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$100 Laptop Repriced at $175
prostoalex writes "The $100 laptop introduced by Nicholas Negroponte as part of the One Laptop Per Child program will end up costing $175, Associated Press says. The demand for the program is apparent as 'seven nations have expressed interest in being in the initial wave to buy the little green-and-white "XO" computers — Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Pakistan, Thailand, Nigeria and Libya — but it remains unclear which ones will be first to pony up the cash.'"
...for the first person to complain that it doesn't run Vista.
You moved your mouse. Please restart Windows for changes to take effect.
Instead of:
"one laptop per child"
which are devices that hardly fit the description of "rugged"..
why aren't we going for:
"One desktop per family"?
Much easier to repair when broken, and that lends itself better to donations of old equipment.
for sale
I'm a self-modifying sig virus
and thanks to Moore's law.
This isn't news, they've been saying this for over a year now.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Expressed interest. Expressed interest. Expressed interest. That's all we hear. Expressed interest. When's someone going to express a little cash?
I think they should rename this to One Laptop per 0.57 Child
Jack Valenti just fucking DIED of a stroke and all you can think about are $175 laptops?????
Alright, I'll get it over with: *ahem* Ding, dong, the witch is dead
Now thats over with, onto the more notable laptop. Got to say, still excited about this project. Last time I held a computer class in the DR, a massive power surge nearly killed me when the computer in question was powered up... These little things should be able to take the abuse, and the unstable power grids of many of these developing countries. Still cannot wait until a consumer model is released, so I can prepair a few classes on them for next time I go down.
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
The dollar has lost so much value it's no suprise that it's going to start at $175. I think they should have called it the €100 euro laptop. I heard they expected after mass production for it go from $100 down to $50. It'll get their eventually.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
I am on argentina and the Laptop is going to cost 175 dollars which here means 550 pesos which with the costs of translation (oil) and the taxes it will be at 900 pesos which is something like 300 dollars and 900 pesos is the cost of a Pentium 3 600Mhz with 128 mb ram and 20Gb hard drive. What is the relation Cost-Power of this Laptops? Either way if it is intended to be for poor people thats not the way to do it, and the worst i can tell is that poor people does not have credit cards like in other countries. I am not telling just that my country is like India, but just that this is the first country to invest in technology, so you might to justify what is the thing we might buy. Buy it by CASH? think twice, just in case you not want to hear how difficult is for me to sell a damn 100 hundred dollars CPU.
?
why do they need these governments to sign on? Can't they just, you know, sell them to people? Why force them (via their governments) to buy one?
I was under the impression that either the governments in question would be buying them or they would be paid for by charities. The families getting these laptops sure as hell don't have the funds to pay for them, so to the end user they will be free. That means you need some way (on site administration) for the "right" people to get the laptops, and you need a request for the charities to respond to. These two requirements are the job of the governments of the people in need.
We are all just people.
It seems to me that they could probably get the first batch paid for by us geeks who have been drooling over the OLPC hardware for a while.
Hell, I'd pony up ~$400-$500 for a unit. I wonder how many orders at that price point would be enough to get manufacturing cranking.
Plus, from my way of thinking, the OLPC project could use some more content creators doing homebrew design on the OLPC hardware.
. Penguins Surely Ca
Either you're a crazed hippie completely out of touch with reality, or you're a troll:
Euro value 4/26/05 = $1.29
Euro value 4/26/07 = $1.36
Not exactly spiraling out of control. Total loss of value in two years = 5.2%, not half.
Left 404: Why the RIGHT is WRONG
Neither Microsoft nor Sony are charities trying to bring free education to the poor of the world.
Why should we judge the OLPC project by the same standards that we judge multinational profit machines?
Why do I even have to ask this question?
What is wrong with you?
Jesus H. Christ.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I can understand the desire to get low cost computers into the hands of the underprivileged, really I do, it's an awesome goal. But I always have these nagging doubts if neutering the technology to get it to a cost they deem reasonable defeats the whole purpose. Remember when they tried to make those cheap internet appliances that grandma could use to check her email and surf the web? They had a dumbed down OS and scaled back hardware to make them cheap and simple to use, they also bombed horribly because they couldn't run any of the standard apps that a full on pc could. Same deal with webtv. So while this computer is cool how will it's usefullness fare long term when people discover they can't do all the stuff people are doing with their normal computers in the developed world?
Best Buy is currently selling a laptop, retail!, for $399. $399 laptop
And the specs on it are actually not half bad, not as bad as you might think:
15.4" screen
1.5 ghz Via C7-M
512 ram
128 meg shared video
DVD +/- DL burner
60 GB HDD
802.11 b/g
10/100 ethernet
v.92 modem
Vista Basic
Drop Vista and install Linux and you can save a few bucks, scale down the screen size and maybe eliminate a few usb ports and some other stuff, mass produce it and you could have a full on pc capable of running even windows vista for probably under 300 bucks. I have to think that something like that would be much more useful, even if you bought half as many it would still be better in the long run with it's upgradeability and standards compliance. Thoughts?
