The fact the technology can be deployed at a reasonable cost. The need for content development. The mesh networking. The need for the inexpensive village server and internet connectivity. Ways to effencently power the devices..... Something of substance.
Let's talk substance.
The Simputer also began as a well-hyped charitable project, an attempt to bring the computer to the third-world masses. It didn't quite work out that way.
I think it is fair to ask whether Negroponte's estimates are realistic.
The laptop has to take all the physical abuse a kid can deliver. It has to survive in environments that would stress military-grade components. But cost no more than a Bayless clockwork radio in the West.
It seems a little late in the day to be talking about the core OS.
That suggests there are problems elsewhere. With the GUI. With applications. With storage. With networking. With power consumption generally.
2 Why not just install the one lang support package for each destination country?
Perhaps because many counties are multi-lingual? With one or more "official" languages and others that need to be supported for cultural or economic reasons.
the money sum is not impressive even for slashdotters here, however the strategic gain is somewhere else: by using Linux, China already spared some billions of dollars need not be payed for Microsoft Windows
There is no great gain if Linux running on commodity hardware is simply replacing Unix and big iron in the back office.
Windows generates a lot of employment and export dollars for China. Don't be surprised if the government's commitment to Linux is something less than total.
I would have thought that was obvious. With a population of 1.3 billion, even very low comsumption per capita is a very big drain on the world's supply.
1. I disagree with Microsoft's anti-customer policies as of late, including no de-activation, their suing of customers, and their DRM-infested media player.
The only OEM Linux distros with a toe-hold in big box retail support DRM because home users want media content from the major providers. Subscription radio. Online rental and sales.
Not everyone has the time or patience to troll the P2P nets for an amateur's mp3 rips. Not when they can get flat-fee rental access to millions of licensed tracks.
2. I believe Microsoft has been abusing their monopoly status, especially since SmartSuite and WordPerfect have been rendered impotent in the marketplace.
WordPerfect has passed from hand to hand like an unwanted foster child. Its owners showing an unmatched capacity for self-destruction.
As someone who grew up in one, boy, would you ever be surprised
Our family has lived in and about this town for 200 years.
There were 25 in my Father's Senior class. His Red Brick School (constructed ca. 1890) for all grades is now the community center. I remember it as my elementary school.
I have been known by sight since the day I was born.
Get the next generation comfortable with being tracked 24/7?
and how many generations of kids past do you think were used to being tracked 24/7? assuming they had any significant mobility at all.
anoymnity is a late twentieth century conceit.
it doesn't exist in a rural society or small town. it didn't exist in a traditional inner city neighborhood. where territories were, if anything, even more rigidly defined.
I'm all for prosecuting people who break the law -- but in a court system, not by an under-the-table system that borders on (or may be) blackmail.
Out-of-Court settlements in civil actions are the norm in the United States.
Ordinary civil actions are, by their very nature, initiated by aggrieved party, not the state.
The RIAA has the right to investigate and pursue infringement of its members' copyrights. It has the right to propose a settlement.
There are risks for the accussed infringer in going into court.
If there is a finding for the plaintiff (not a conviction, this is a civil case, remember) damages may be assessed according to a statutory formula or other rule.
No need for proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
The final bill is likely to much more painful than the four grand he could have settled for earlier and it is not a debt that can be discharged in bankruptcy.
I bet if they ressurrected a bunch of old animators and had them produce a new Bugs Bunny cartoon, using old-fashioned 2D art, it would be just as big a hit as some modern/fancier show like "Ice Age". The story can be far more important.
The Warner team in their prime could have produced a witty fractured fairy tale like Shrek. But anything more subtle and demanding, in character, in story, in action, almost certainly not. The Iron Giant, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, are unmistakably rooted in the Disney tradition.
The Narnian Chronicles has the potential to become Disney's Harry Potter, a franchise that will be generating revenue for the studio for decades to come.
The books have never been out of print since their first publication in the 1950s.
