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India Will Show Its $10 Laptop Prototype
Tech Ticker writes "The Indian Government last year announced the development of a cheap $10 laptop, but was later rectified as $100 laptop. Now the government has announced that HRD minister Arjun Singh will unveil the prototype of a Rs. 500 ($10) computer. The computer is developed by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Chennai. No specifications were revealed but DNA, a daily newspaper, has mentioned that it will be small and portable, will feature Wi-Fi, LAN, and expandable memory, and will operate on 2 watts of power."
It didn't succeed because Negroponte wouldn't let anyone who wanted one buy it. It's that simple. Had he done that he would have sold enough of them to get them into the field and had money to continue development and produce them faster.
So what stopped Negroponte was....Negroponte.
Uhm, sources for this, please? According to the Wikipedia entry, there's an estimated 1,000,000 units sold http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Laptop_per_Child#Summary_of_laptop_orders and according to a recent written interview with Negroponte, they're about to deploy the 1,000,000th unit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Laptop_per_Child#Summary_of_laptop_orders --- so I fail to see where your assertion holds together. You can't take orders for a million units and be all that selective about who buys them. Through the B1G1 / G1G1 programs anyone with a valid credit card could purchase. That certainly sounds like an open door.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
By most accounts, and the most important of them is the GDP per capita
Translated into dollars or into Big Macs? There's a difference. Plenty of countries have deeply undervalued currencies, which makes the cost of living in those countries appear a lot cheaper than the cost of a comparable lifestyle in North America, Europe, Japan, or the Republic of Korea. Look up purchasing power parity and The Economist's Big Mac Index in the encyclopedia, and follow the references if you're interested.
Yamuna, the river on the banks of which the capital city of India is located, is one such river.
"Yamuna is one of the most polluted rivers in the world, especially around New Delhi, the capital of India, which dumps about 57% of its waste into the river."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamuna
Each country has its own education policy... they'd never accept the OLPC if it imposed its own educational curricula. There's no such thing as a "neutral" educational material...
I know what you're thinking, but no, not even for math! ... during the years of military government here in Argentina it was forbidden to teach through Sets theory. It became the norm later, when democracy returned. ... Even without that craziness, there are a lot of ways to approach math.
As a Slashdot discussion grows longer, the probability of an analogy involving cars approaches one.
Having been to India for work, specifically Bangalore, I can tell you that there are places you can go that you would think you are in your office in the US or Europe. In fact, really the only things I noticed while at work were the different plugs you had to use. Well, and the large number of Indian workers, but that wasn't a massive change from work in the US. :)
However, go anywhere outside of your nice office complexes, hotels and living accommodations and you *know* you are in India. It looks exactly how I would expect a third world country to look. Gutted buildings, tents set up for people to live under on-ramps, terrible roads, almost no street signals (not that anyone would obey them anyway). Go outside a city and its even more obvious.
Let's be clear, I'm not saying India is a horrible place, but its clear that they would need a lot of changes to have the same feel you might have living in the West.
If you have ever been to Jamaica, India outside the office parks looks just like Jamaica outside the resorts, except with a LOT more people.
And rule of thumb, eat the Indian food in India. The faux Western food sucks ass. If you are invited to go to TGI Friday's, make sure you bring a good amount of money, its one of the more expensive places in Bangalore.