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Negroponte Offers OLPC Technology For India's $35 Tablet
angry tapir writes "One Laptop Per Child wants to join forces to help develop the Indian government's planned $35 tablet. In a congratulatory note to the government, OLPC Chairman Nicholas Negroponte said the world needs the $35 tablet, and he offered the country full access to OLPC hardware and software technology."
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Nou. You are trolling.
What could India possibly learn from the rudderless OLPC project? They've lost their core software team, sold out to Intel then lost their support by foolishly trying to monopolise the low-end, sold out to Microsoft and then have been undermined by the MS drive for Windows netbooks, refused to deal with small deployments, *and* come nowhere close to their target price. About the only thing that has survived that project from inception is the glorious leader Negroponte. His promise today is worthless. The only thing they could learn from Negroponte is what not to do; over-promise and under-deliver, but unfortunately, given their silly promise of a $35 touchscreen tablet which they haven't got the tech for, it seems that boat has already sailed.
What India should be doing with this is creating a smart machine for $35, without a touchscreen (impossible to get a good one at that price), possibly with something like a trackpad, but the input method doesn't matter - make it a good ereader and mandate that it is used by all schools looking to buy tech for education.
That would give them the customer base to create a truly mass-market device, and the groundswell of interest and enthusiasm from bright young Indians to make it a success, and allow them to commission software for it that would really make a difference to education in a country which is dependent on it for its future. English is already the primary medium of instruction, and there are huge numbers of existing free texts in English which would make such a device incredibly useful to students everywhere, not just in India. Even just a web browsing device this cheap with a larger screen than a phone would be a breakthrough for many students.
What could India possibly learn from the rudderless OLPC project? They've lost their core software team, sold out to Intel then lost their support by foolishly trying to monopolise the low-end, sold out to Microsoft and then have been undermined by the MS drive for Windows netbooks, refused to deal with small deployments, *and* come nowhere close to their target price. About the only thing that has survived that project from inception is the glorious leader Negroponte. His promise today is worthless. The only thing they could learn from Negroponte is what not to do; over-promise and under-deliver, but unfortunately, given their silly promise of a $35 touchscreen tablet which they haven't got the tech for, it seems that boat has already sailed.
What India should be doing with this is creating a smart machine for $35, without a touchscreen (impossible to get a good one at that price), possibly with something like a trackpad, but the input method doesn't matter - make it a good ereader and mandate that it is used by all schools looking to buy tech for education.
That would give them the customer base to create a truly mass-market device, and the groundswell of interest and enthusiasm from bright young Indians to make it a success, and allow them to commission software for it that would really make a difference to education in a country which is dependent on it for its future. English is already the primary medium of instruction, and there are huge numbers of existing free texts in English which would make such a device incredibly useful to students everywhere, not just in India. Even just a web browsing device this cheap with a larger screen than a phone would be a breakthrough for many students.
What could India possibly learn from the rudderless OLPC project? They've lost their core software team, sold out to Intel then lost their support by foolishly tryi