Disney can absorb massive losses from films like "Atlantis" and "Treasure Planet" and still maintain its independence. It can afford to show years/decades of patience, to allow an unsuccessful theatrical release to find its true audience on home video. But a smaller studio can be broken by a short string of financial failures, none of which are remotely on the same scale.
Who needs proprietary, crashing software and overpriced, overheating hardware which lasts for 2 hours after a charge, when you can buy a $150 laptop at Wal-Mart and THAT'S IT! Never buy anything else until the next laptop. Microsoft will be gutted.
The domestic PC market is middle class, always has been. There is no room at the bottom. Don't believe me? Take a look at Walmart.com.
This is the first time I've heard Dell being accussed of inefficiency in production, as for the MIT laptop, it is wholly dependent on the asian giants like Samsung.
Are people really going to pay 25% of the cost of the machines for the OS?
The reality is that OEM Linux at Walmart is no cheaper than OEM Windows from Dell.
How do you fight AIDS in Africa, with a sub-machine gun?
The Freeplay Foundation uses radio, all-but-indestructible clockwork and solar powered multiband portables that can be manufactured anywhere.
The MITS laptop is dependent on the giant asian OEMS. Exchange rates, production and shipping costs. It wouldn't take much to push the project over the edge.
The infrastructure for radio is in place and we have seventy-five years of experience in educational broadcasting on which to build. Shortwave means that news filters in from outside.
The networking of the MITS laptop seems limited and fragile. You are essentially limited to whatever information the local powers-that-be are willing and able to provide.
I can't believe Bill Gates' comments regarding the sub $100 laptop. It just proves that all his donations to charity from his huge coffers don't really come from his geniune desire to help people in need, but rather to glorify himself.
Or, just maybe, he thinks fightng AIDS among Africa's orphaned kids fills a tad more urgent need than MITS phantom $100 laptop.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's talk substance.
The Simputer also began as a well-hyped charitable project, an attempt to bring the computer to the third-world masses. It didn't quite work out that way.
I think it is fair to ask whether Negroponte's estimates are realistic.
The laptop has to take all the physical abuse a kid can deliver. It has to survive in environments that would stress military-grade components. But cost no more than a Bayless clockwork radio in the West.
It seems a little late in the day to be talking about the core OS.
That suggests there are problems elsewhere. With the GUI. With applications. With storage. With networking. With power consumption generally.
Perhaps because many counties are multi-lingual? With one or more "official" languages and others that need to be supported for cultural or economic reasons.
There is no great gain if Linux running on commodity hardware is simply replacing Unix and big iron in the back office.
Windows generates a lot of employment and export dollars for China. Don't be surprised if the government's commitment to Linux is something less than total.
I would have thought that was obvious. With a population of 1.3 billion, even very low comsumption per capita is a very big drain on the world's supply.
The US population is about 300,000,000. China 1,300,000,000.
And which would that be, the West which began industrialization in the eighteenth century or the East which began in the twentieth?
The only OEM Linux distros with a toe-hold in big box retail support DRM because home users want media content from the major providers. Subscription radio. Online rental and sales.
Not everyone has the time or patience to troll the P2P nets for an amateur's mp3 rips. Not when they can get flat-fee rental access to millions of licensed tracks.
2. I believe Microsoft has been abusing their monopoly status, especially since SmartSuite and WordPerfect have been rendered impotent in the marketplace.
WordPerfect has passed from hand to hand like an unwanted foster child. Its owners showing an unmatched capacity for self-destruction.
I Would take that as a place where facts counts for more than suspicion.
We should all have Microsoft's problems. No debt. Forty billion or so in spare change. A 90% share in our core markets.
The PC has been sold as a plug and play office machine and home appliance for over twenty-five years. The OEM system install is the norm.
System builders may disagree, but the numbers say that the DIY market is as dead as Heathkit.
Because of the three remaining OEM Linux boxes sold out of Walmart.com, two run Linspire. The chain, it seems, has lost patience with Linux.
where questionable politics = retail-boxed and OEM Linux that can play media files without "stealing" a codec from Windows.
Our family has lived in and about this town for 200 years.
