I go to Cornell and can tell you EXACTLY why Florida won. A recent-graduate engineer that had worked on this project completely changed the thrust mechanism and it was never the same. CUAV was on track for victory.
buying 100 textbooks would cost A LOT more than buying one pocket PC and loading 100 free e-books.
as for textbooks rarely breaking, that is where my 9th grade Spanish teacher and I never saw eye to eye.
read the article.
"They are wi-fi enabled and run on licence-free open source software to keep costs down."
The kenyans are obviously not buying the handhelds. The open-source is helping the company supply as many hnadhelds as possible.
but will it work? I work at an international relief NGO and supplying textbooks has always been a huge barrier for education in Africa. Maybe this will be a key test for open source in developing countries. An issue with developing countries and free services is that often these poor people will sell the "gifts" on a black market or steal someone else's in order to get food and water.
Maybe a way to end this would be for Microsoft to patent the taking of free goods and services and reselling them for personal gain.
Slashdot Mirror
I go to Cornell and can tell you EXACTLY why Florida won. A recent-graduate engineer that had worked on this project completely changed the thrust mechanism and it was never the same. CUAV was on track for victory.
as boycotting cancer. In future news: Paul Thurrott has been hired by Microsoft to lead its new Marketing and Strategies Division.
buying 100 textbooks would cost A LOT more than buying one pocket PC and loading 100 free e-books.
as for textbooks rarely breaking, that is where my 9th grade Spanish teacher and I never saw eye to eye.
Yes, and textbooks also cost a lot of money and are outdated quickly (you can put hundreds of textbooks on a handheld pc).
read the article. "They are wi-fi enabled and run on licence-free open source software to keep costs down." The kenyans are obviously not buying the handhelds. The open-source is helping the company supply as many hnadhelds as possible.
but will it work? I work at an international relief NGO and supplying textbooks has always been a huge barrier for education in Africa. Maybe this will be a key test for open source in developing countries. An issue with developing countries and free services is that often these poor people will sell the "gifts" on a black market or steal someone else's in order to get food and water.
Maybe a way to end this would be for Microsoft to patent the taking of free goods and services and reselling them for personal gain.