I get your point. It's fun to try to kick a little Slashdot ass. But I'll take your question seriously and try to answer it.
The idea of putting a laptop in the hands of somebody who can't afford the technology is very appealing. We like it. It makes us feel good. It makes us feel like we want to be part of that. Look at the other posts that say they'd spend $500 to buy one for themselves if they'd also send one to the originally intended recipients. That's a very strong statement of support. If the price goes to $175... well, who can really fault us for not willing to take back that we like the idea that low cost computers are being given to people who could really really could use them.
It wouldn't matter who made the mp3 player. Nobody wants to hear about a significant price increase on a plentiful commodity like an mp3 player. There's too much competition and Microsoft, explicitly, has a long history of credibility problems with delivering on their marketing claims in their product in the first place.
Aren't there a host of things missing from Vista? Aren't we all aware that the "revolutionary" new file structure got cut and that DRM was a priority? For Microsoft, you reap what you sow.
So I reject your comparison. We're not assholes (as your suggest - or at least, not for this reason), we just want to see the OLPC thing succeed.
Fuckin' a, buddy. I'm all in favor of helping humanity, that is other humans, in any way possible, but every time someone looks to take on a humanitarian aid project they look to do it overseas.
Our schools here in the US are total shitboxes (most of them, and not as bad as those in some other countries), we have starving people just like everywhere else, homelessness is on the rise, New Orleans is still somewhere between the stone age and the 21st century, etc., etc., etc.
Keeping stuff like this out of the hands of American kids who need a little help, just to watch it all go overseas is kinda stupid. What's the worst that's going to happen? Kids will benefit from having the technology and people will realize that they don't need $2,000 laptops (with expensive operating systems and productivity suites) to look at porn and read emails, or maybe do a little homework?
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You don't need a low power rugged laptop in a society with ample power and concrete floors.
On the other hand, if you're interested in starting a project to help inner city schools, why don't you?
How we know is more important than what we know.
AND
Negroponte's team has always stressed that $100 was a long-term target for the machines, but recently publicized figures had put it in the $150 range. Negroponte says the cost should drop about 25 percent per year as the project unfolds. He added that Citigroup Inc. (C)'s Citibank division has agreed to facilitate a payment system on a pro bono basis; Citibank will float payments to Quanta and other laptop suppliers, and governments will repay the bank.The project is still on track to its price target of $100, it is still in BETA FFS!
Quit with the FUD already! Theres nothing like working on something high profile to make you grow a bit of a distaste for /. hype!
Picking a couple of points isn't the most robust measure, especially with things as potentially volaile as currency. If you look at the five year trend, it doesn't look so good. The US dollar rallied a little in late 05, early 06, but generally it's steadily sinking down. The Grandparent post is radically overstating things, but the picture isn't as rosy as you want to make out either.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
"I might get modded off-topic for saying this, but ..." on slashdot people regularly post the question "How would slashdot react if Microsoft did this?" This post is usually modded insightful because the mods see it as thinking outside the box—it looks like you are breaking away from the herd mentality when you post this question. The only problem is that people regularly post this question, or a paraphrase of this question, so it really isn't too insightful.
This post usually gets one of two responses: "It would not be the same because..." or "Slashdot is not one person, the members of the slashdot community can disagree with each other."
This sig cannot be proven true.
I'd toss in my two cents worth on this issue. But with opinions hovering near three cents, I think I'll just save up for a better topic.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
So for the geekier side of the community we'll get a penis pump to do the same job? ;) Probably generate more power... whole new reason for porn on the internet "YOU CAN'T STOP ME MUM I'M POWERING THE INTERNET"
Yeah ok, bad joke, it's been a long day...
I was thinking these people could afford $100. Now its $175, I think, gentlemen and (gentlemen dressed as) ladies that we have found our proverbial 3rd step:
1. Create Idea for $100 laptop
2. Market Laptop
3. Raise Price by 75%
4. Profit.
No more 3. ??? jokes are necessary, repricing is the key!
Me failed English...
FreeBSD over Linux. If my comments seem odd, this may explain...
A million school children with an ability to appreciate freedom of information, and the open source ideals that are the antithesis of Valenti's anti-copying propaganda... I just think of it as Jack's ideas being dead along with him.
On a more serious note, as for the priorities, should I stock up on beer or snacks for the Jack Valenti is Dead party?
The concept and the product is actually very good but the project takes very little notice of economic realities. They should have designed two units, one slightly larger in plain black and the other in bright colours and smaller (as it is now). Sell the black unit at a premium price to raise capital and leverage the good will aspect of the product to make it a very enticing option. The internals of both laptops would be the same so it would mean they would reach a larger production scales faster thus saving a small fortune plus increasing the return on the premium unit.
Prove it.
No wait, if you're proving something, you're using logic, which is a math skill.
