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The Internet Government Politics Technology

UN Internet Summit High Points 187

hotsauce writes "Negroponte has unveiled his $100 laptop with Kofi Annan at the UN Internet summit. The plan is to have several countries, both rich and poor, sign up for at least a million each of these machines within a year. Many countries and companies seem interested. Also at the UN summit, the ITU is predicting an internet of things, and warning that social safeguards need to be put in place, as the BBC gleefully talks about employers watching workers via RFID tags." From the article: "Although children will be able to interact with each other through the machines, education was still the priority for the laptops. But by using mesh networking, the vision is for children to interact while doing homework, and even share homework tips on a local community scale. "
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UN Internet Summit High Points

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  • by sam_paris ( 919837 ) on Thursday November 17, 2005 @11:39AM (#14053322)
    Looks like a few million africans are gonna get their first taste of hardcore porn!

    Here's to the internet!!
    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17, 2005 @11:58AM (#14053547)
      http://www.bnamericas.com/story.jsp?sector=1&idiom a=I&noticia=334597 [bnamericas.com]

      Govt snubs US$100 laptop program - Argentina, Chile
      Published: Thursday, November 3, 2005 17:16 (GMT -0400)

      The Chilean government has announced that it will not participate in the "One Laptop Per Child" program being promoted by MIT Media Lab director Nicholas Negroponte, regional press reported on Thursday.

      While the Argentine government recently committed to purchasing at least half a million of the US$100 computers, the Chilean authorities showed no interest acquiring them.

      "The first shipment of these computers will be in either December 2006 and January 2007, so it would be utopian to commit [to buy] a number of computers that do not yet exist," Hugo Martínez, national director of the Chilean government's Enlaces technology program, was quoted as saying by local newspaper supplement Mouse.cl.

      "[We also have] questions about their educational use and about the contents and types of interaction that they would produce," said Martínez.

      Martínez also put forth an apparently protectionist argument, saying that Negroponte's program "could hurt local vendors if we don't develop a way for the ministry to buy machines that are not distributed by traditional channels."

      "In Chile there is a generalized rejection of innovation," countered Tim Delhaes, a local high-tech entrepreneur and general coordinator of open source initiative Viva Firefox. "In eight years of developing tech start-ups it was impossible to get government support for anything if you weren't an already established company," he said.

      "The government's decision to not participate in the US$100 laptop initiative almost certainly has to do with intense lobbying by Microsoft and Intel, companies the [Chilean] government has close ties to, because the laptop would use a Linux operating system and AMD chips," said Delhaes.

      The Chilean government plans to run a trial program of branded laptops in an unspecified number of schools during 2006, said Enlaces' Martínez, and would be more than happy to share its findings with Negroponte, he added.

      By Scott Sadowsky
      www.BNamericas.com
      • by amightywind ( 691887 ) on Thursday November 17, 2005 @01:40PM (#14054732) Journal

        Very interesting post, and correct. This laptop is a utopian fantasy looking for a problem. The point that 'gifts' like this distort fragile local economies is well made. The $100 would be better spend on immunization and a trip to the dentist for the kids. Good for Chile for judging this program for the boondoggle that it is.

        • I really don't get this attitude, especially on slashdot. I keep hearing people say, "There are better things we can spend the money on than computers and telecommunications. This is misguided. The Internet is not as important as other things."

          If this is so, then why are most people here (probably) using computers most of the day, every day? Is it because we are too weak to resist all the gaming and porn? The reason I am on a computer all day long is that it is the most efficient way for me to live in this
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • And thanks to the crank, they'll have something to do with their hands while they do!
  • by TripMaster Monkey ( 862126 ) * on Thursday November 17, 2005 @11:40AM (#14053332)

    More info on the $100 laptop, as well as some good pictures, can be found here [pocket-lint.co.uk].
  • by zenmojodaddy ( 754377 ) on Thursday November 17, 2005 @11:40AM (#14053335)
    Be thankful no-one's decided to call it The Thingternet. Yet.
  • by Viper Daimao ( 911947 ) on Thursday November 17, 2005 @11:41AM (#14053346) Journal
    share homework tips
  • by gambit3 ( 463693 ) on Thursday November 17, 2005 @11:41AM (#14053353) Homepage Journal
    But by using mesh networking, the vision is for children to interact while doing homework, and even share homework tips on a local community scale.

    Kids already have a way to interact while doing school work: It's called SCHOOL!

    Let's stop waiting and hoping for "Pie in the sky" solutions for problems that already have a low-tech solution.

