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$100 laptops' here by next year


kopi_O

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A hand-cranked laptop that will cost roughly $100 is expected to be in the hands of schoolchildren in poorer countries by late 2006.

MIT Media Lab chair Nicholas Negroponte said at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia that his non-profit organisation was negotiating with manufacturers and would have an initial order placed by February or March. Thailand and Brazil are among the six governments that have showed the strongest interest, Negroponte said.

The final design, shown for the first time at the UN Internet conference, incorporates a low-power display designed by project engineer Mary Lou Jepsen that's designed to run for up to 40 minutes in black-and-white mode with 1 minute of cranking.

The case colour is a combination of a lime green and a yellow hue. "It was the hardest decision," said Negroponte, who runs the One Laptop Per Child non-profit group that's organizing the effort. "We wanted to use colour because it's a message of playfulness."

"This is truly a moving experience," said UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, who showed up at the beginning of the event. "It's also a moving expression of global solidarity and corporate citizenship."

In principle, the project seems simple: design a laptop with built-in wireless and minimal power consumption, find manufacturers willing to build it for about $100, convince governments to buy it in quantities of at least a million as an initial order, and give it to schoolchildren to keep as their own property. (The goal is tens of millions produced and distributed within two years.)

But negotiating with governments has proved to be strenuous — Negroponte called it "very hard" — and the price quotes to build the machine remain closer to $110 than $100. "We're not even going to promise they're $100," he said. "They may be $115. What we're promising is that the price will float down."

Another worry is what happens to the laptops after they're handed gratis to students with families that are struggling to survive. The average Nigerian, for instance, makes $1,000 a year — so a family would have a strong incentive to sell the laptop because they need the money.

"One of the things you want to do is make sure there's no secondary market," Negroponte said. He said one solution would be to make sure "the machine will be disabled if it doesn't log in to the network for a few days."

The proposed design of the machines calls for a 500MHz processor, 1GB of memory and a unique dual-mode display that can be used in full-colour mode, or in a black-and-white sunlight-readable mode. It's not clear yet how much cranking will be needed for the higher-power colour mode.

It's expected to run an open source operating system, probably Linux, Negroponte said, rather than a proprietary product from Apple or Microsoft. Companies including Google, AMD, News Corp and Red Hat have donated to the project.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/mobile/0,...39237304,00.htm

:D

smile will come from these poor kids

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I saw this being debated on Newsnight last night, it was basically saying this isn't going to work. I agree to a certain extent.

For $100, you can buy a family meal bag for over 6 months for a family of 4. Or you can buy 100 MMR jabs and other vaccines.

You can buy a roof and 9 brickwalls, 4 spring suspended duvet bed , a door and 3 windows including the optional door-mat for just $115 that could fit a family of 4 in.

Or, you could alternativly, spend all your savings on 1 laptop. How bad is that? Concentrate on main learning facilities and well-being before buying a laptop.

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I saw this being debated on Newsnight last night, it was basically saying this isn't going to work. I agree to a certain extent.

For $100, you can buy a family meal bag for over 6 months for a family of 4. Or you can buy 100 MMR jabs and other vaccines.

You can buy a roof and 9 brickwalls, 4 spring suspended duvet bed , a door and 3 windows including the optional door-mat for just $115 that could fit a family of 4 in.

Or, you could alternativly, spend all your savings on 1 laptop. How bad is that? Concentrate on main learning facilities and well-being before buying a laptop.

they trying to do them in some schools here too. the laptops where worthless and crap. just more money down the drain.

as for international, i believe this line says it all, "average Nigerian". do we really need more email spam?

this is part of the UN internet tax plan for america, canada, japan and western european nations to pay for these worthless laptops. like most UN plans the rest of the world will be exempt. just another fund site that certain UN members and their friends can steal from.

also remember these 3rd world nations dont usually have eletrical networks. guess who will have to pay for that?

most of their people cant read or write. what language will they have the keyboard for them?

this is just a bad idea all the way around. in the end the cheap laptops of a 1/10th of normal cost will in up in criminals and terrorist hands. paid for by you and me

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this is just a bad idea all the way around. in the end the cheap laptops of a 1/10th of normal cost will in up in criminals and terrorist hands

This is real bad if that happen :D

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I saw this being debated on Newsnight last night, it was basically saying this isn't going to work. I agree to a certain extent.

For $100, you can buy a family meal bag for over 6 months for a family of 4. Or you can buy 100 MMR jabs and other vaccines.

You can buy a roof and 9 brickwalls, 4 spring suspended duvet bed , a door and 3 windows including the optional door-mat for just $115 that could fit a family of 4 in.

Or, you could alternativly, spend all your savings on 1 laptop. How bad is that? Concentrate on main learning facilities and well-being before buying a laptop.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

they trying to do them in some schools here too. the laptops where worthless and crap. just more money down the drain.

as for international, i believe this line says it all, "average Nigerian". do we really need more email spam?

this is part of the UN internet tax plan for america, canada, japan and western european nations to pay for these worthless laptops. like most UN plans the rest of the world will be exempt. just another fund site that certain UN members and their friends can steal from.

also remember these 3rd world nations dont usually have eletrical networks. guess who will have to pay for that?

most of their people cant read or write. what language will they have the keyboard for them?

this is just a bad idea all the way around. in the end the cheap laptops of a 1/10th of normal cost will in up in criminals and terrorist hands. paid for by you and me

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

They haven't released in the UK as of yet and possibly never I hope. I don't see the point in these creations, it's not even a laptop. It's like one of them Veto boards you get for little kids, it's not worth the money.

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I saw another version of this story floating around awhile back but I can't find a link to the original article. It seemed that the program was geared more torwards the U.S. with several states and the aforemeentioned list of corporate conglomoraters fronting in the order of multi-millions to get the program rolling.

The article went on to disclose that the MIT design team was having a hard time meeting the requirements of the project (a simple low end laptop capable of doing homework for under $100) and a prototype was yet to be seen and may never be produced.

There was also mention of another company poised to produce said laptops once the design was finalized which would be making out like a bandit given the current financing scheme.

All the additional new details, dressing it up as an international affair and the hysterical hand crank idea, make it seem even more like "One Laptop Per Child" group is a Hoax, or worse yet an out right fraud.

The "average Nigerian" makes it all the more funny though.

big laughs.

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