The best thing the federal government could possibly ever do for the public schools is actually put some funding behind the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and No Child Left Behind. They make a fuckton of demands on the public schools, but then they don't back it up with funding. It's been like that since the 70's. Frankly if you're going to place strict requirements on the schools that they educate *everyone* even at significant expense, you should put your money where your mouth is.
Would you be upset if your boss told you "Okay bub, do this, this, and this. But I'm not gonna pay you for it since you're doing such a good job already."
And as for our schools being shitboxes I've got a questionnaire I'd like to ask you:
1.) Can you read?
2.) Can you write coherently?
3.) Can you do mathematics?
4.) Do you have a job that is not simply menial in nature?
5.) Do you have a decent understanding that there is a world outside your state?
6.) Were your parents able to work while you were growing up?
If you answered yes to any of the questions above, you may have benefited from a free public education.
SRSLY.
They're useless because they are not designed for the lower power, rugged environment where they will be used.
How we know is more important than what we know.
India is one of the big targets for the OLPC and when it was proposed the USD was 49.something Rupees so almost 5000 rupees. Now the Dollar is 40 Rupees so the price could go upto 125 dollars and still stay under 5000 rupees. Now 5000 rupees is a very crtical psychological barrier in India and any laptop able to stay below 5000 is going to have a good chance. BTW desktops are available for 10000 rupees right now in India.
**Life is too short to be serious**
Everything takes longer and costs more.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
It's designed for kids and people who have never used a computer before. Umm, because I build computers for people who have never used computers before? Because a simple, easy-to-use UI would be useful for kiosk-type applications? Because I want a nongeek-friendly interface for the box hooked up to my TV?
Just because you can only see one use for a particular application, doesn't mean that that's all it's good for.
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
The problem is endemic to a society that does not value education, and does not place personable responsibility above entitlement. In this case, the knife cuts both ways: stingy and selfish people do not want to fund schools; and apathetic and irresponsible parents do not enforce proper behavior in their children either at school or at home.
I guess that some people believe that other places have the opposite problem of the USA; whereas the USA has too many resources and not enough personal responsibility, there is a belief that other places, especially third world countries, have personal responsibility but not enough resources. So the goal of projects like this is to try to help people who, it is believed, would actually make something out of themselves given the chance, instead of squander whatever resources are spent to attempt to help them better themselves.
My personal opinion is that, the difference between the uneducated in the USA and the uneducated in a third world country is likely to be alot less than what other people may believe. I have been to a decent number of places in the world and the thing which strikes me most is that people everywhere are pretty much the same. The only real difference is the larger circumstances, usually beyond their control, that they find themselves living in. I think that more children in a third world country would benefit from something like OLPC than would children in the USA, but more because of their circumstances than anything else. In both cases, I think the number of actual children who will benefit from being given a free laptop with educational tools on it is not as high as philanthropists would like to believe.
That being said, I am a 100% supporter of OLPC because, first I think it's a cool project from a technical standpoint, and second, I think it *will* provide some benefit to today's generation of third-world children, and that this benefit will be multiplied as these children grow up and can help to educate even more of the next generation of third-world children. Also I like to hope that I am wrong in my assessment of humanity, and that things will go much better than I would have predicted.
For a person who was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions in WWII to become a witch and sell his soul to corporate America is an absolute fucking shame.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I did benefit from my education. I went to a shithole schools all the way up to my university years. There I learned that the system wouldn't teach me anything other than the fact that my education and my future were entirely up to me because most of the teachers, other kids and parents simply didn't give a shit.
I spent much of my formative years outside of the classroom in the local library. Sure I played sports and videogames. I was a pretty well-rounded kid. No thanks to the schools I went to.
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Right now I'm trying to teach retards about how unproductive it is to cast dispersions on a non-profit organisation that is trying to drag a generation of children out of poverty, but unfortunately they don't understand satire.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I recommend you check out the site on the Laptop. They have done away with the desktop. The whole notion of Desktop doesn't apply, as people move between communities (sometimes to travel for goods). Also some places will effectively have only one laptop per family, or multiple families.
The laptops *desktop* is in fact a load of icons which show your position within the community of laptops. It is a very cool idea.
As for Rugged. The laptops are extremely rugged and are designed to be very portable, work without an electric power source (hand generator) and works as its own router for other laptops.
American products and Americans are still overpriced relative to their European counterparts even with that drop in the dollar. Just goes to show how distorted an economy can become when it's based on the currency being the oil reserve currency.
Course. There's also the quality problem as well.
Deleted
It's very hard to find mud huts in Argentina and I don't think there is a big fraction of the population living in huts in either Brazil, Libya, Nigeria, Uruguay nor Rwanda. And I can promise you that if they were fixable in the field, there would be an cottage industry growing in a mattar of months.
People don't want to be locked into something, so they fix things themselves.
The Sinclair Spectrum changed my life and was less featured and same priced as this machine, I could not found a reason to be against this OLPC program ...
"One Laptop Per Child" will change its name to reflect this change, it will know be known as "Four Laptops Per Seven Children"
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand