feel dreadfully sorry for anybody who has that much money, and yet still feels the desire to own something as silly as a computer.

OLPC

[stud9920]

Like for the OLPC, I'll gladly pay $200 for mine if it subsidizes a poor billionaire's

Cheating...

[Belial6]

First, pasting a diamond on anything to raise it's value is cheating. Beyond that, you could have your very own OS written for far less than that.

Nobody needs more than a $640,000 diamond

[EmbeddedJanitor]

A $1M diamond is just bloatware.

Pffff

[alisson]

let me know when there's a six million dollar laptop.

Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first bionic [laptop]. Steve Austin will be that [laptop]. Better than he was before. Better...stronger...faster

I'd want one but without the stinking logo...

[gd23ka]

With the prominent logo on top of its case it just goes to show that
some schmucks have a million dollars laying around to spend on
prestige items.

For an extra 5 million...

[BenSchuarmer]

they'll throw in bionic sound effects.

Oh my god!

[tacokill]

Did I just read a capitalist viewpoint on /.? Maybe even supply-side in nature?

Bravo! Bout time someone figured out that all those "bad rich people" also SPEND and INVEST that money to the benefit of lots of other people.

No Custom Software?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's most fascinating to consider that a megabuck get a high end laptop with an expensive case mod. However the same megabuck doesn't get you very far for custom software. You couldn't get a useful OS for that. You could probably get 1-2 small custom applications (10 people for a year).

Spare sectors

[tepples]

There's no way you'd use Flash RAM for that, though. It has limited writes! So does a hard disk. Both flash memory and hard disks reserve about 5 percent of their sectors as replacements for sectors whose bit error rate has passed a threshold. Do you claim that flash memory will run out of these spare sectors significantly faster than a hard disk? If so, then let's toss in another 16 microSD cards for redundancy, bringing the total to 144.

Re:Spare sectors

[Anonymous Coward]

If you've got a million dollar laptop, why use something inferior? RAM-Drives are pretty damn good these days, and if you have a million bucks to throw at a laptop, I'd say regular DRAM is a much better road to go down than Flash.

Re:Spare sectors

[maxwell demon]

And when your battery fails, all your data goes away at once. And not even an expensive data recovery service can help you.

But what about FRAM? I guess the price shouldn't be a problem in this case ...

makes me sick

[Imazalil]

Imagine all the time, energy and resources used up by millions of slackers all over the world reading /. when there are people suffocating economically in our society, makes me sick.

The power wasted on /. could probably power half of Africa.

The mental energy wasted on /. could have cured cancer by now.

For shame slashdot!

There are thousands of kids dying every day and you wasted your time and money complaining about a million dollar laptop on the internet. makes me sick. /sarcasm

The name is as gaudy as the device itself

[Wabbit Wabbit]

Yuck. Looks like the cheesy humidor you'd find in a comped Vegas hotel suite. // now offering $100 in match-and-win chips at the FABULOUS Las Vegas Luvaglio Resort & Casino!!!

Perfect waste of money...

[Anonymous Coward]

Like most rich people's toys, this is another under-used device for them.
Like most rich people driving high end BMWs, Mercedes or the Hummers, they just want to have a toy to show off but don't know really use them for what they are. It is a pity that the rich could afford these toys and the people that really know how to use these device can't afford them.
The solid-state hard drive is a great thing but having diamonds on a laptop is utterly useless. At 1 million dollars I could buy a our place webserver, mail server, several TB file server, and firewall and have money left over for maintenance for year or so. So stupid that waste money on one laptop that will be stolen faster then a truly usable laptop.... hmmm, maybe we can seed a bunch cheap look-alikes so the thieves will steal these an leave the good stuff alone.

Re:Perfect waste of money...

[Dunbal]

It is a pity that the rich could afford these toys and the people that really know how to use these device can't afford them.

      You're generalizing of course. Let me add: Sometimes rich people know how to use their toys, and boy is it fun!

tax

[binarybum]

meh, I'd buy one if it didn't include the windows tax.

Re:Rare diamond? - Getting OT

[JimDaGeek]

But at least social security, medicare and medicade actually _help_ people. The Iraq War doesn't seem to be doing that. Don't give me the whole "the people of Iraq want us there" crap. I served in the U.S.M.C. They don't want us for the most part. Some seem to be glad the we got rid of a nasty dictator, however now most seem to be like, "Uh, OK, now get the hell out". While I think the people are stuck in the middle ages as far as their religious beliefs go, that is there right.

Stop bashing social security, medicare and medicade when there are many Americans that actually need it. I personally am blessed and have good health insurance, income, etc. However, I have met many others that have had to choose between paying rent, buying food or getting much needed medication. That is a sad state for _any_ American to be in. We are the wealthiest single nation in the world. Why can't we come up with some system to allow everyone to at least get proper medical treatment and medication?

Private health care just doesn't cut it. Private health care only cares about one thing. Profits. Profits and the well-being of a human do not mix well.

PURE GREED AND BULL*****

[Anonymous Coward]

That's EXACTLY what enables the building of things like palaces while millions are either starving, disease ridden or living an existence worse than an animal.

I'm glad I can call you guys on it. You've made yourselves guilt-free. Congratulations.

Custom Laptops from Spare Parts Much Cheaper

[wehe]

It's much fun to own a custom-made laptop, but it's not necessary to pay one million dollar for it. This overview of do-it-yourself laptops and notebooks gives you some ideas how to build a personalized portable computer from scratch. If you don't want to start from scratch, you may use a so-called barebone or white-box laptop as a beginning.

you are making the parent's point

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, to some extent you can "waste" resources, but in the long run wasting them is not self sustaining because the resources will be gone (either the item wasted is gone, or the waster has squandered his wealth with no return). Problem solved. Used, wasted, in the end the resources are gone with no ROI.

As far as current allocation of labor resources, let's take diamonds. No one "needs" gem quality diamonds for any useful purpose (Industrial grade abrasive diamonds are produced far cheaper than mining). Yet the market for these useless shiny bits of rock do provide jobs for miners, which, in turn, DOES provide food and shelter for people.

History shows that making people work for market driven desires ends up much better for everyone, even if the labor is spend doing something stupid like digging up jewelry. At least the digger will have money to pay the farmer who decided he would be better off growing more food than he could eat.

Re:you are making the parent's point

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's suppose I have 100 million dollars for which I get 1% interest above inflation and I want to waste that interest money: Would you sit quietly (but awake), doing nothing, 12 hours a day for one year if I paid you a million dollars for it? The resource (your work potential that year) would be wasted forever. Had I paid you to write some open source software instead, the total amount of useful work done in that year would have been higher, but you would still have the same 100000 dollars. Resource allocation decisions are not inconsequential in the long run. The more power (=money) you wield, the more important this little fact becomes.

efficient at what?

[NotQuiteReal]

But not all efforts are equally efficient.

Efficiency implies a goal, a purpose. If you know our goal, please let us all know, there is a good living to be made in espousing a popular religion. Just don't say "42" is the answer... even if it is.

Meanwhile, I expect to reach Nirvana with no special effort whatsoever. Although I will be really surprised to know that, when the time comes.

Re:efficient at what?

[Anonymous Coward]

One goal might be to avoid being lynched when less fortunate people stop tolerating the wealth difference after the rich have demonstratively wasted money once too often while other people work two jobs to stay afloat. You know, there are many countries where you can't show your wealth in public at all unless you travel with a small army.

Re:Only one problem...DEPRECIATION

[SmlFreshwaterBuffalo]

Yep,

It loses 50% of it's value the moment you get Windows up and running on it. Phew! For a second there you had me worried.

Nothing new.

[mrbobjoe]

I've been trying to sell a million dollar laptop for years... I think the trick would be to travel back in time and sell it to the US government for nuclear weapons simulation, but I'd need the money first to build the time machine and I haven't found an investor who takes me seriously yet.

You must be new here ...

[freaker_TuC]

... on the world I mean, Where anything less costs more ;)

$1 million!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, this might even run Vista OK!

Re:Rare diamond? - Getting OT

[OverlordQ]

Social Security teaches people to be lazy. People rely on it too much, it was never designed to fully support people, that's what retirement funds and savings are for.

ugh ?

[freaker_TuC]

When you got that much money burning in your pockets you might care less ...

something that says "YOU"!

[rgravina]

From the article:

"Many claim to produce luxury goods but we believe that the true element of luxury is having something that says "YOU", that money can't buy.

Reminds me of that old quote - "a fool and his money are soon parted" :)

I wouldn't want it.

[timerider]

I Wouldn't want it, even if it were much cheaper and came without that diamond.
Here's what I'd expect from the manufacturer of a laptop at the upper end of the price scale:

- a bit more of a website than just a "contact us" form. For example, Spec sheets, driver downloads for every OS that can run on it, a support area.

and here's what i'd expect from a laptop that is THAT HIGH above the upper end of the price scale:
- full warranty replacement within 2 hours, 7 days a week, all around the world, with no extra fees.
- full toll-free phone support, 7 days a week, all around the world, with no extra fees.
- no matter what broke, the full laptop gets replaced, but with your data copied over. Even in case of destruction by fire etc (data recovery service included in maintenance contract)

Re:I wouldn't want it.

[hey!]

For a million dollars, I'd sell you a ThinkPad and throw in three years of personal valet service to help you use it, staffed exclusively by hot women with engineering degrees.

Re:I wouldn't want it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Free Key Replacement

Buy does it run Linux?