    Let's start using what we have, and stop looking as technology as a panacea to fix the worlds' ills.
    • While I agree with the meaning of your post, I think interaction outside of the school (lessons) is an essential part of the success. Who would use a computer if it is just to write boring reports or to compute some math formulas? OTOH, who will exchange software, write games, share news/music, patch the kernel? It will take off only if they can use it for other purposes, if there is some kind of user groups, some helpfull adults, etc.
      • "Who would use a computer if it is just to write boring reports or to compute some math formulas?"

        EXACTLY! I mean, it's not like computers are business tools or anything, they're really just for all-u-can-download porn in ur room...

        even on the earliest PCs we had ASCII porn... hmm... maybe these laptops can have ASCII porn... wait, they display photos right? HMMMM... they might be useful after all.

        But the real question remains: can you browse with just one hand? [slashdot.org]

    • by NardofDoom ( 821951 ) on Thursday November 17, 2005 @12:13PM (#14053723)
      There are things we can do right now to improve the lives of people in Africa that don't involve Mesh networks. Things like investing in their infrastructure. Even in some of the richest countries the roads are predominantly dirt. By doing this, we'll improve health, increase access to education, and allow more people to interact more easily. If we put the money we're spending on these "miracle laptops" into building roads and water systems, I'm almost certain we'll see more results and it would magnify the impact of these machines.
      • This is the age old argument, 'give a man a fish' or 'teach a man to fish'. Yes we can build roads/power plants/drugs for them, OR we can improve education so they can eventually build their own 'roads'. You appear to be of the 'give a man a fish' school while the media lab is of the 'teach a man to fish' school. You are both right and you are both wrong.

        Solving the short term at the expense of the long term, is usually considered bad public policy (but usual public policy). Concentrating on the long te
    • I'm with parent on this one. What about, instead of giving poor countries these laptops, we give them things like food an electricity?

      Try as you might, you can't eat a laptop.
    • by manabadman ( 589984 ) on Thursday November 17, 2005 @01:38PM (#14054701)

      Kids already have a way to interact while doing school work: It's called SCHOOL!

      I grew up in a rural area of a third world country. All communication infrastructure is bad. There were no phones, the roads bad and public transportation almost non existent. I would have welcomed any possibility of interaction with other kids outside of school. Especially on weekends and holidays.

      Let's stop waiting and hoping for "Pie in the sky" solutions for problems that already have a low-techsolution.

      I have taught in a third world country. There simply are not enough trained teachers. Distance learning (formal or not) has the potential to make a difference.

      Let's start using what we have, and stop looking as technology as a panacea to fix the worlds' ills.

      I'm a scientist and an engineer. Using technology to try and help is what we do. If someone from another discipline has an idea that they think can work, please go ahead and help.

      Maybe $100 computers won't solve our problems, but the other things we've been trying for the past couple centuries don't seem to have been working out either. If computers don't help education that much, would all the first world countries please send the computers in their schools to schools in third world countries? If it doesn't work out for us either we can use the cases as traps to catch dinner.

      • Seriously, let's stop sending patronizing young 20somethings to teach our 'little brown brothers' how to farm or purify water or other essencial things. Maybe the problem isn't that there aren't enough pissant peace corps kids 'teaching' people to do things they only just learned about last week to begin with. Maybe it's not that they don't know how to farm the land or draw a well.

        Maybe the problem is that the water is contaminated or too deep and the land isn't good for farming anymore or other geographi
      • Distance learning (formal or not) has the potential to make a difference.

        Heck, can you imagine the sheer impact of merely having casual, immediate access to canned versions of Wikipedia? (Updated periodically via the aforementioned mesh networking.)

        It's good enough to completely replace textbooks in a rural school and turn out students with a genuine old-fashined "liberal education" - covering everything from biological taxonomy to the history of drama.

  • ...an RFID tag for my tinfoil hat?
  • "the vision is for children to interact while doing homework, and even share homework tips on a local community scale."

    Don't they actually mean children sharing homework .. rather than homework tips.

    As far as the laptops, good idea, since most processor and hardware is still effectively wasted in terms of what is actually needed to produce x amount of text, display a picture, act like a scientific calculator or display what amounts to a powerpoint deck.
  • by 14erCleaner ( 745600 ) <FourteenerCleaner@yahoo.com> on Thursday November 17, 2005 @11:44AM (#14053383) Homepage Journal
    From the BBC article: [The $100 laptop] can also be held and used like a handheld games console and can function as a TV.

    Apparently the plan is to rot the minds of third-world children, thus preventing them from becoming a threat to the US in the future. How diabolical! Kudos to the UN for facilitating this.