There were 25 in my Father's Senior class. His Red Brick School (constructed ca. 1890) for all grades is now the community center. I remember it as my elementary school.
I have been known by sight since the day I was born.
and how many generations of kids past do you think were used to being tracked 24/7? assuming they had any significant mobility at all.
anoymnity is a late twentieth century conceit.
it doesn't exist in a rural society or small town. it didn't exist in a traditional inner city neighborhood. where territories were, if anything, even more rigidly defined.
Out-of-Court settlements in civil actions are the norm in the United States.
Ordinary civil actions are, by their very nature, initiated by aggrieved party, not the state.
The RIAA has the right to investigate and pursue infringement of its members' copyrights. It has the right to propose a settlement.
There are risks for the accussed infringer in going into court.
If there is a finding for the plaintiff (not a conviction, this is a civil case, remember) damages may be assessed according to a statutory formula or other rule.
No need for proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
The final bill is likely to much more painful than the four grand he could have settled for earlier and it is not a debt that can be discharged in bankruptcy.
There is still truth in the old adage that a man who represents himself has a fool for a client.
Then ask for continuance after continuance for discovery.
You will find federal judges unsympathetic and unkind to your strategy of delay, delay, delay.
Even if you don't fully understand what they are doing, act like you are in control and they can't win. If you press forward this way, they can't win.
Ever the optimist. The amatuer in the courtroom is never in control.
The Warner team in their prime could have produced a witty fractured fairy tale like Shrek. But anything more subtle and demanding, in character, in story, in action, almost certainly not. The Iron Giant, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, are unmistakably rooted in the Disney tradition.
On a budget of $180 million USD "Narnia" has grossed $718 million USD worldwide. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
The DVD was released this week.
The Narnian Chronicles has the potential to become Disney's Harry Potter, a franchise that will be generating revenue for the studio for decades to come.
The books have never been out of print since their first publication in the 1950s.
Disney can absorb massive losses from films like "Atlantis" and "Treasure Planet" and still maintain its independence. It can afford to show years/decades of patience, to allow an unsuccessful theatrical release to find its true audience on home video. But a smaller studio can be broken by a short string of financial failures, none of which are remotely on the same scale.
For thousands of years the professional in music was supported by the state, aristocratic, clerical and royal patronage, and the merchant prince.
Much of what Americans think of as folk music was written, published, and performed commercially:
"When the wind blows the cradle will rock..."
The domestic PC market is middle class, always has been. There is no room at the bottom. Don't believe me? Take a look at Walmart.com.
This is the first time I've heard Dell being accussed of inefficiency in production, as for the MIT laptop, it is wholly dependent on the asian giants like Samsung.
Are people really going to pay 25% of the cost of the machines for the OS?
The reality is that OEM Linux at Walmart is no cheaper than OEM Windows from Dell.
You go to C. Crane for the Freeplay FreeCharge:
"step down on the pedal and the generator spins. Charging to full power takes modest dedication."
Yeah, well. Dedication. Before getting in any deeper you might want to ask a vet, an old-timer, about what it takes to work a hand-cranked dynamo.
Have your credit card ready, because portable power is not cheap.
The Freeplay Foundation uses radio, all-but-indestructible clockwork and solar powered multiband portables that can be manufactured anywhere.
The MITS laptop is dependent on the giant asian OEMS. Exchange rates, production and shipping costs. It wouldn't take much to push the project over the edge.
The infrastructure for radio is in place and we have seventy-five years of experience in educational broadcasting on which to build. Shortwave means that news filters in from outside.
The networking of the MITS laptop seems limited and fragile. You are essentially limited to whatever information the local powers-that-be are willing and able to provide.
and maybe you should wait until the MITS laptop goes into production and we see what it can do and how much it will cost.
if this $100 laptop, now a $135 laptop, becomes a $200 laptop and then a $300 laptop, it could go the way of the Simputer.
priced out of reach of its intended market.
Or, just maybe, he thinks fightng AIDS among Africa's orphaned kids fills a tad more urgent need than MITS phantom $100 laptop.