[bWareiWare.co.uk]

- had to be said.

Though it is actually a real question - if they are spending that much creating a personalised experience, Aero Glass is going to be a bit 'common'.

I would want all my icons in cornflower-blue.

OLPC

[jotok]

...One Laptop Per Country.

Sadly

[Savione]

...Sadly, this new laptop did not place in the One-Laptop Per Child program. In other news, scientists deem that a new rocket that was designed to get to the moon is too massive to leave the Earth's surface. Some experts suggest that it could be used to reposition the Earth and end global warming. NASA was unavailable for comment at this time.

But!

[IwarkChocobos]

Can it run MacOS X??

already outdated

[Anonymous Coward]

Its already outdated by the faster CPU and a $900,000 price tag!

Rare diamond as security key... hmmmmm

[Archtech]

"...a detachable rare diamond that acts like a power button and a security key."

Anyone else see how that could conceivably backfire?

Velocity

[Slashdot Parent]

For example, suppose I spend $1000 hiring someone to stand on their head. By my spending, I caused one person to waste two person-days' worth of effort.

Who cares? How is this any different from buying concert tickets or theatre tickets? Surely the performers could be doing something more useful than entertaining me. They could be making boots or something.

Consider that your employee will most likely turn around and spend that $1000 on something you might consider a little more useful like food, clothes, etc.

As a more concrete example, my wife and I went to see a Billy Joel concert last year. The money that we paid Billy Joel for tickets will eventually be spent by him on car insurance. Most of that money will go to the victims of his poor driving who will spend it to repair their cars and bodies. Then their auto mechanics and surgeons will spend that money on something else. Economists refer to this as the Velocity of Money.

Bottom line: paying someone to stand on his head isn't has inefficient as you make it out to be.

Re:Velocity

[inviolet]

As a more concrete example, my wife and I went to see a Billy Joel concert last year. The money that we paid Billy Joel for tickets will eventually be spent by him on car insurance. Most of that money will go to the victims of his poor driving who will spend it to repair their cars and bodies. Then their auto mechanics and surgeons will spend that money on something else. Economists refer to this as the Velocity of Money.

Bottom line: paying someone to stand on his head isn't has inefficient as you make it out to be.

It comes down to a question of net social wealth created. Wealth includes pleasure, safety, and comfort, of course, in addition to just boots, because humans demonstrably need spiritual nutrition (etc.). What Billy Joel does with his earnings afterward is a separate moral calculation; the question is how the payments to him caused him to behave.

In his case, the payments caused him to spend his 12 hours producing a great deal of pleasure for a great many people, and that's a net positive. Paying someone the same money to stand on their head for twelve hours would not make such a large contribution to our net wealth. Paying a servant to spend an entire day doting on a rich person doesn't do much better.

Obviously, the money will then move on to the next person, but as I said, that's already a given.

Since you care about velocity, look at it this way. A servant must spend an entire day doing whatever in order to move $1,000 onward. A million-dollar laptop causes 5 or 6 people to spend an entire day manufacturing a laptop in order to move $1,000,000. So, even if you don't care about my "net social wealth" crap, you can see that million-dollar laptops are a very efficient way to create velocity.

Re:Rare diamond? - Getting OT

[pjt48108]

I was tempted to call complete bullshit on you, but tempered that reaction with the knowledge that you probably don't know anyone on Social Security.

Ah, screw it: I'm calling bullshit.

One shouldn't rush to blame the consumers of SS benefits for the few who abuse the system. The system was designed in such a way that it compelled people to stay 'in the system'. That has been smoothed over by legislation, but it will never be perfect. Ideally, people should be self-sufficient. In reality, though, this is fantasy.

As to whether Social Security teaches people to be lazy, I'd ask if you relied on SS to develop your mental prowess, for you seem too lazy to acknowledge that MANY people on SS are not, in fact, lazy, but are incapable of getting or keeping a job, due to physical or mental handicap. My older brother is on SS because of a handicap; there isn't a job for someone like him.

And don't think he lives the life of Riley. Social Security does NOT fully support him. He shares a place with mom. He can't look after himself, having the intellectual maturity of a child. Social Security allows him to eat and not live in a cardboard box.

I counter that some people rely on the Internet too much to vent their spleen. Computer technology has weakened their intellectual abilities, and the ability to develop cogent arguments. Perhaps your internet access should be taken away, so that you can work on that, and also develop a more compassionate and less simplistic view of your fellow passengers on Spaceship Earth, and the variety of lives they are leading.

Insensitive clod.

Hah!

[DrPreston]

That sounds about as practical as a fur lined sink... Anyone up for a gasoline powered turtleneck sweater?

6-Million-Dollar Laptop

[1337W422102]

I'm waiting for the Six Million Dollar Laptop. We can build it. We have the technology.