  • by SlashAmpersand ( 918025 ) on Thursday November 17, 2005 @11:45AM (#14053390)
    Hi, my name is XXXXXX, and I am a young member of the Nigerian Royal Family. I am in need of assistance from a trustworthy person. I have homework stored on a Nigerian Server, and I will gladly give you 10% of the homework for your assistance in getting it out...
  • no suprise there (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Thursday November 17, 2005 @11:46AM (#14053399) Homepage
    I love the quote... "now students can learn by doing"

    OMFG it took this long for people to realize this? I get a kick out of the experts that poo-poo the small scale engineering projects that MIT is doing that give basically an electronics lab, CAD system, Machine shop and other advanced equipment to common people in small villages. They say that it takes years of higher education to learn how to design things, while 8-12 year old kids learn how to do their craft in less than 24 months and create things that the masters degrees could not think of them selves.

    if you give children and people the tools they will learn how to use those tools and usually exceed the experts that are trained to use them in a specific way.

    I really hope that they allow these $100.00 laptops to be modified as that is the real place to learn by taking that device way outside the box it was defined in.

    If a kid in Kenya can write his own software on the machine instead os using it as an appliance then they will learn even more.

    and personally, I really want one for a hiking/7day backpacking device for recording journal events and carrying maps and other information.
    • Check out the pledge to buy one [pledgebank.com]. Although it's looking like the MIT lab won't have any problems getting enough orders to start production, it would be nice to see us comparatively rich /.'ers subsidize these- and maybe develop apps to run on them.
      • Great, show me the $200 pledge and I'm in. I'm not paying $300 for a hand-crank laptop that looks like it should come in a happy meal.
        • You wouldn't pay $300 for a happy-meal computer, but you would $200?

          Well, you might might actually be in luck:

          At the same time, they say they are hoping to authorize a commercial version that would sell for around $200, with a share of the profits ideally used to subsidize the educational project. "We are in talks with large, brand-name companies," Mr. Negroponte says, noting it will be up to them to decide where and how to sell it. "I would not hold my breath for it to be in Best Buy," he says.

          The more peo

          • I just feel like $300 is too much. I don't mind subsidizing one of these laptops every time I purchase one. I do mind subsidizing two of them. Everyone's opinion on that is different but I do think that the volume will be dramatically higher (more than double) at $200 than at $300. I can afford $200. I can't afford $300...
  • by Noryungi ( 70322 ) on Thursday November 17, 2005 @11:47AM (#14053420) Homepage Journal
    There are a few things about this summit that need to be reported as well:
    1. Robert Menard, the President of 'Reporters without Borders', an ONG dedicated to preserving reporters, freedom of speech and freedom of the press worldwide, has been denied access to Tunisia [liberation.fr], under the pretext that his organization protested the imprisonment of a Tunisian journalist.
    2. Coincidentally (or not) Reporters without Borders has published its list of the Top 15 Internet black holes: the top 15 countries who try to limit access to an uncensored Internet.


    Here are the top 15 most repressive countries when it comes to the Internet, according to Reporters without Borders:

    Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Burma, China, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Libya, Maldives, Nepal, Uzbekhistan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan and Vietnam.

    Remember: it's a free Internet as long as you fight for its freedom.
    • And remember that a UN-sanctioned international body running the TLDs might very well have some of these immoral tyrannies having some say in the Internet's administration. No government that fears its citizens should be permitted to have anything to say on running the Internet. They should be regularly mocked and condemned, their leaders lampooned and their citizens encouraged to throw out the tyrants.
      • No government that fears its citizens should be permitted to have anything to say on running the Internet. They should be regularly mocked and condemned, their leaders lampooned and their citizens encouraged to throw out the tyrants.
        I agree fully. This is exactly why attempts are being made to wrest control of the TLDs away from the US government.

        Oh wait... the US government no longer fears anything: thanks to Diebold, the citizens don't matter any more.
    • En Anglais, c'est NGO (non-governmental organization) :)
    • Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Burma, China, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Libya, Maldives, Nepal, Uzbekhistan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan and Vietnam.

      Coincidentally, these are some of the same countries that have protested the loudest about ICANN's control of DNS.

      Also, coincidentally, these are some of the nations with the worst human rights records [hrw.org].

      Hmmm...
    • Here are the top 15 most repressive countries when it comes to the Internet, according to Reporters without Borders:

      Wait! Where is the US in that list? OMG! You forgot the Evil and Republ^H^H^Hressive US! Everyone knows that the Internet must be taken AWAY from the US because they are so repressive they denied the .xxx domain!
  • How do I get my hands on one of these $100 laptops?

