“The $100 laptop project, One Laptop Per Child, is claiming that four developing countries have ordered 4 million laptops (one million each),” Jason Denwood reports for PocketLint.com.
“The Linux-based laptops come with their own power sources (including wind-up) and offer a dual-mode display, which gives users a full-colour, transmissive DVD mode and a secondary black and white reflective and sunlight-readable display,” Denwood reports. “The computers operate at 500 MHz, about half the processor speed of commercial laptops, and will run on Linux rather than Microsoft’s or Apple’s Operating systems as previously hoped by the two companies.”
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s “slowest” notebook runs at 1.83GHz (and that’s dual core) which is quite a bit faster than double the processor speed of these $100 laptops.
Denwood continues, “Earlier this year, Bill Gates rubbished the MIT $100 laptop saying: ‘The last thing you want to do for a shared-use computer is have it be something without a disk … and with a tiny little screen.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: While we think it would have been best if the project took Steve Jobs up on his offer of free Mac OS X for the machines, Linux is the next best alternative. Microsoft’s Windows is the loser if these things become prevalent around the world.
Related articles:
Apple’s Jobs offered Mac OS X free to $100 laptop developers, declined because it’s not open source – November 14, 2005
There are many who think this is wonderful. I have mixed feelings. I work with people within the United States who are marginalized by poverty or illegal immigration status. Their needs are not related to computing, but learning basic skills. Most have access to any type of tech they want in schools here, but have a psychological and educational barrier to it all. Makes me wonder if places even less developed, with fewer opportunities for the majority of people are going to get what they’re expecting from these, or if the money could be otherwise spent? Time will tell.
Good luck to them all.
Why do poor people smell like sour milk?
So you’re saying that because people are in poverty, that they cannot make use of the opportunities around them, due to some “educational” or “psychological” barrier? This is despite the fact they have access to the technology in the schools and, I’m assuming, that they attend school? I’m quite puzzled as to what else they need.
What you’re really angling for is additional public money to be spent on illegal aliens (i.e. future deportees). That is cultural and national suicide and those folks need to be “marginalized” right out of the country. Why Mexico can’t make their own country appealing to their own people, I have no idea, but that’s their problem — NOT ours. Charity freaking begins at home.
There is a reason that Bill Gates is putting most of his money towards health care in impoverished countries. Vaccinating children will do a whole lot more for improving quality of life in these countries than will teaching them how to use a word processor.
Bubba?
Bubba?
Did you get your weekly paycheck for the new drug trial experiments you signed up for?
how does a $100 computer count toward market share?
Maybe now, we can teach the next generation of phishers from Africa how to do it better on a *NIX machine. Possibly even come up with a Mac virus….who knows?
Seriously. Take care of basic needs first. Anyone that thinks that a computer is going to help solve a child problems (who has to deal with bad nutrition, poor education, and roving death squad gangs) is out of thier mind. Very seldom is technology the answer to any question when happiness is the goal.
MDN, your take was off the mark this time.
Apple is as concerned about the One Laptop Per Child project as Ford/Toyota/etc. is worried about Huffy (an American brand of inexpensive bicycles). In both cases, they just do not compete.
However, thankyou for keeping us informed on the One Laptop Per Child project, and please keep it up. Thanks!
While critic makes a good point about healthcare, IF this works it could help these folks earn MONEY, which–last time I checked–is kind of useful when you’re trying to get out of POVERTY. India and Romania are proving that in spades. Technology is a big part of why western nations are able to help themselves (though not the only one), so we shouldn’t quite jump down the throat of the proponents of this idea. On the other hand, my biggest question about this initiative is whether it really can work. It may not help the tribes in the bush, but maybe it can do something for the teeming masses in Nairobi and similar places.
Let these kids play with Linux on their little machine and, with time and efforts, they’ll get a job and will make the money to get a Mac to run Linux, iLife, etc. Where’s MS in all that? … exactly
There is an old saying, “give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime”. Taking care of basic needs is important – it’s hard to learn anything when you’re hungry – but providing people the means to escape their poverty is more important in the long run.
The question is, though, how does a $100 laptop do that? I’m not sure it does.
doodleDude:
“There is an old saying, “give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime”. Taking care of basic needs is important – it’s hard to learn anything when you’re hungry – but providing people the means to escape their poverty is more important in the long run.
The question is, though, how does a $100 laptop do that? I’m not sure it does.”
Think Nigeria and the 419 Scam…
It’s an interesting experiment. Some kids are gonna eat these machines up, not literally, and end up getting great jobs and making contributions that even we may feel some day. Others will send the machines to landfills.
I wish them luck, but clearly I am not alone in my skepticism. Saddly, I have visions of third-world cartel bosses recruiting 10 and 12 year impoverished children and their $100 laptops and assigning them bot networks and phishing scams to run; all for a couple of dollars a day.
Glad I use a Mac though.
Having orders for 4,000,000 units is not the same thing as being able to produce 4,000,000 units.
Offer a $100 computer in the US and you’ll get more than 4,000,000 orders, but so what, you still can’t produce them.
This project is doomed because it is totally reliant on the largesse of others to succeed. It requires that Intel produce vast quantities of 6 year old processors (then give them away for free). The same thing goes for displays, HDs, memory, Mobos, chassis’, power supplies, etc.
At least somebody isn’t trying to solve a problem with bombs.
DoodleDude –
You nailed it.
G-Spank – look at the Gates foundation if you need a real example of trying to solve a problem without bombs.
Had an interesting conversation with an Attorney friend. They are doing business in Ghana because cigarettes are being doled out free to kids by tobacco companies. Ghana has an unusually high rate of lung cancer in young adults. This law firm is trying to help recoup medical costs associated with treatments a for those who can get it.
We like to bash Bill, sure – it’s fun. But compared to what some domestic companies are doing – he’s a freaking saint.
Lifetime Mac User.
cb
Sooooo tired of the “poor people need food/vaccination more than computers” argument.
And perhaps not coincidentally, I also have yet to hear this argument from anyone who’s actually lifting a finger to feed or vaccinate people.
ABW, baby!!! Anything But Winblows!
Not to defend, but Bubba’s comment is a direct quote from a South Park episode.
Funny how the poverty stricken countries that are on the fringe of big advances, China and india in particular are primarily doing so on the back of technology and in particular computer orientated technology. Claiming that such technology is of no use to Africans because they are poor therefore is a claim that the evidence simply does not support. Even if they only use it to improve on the production and efficiency in agriculture which will still be at the heart of advancement it would be far better for them to develop this general capability and knowledge base themselves via this scheme than paying millions to Bill Gates and his cohorts so that he can give a little back and claim what a wonderful and genorous fellow he is.
cb, what makes you think I need a “real” example, and that the “real” example is the Bill Gates foundation? Do you honestly think I can find no other examples? My sentence wasn’t exclusive. The ego changes the type.
from the strength of you response.
According to wired magazine this machine will cost 140 dollars and not have a wind up power supply. As for the people who think poor people don’t need computers, they need food, its true only for certain cases. There are plenty of places around the world where people are perfectly happy, well feed poor people. They can’t afford a normal computer and yet this inexpensive thing will allow them greater oppurtunties then they already had.
THIS COMPUTER IS NOT FOR PEOPLE WHO DON”T HAVE ENOUGH FOOD TO EAT!!!!!! Lots of countries are poor, but are perfectly healthy well working countries!
1) the four countries that pre-ordered are: Nigeria, Brazil, Argentina, and Thailand
2) images of the laptop are:
http://www.laptop.org/download.en_US.html
3) the FAQs are:
http://www.laptop.org/faq.en_US.html
4) my 2¢ are:
* people in developed countries take so many basics for granted — constant electricity, carrying cases for transport, shelter from direct sun and dust — that when these become luxuries, trying to build up from that can seem like putting the cart before the horse