One can pick up a copy of Vista, or the new Simpsons Movie, or just about anything for a little over a dollar in China. Since IP is not enforced or respected there, the sales price is not based on the development cost of the product, but on the cost of the actual materials sold. Thus everything that comes on a dvd, costs about a buck. By Western standards, a 66% discount is great. By Chinese standards, it's still over 60 times more expensive than what they can currently get it for.
I, for one, welcome our new pedigree space porcine overlords.
Computers are nice. Computers are fun...
on
The Hundred-Buck PC
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Hey, this is the slashdot crowd. If and when this product comes out, we'll have it disected and running as a media box in a few minutes.
As for the intended purpose of it providing low cost computing power to the masses, they are missing the entire point. Aside from the fact that the poorest areas of the world lacking any type of consistant electricity, let alone bandwidth, what use is a computer when you are hungry? Sure, the ubergeeks out there consider bandwidth more of a necessity than hygiene (and it freaking show sometimes), but we need to remember it is still a luxury to people working on other issues, such as nutrition and shelter.
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One can pick up a copy of Vista, or the new Simpsons Movie, or just about anything for a little over a dollar in China. Since IP is not enforced or respected there, the sales price is not based on the development cost of the product, but on the cost of the actual materials sold. Thus everything that comes on a dvd, costs about a buck. By Western standards, a 66% discount is great. By Chinese standards, it's still over 60 times more expensive than what they can currently get it for.
Death, as we know it, will die.
First a "Dead Like Me" reference, then a Cthulhu reference. "That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die."
Well, since death will die, I for one, welcome our OLD, many-angled, overlords.
I, for one, welcome our new pedigree space porcine overlords.
Hey, this is the slashdot crowd. If and when this product comes out, we'll have it disected and running as a media box in a few minutes. As for the intended purpose of it providing low cost computing power to the masses, they are missing the entire point. Aside from the fact that the poorest areas of the world lacking any type of consistant electricity, let alone bandwidth, what use is a computer when you are hungry? Sure, the ubergeeks out there consider bandwidth more of a necessity than hygiene (and it freaking show sometimes), but we need to remember it is still a luxury to people working on other issues, such as nutrition and shelter.
Ask Woz!