    I'd love a lightweight laptop for word processing on the train ride to and from work but I don't have the money to spend what conventional laptops cost. I also love the idea of generating juice through a handcrank.

    But I can't, for the life of me, figure out a way to get one. Is there going to be any offering to the general public instead of just to governments?
    • 1: wait for them to be sold commercially for significantly more than $100 http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/11/17/t u nisia.technology.ap/index.html [cnn.com]
      or
      2: wait for some enterprising thief to steal them in mass from the kids and sell them on Ebay for less than the commercial price. Possibly way less.

      So if you don't mind making some little kid cry, you don't ahve to wait long.
    • Re:I want one! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by iamhassi ( 659463 )
      "How do I get my hands on one of these $100 laptops?"

      from TFA:
      "He did not say who would build the machine, which will cost $110 to make, but at least five are considering bids to do so. Negroponte said the laptops could become available on the commercial market, but at a higher price."

      Like he said, we'll get them, they'll just cost more but... um... so it's going to cost $110 to make, and they're selling them to the countries for $100? Or are the countries paying $110 each, and selling them to... huh

      • Like he said, we'll get them, they'll just cost more but... um... so it's going to cost $110 to make, and they're selling them to the countries for $100?

        From another article I read earlier this week (don't have the link handy, sorry)...
        The first batch will cost 10$ more than expected, but cost is expected to go down as production rolls on, so it will drop to 100$, and maybe less over time.

        They plan on selling it to us non-disadvantaged interrested folk for 200$, so when you buy one, you also buy another for
  • Not sure if that's the legacy we wanted to leave, giving the third world l33t sp33k, but I think we all know that's whats gonna happen...

    -everphilski-
  • Does this seem eerily similar to Stephenson's primer [wikipedia.org] from The Diamond Age?
    • Does this seem eerily similar to Stephenson's primer from The Diamond Age?

      Not really. The Young Lady's Illustrated Primer was a hell of a lot more than a laptop computer. That thing was basically an electronic parent and teacher with an awesome AI. The objective here is similar to that of the Mandarin conspirators - revolutionise society for the better by giving huge numbers of poor children an opportunity - but the devices in question aren't especially like the Primer. Certainly no more like it than any

  • Here in The US, a technologically above-average country, classroom technology is going to waste because the college educated teachers are too lazy or not smart enough to learn how to apply the technology.

    In a poor third world country, where the standards are significantly lower for instructors, who expects the students and instructors will somehow instinctively know how to use these computers for educational benefit? If they are networked the kids will very quickly figure out how to IM answers during tests,
    • >but only if they first learn to type

      Typing is much simpler than lots of skills children learn before the age of 7, such as speaking and figuring out what really bugs teachers.

      The great secret of adulthood is that we're not really smarter than kids, we just have a head start.

    • Yeah, that's it... or maybe good teachers know that good old fashioned books, lectures and activities are still the best way to teach. My wife is an eighth grade science teacher. She uses technology probably more than any other teacher in the school, but still realizes that the old-fashioned ways of teaching are the most effective. Technology certainly has it's place in modern classrooms, but far too many people think that it should replace traditional teaching methods.
  • ... as much as I worry about government. The UK is already talking about recording the location of every vehicle at all times. That's a lot more intrusive to me than my boss tracking me via an "RFID" tag. I can always quit a job. It's not as easy quitting a country.
  • by Irvu ( 248207 ) on Thursday November 17, 2005 @11:57AM (#14053531)
    Some of the benefits of this ubiquitous networked society include cheaper HIV treatments ...


    How?, Where? What will RFID tags do to make HIV drugs cheaper? When can we expect these revolutions? Who is working on them? Where in hell did this assertion come from? What does this have to do with "Cars that warn their owners when they develop a fault"? Mine already does that via dashboard lights?

    Honestly, is this an article about the issues surrounding next-generation technology and the direction whe are heading or is just some free-association wishlist?

    Lets look at the underlying issues. A UN body presents a report outlining privacy issues, health-and safety issues, and other looming crises that must be addressed now before ubiquitous sensors, and rfid tags become too commonplace to regulate effectively.

    And what does the BBC do? They give us more padding than pudding and spend most of the article lauding the joys of ubiqquitous sensors ("better coffee") and the growth of RFID tags ("Wal-Mart made the chinese use them") than addressing or even framing the issues raised. And then whan they run out of filler factoids they make more pie-in-the-sky promises like the ones above.

    This isn't an article, it's a lullaby: "don't worry about privacy, your bag will tell you when you forgot to shop at Wal-Mart."
    • And what does the BBC do? They give us more padding than pudding and spend most of the article lauding the joys of ubiqquitous sensors ("better coffee") and the growth of RFID tags ("Wal-Mart made the chinese use them") than addressing or even framing the issues raised. And then whan they run out of filler factoids they make more pie-in-the-sky promises like the ones above.

      Yet ANOTHER example of the frightening right-wing bias of the BBC. Really, they're completely sold out to corporate interests these da

      • Bias. (Score:4, Informative)

        by Irvu ( 248207 ) on Thursday November 17, 2005 @12:11PM (#14053699)
        I wasn't accusing the BBC of Right-Wing Bias or, for that matter Left wing bias. This is just bad reporting.
      • Lack of left wing bias != right wing bias. As an American, I prefer the BBC for precisely this reason -- they're left of Fox News, and right of Michael Moore. With the polarization of the news media recently, the BBC has been the one outlet I can (mostly) depend on to give me a balanced view of world events. Perhaps you'd prefer MoveOn.org or rawstory.com for all your news, if all you want to hear is opinions you agree with?
    • H!V DRuGZ CHEEP
    • What will RFID tags do to make HIV drugs cheaper?

      Easy — they'll track known (or suspected) HIV-positive persons, who they have sex with, then that will allow targeted distribution of medication, timed to coincide with the onset of first symptoms. Think of it as just-in-time medicine.

      Of course, to ensure the system's robustness, they'll probably track everyone who doesn't hold high government or corporate office — but it's for our protection, really!

    • How?, Where? What will RFID tags do to make HIV drugs cheaper?


      Don't know about HIV because it's not my field, but we have been looking at RFID for a number of applications in public health project in Africa we might take part in. You'd be amazed at the number of applications.

      One important application is the same one they're used for over here: inventory control. Better control and management of inventory, detection of theft and so forth have a huge impact on financial effectiveness. In a very poor count
  • by NtroP ( 649992 ) on Thursday November 17, 2005 @11:57AM (#14053532)
    Think about it. If there are hundreds of millions of linux-based laptops out there with ebook content (for education, etc.), kids games (this won't be a gaming machine, but still) and word processing, it is going to be very important that the "rest of the world" is accessible to it. That means document formats and other content will need to meet open standards. This may just be the push the world needs to make Linux-on-the-desktop acceptable.

    Proprietary formats will have to be marginalized. I know this laptop is "just for kids" but if all the content is in .doc , .wma, quicktime, etc. then a lot of people will be left out in the dark. I think there will be a groundswell of resentment and awareness of the ridiculousness of proprietary formats. Once most content is available in standard formats, one of the largest hurdles to adopting Linux elsewhere will disappear.

    I'd love to roll Linux out district-wide in our school district. The problem is that there is so much content our there that our teachers and students wouldn't have access to. Sure, the older formats have been reverse engineered or cracked, but the modern, up-to-date content would probably be unusable. What about eBooks? Most of the text book vendors can't agree on a standard and when they do it DRM'ed to hell and require a proprietary [Windows] app to play it. If "all the children of the world" get a linux laptop, that will have to change.

    Here's hoping!

    • Ummm dude....there is nothing preventing the makers of proprietary formats to linux. Its not about the format it's about the content. If the content I want is in a proprietary format then I will get the tool I need to access it.
      • If the content I want is in a proprietary format then I will get the tool I need to access it.

        Hmmm.. Like the Latest Windows Media Codecs? Looks like the "tool I need" is Windows. What about the Addison-Welsey Elementary Math eBook that needs their proprietary reader (that's not available for Linux)? What about Auto-Cad files? There is only a Windows version of their software. Guess Windows is the "tool" again, right?

        I know what you are saying, but my point is that proprietary document formats ser

  • While this effort will definitely help poorer countries, the emphasis on these laptops/notebooks missed the point that what these countires need is:

    1: Fair trade. While the US and EU preach free and fair trade, they continue to subsidize their corn and sugar farmers, who inturn dump their excess produce in poorer nations, effectively killing local production.

    2: Less production of greenhouse gases. The US alone produces 25% of these gases, yet it has a tiny fraction of human kind living on this globe. The

    • Hey, did you know this thread was about computers?
    • "Am I wrong on these facts?"

      Regarding your first point, no.

      In terms of the floods, droughts, and tropical diseases? Most likely.
    • Yes, and the way to get other nations to stop supporting the US in this kind of crap is to educate them, which means access to information, which means computers. Kindly remove the ivory tower from your ass and join the party with the rest of us.
    • Yes I would say that you are somewhat wrong (not that it means you're actually wrong, just that my opinion differs). AT least we see the world in very different ways.

      Disclaimer: I use "environMentalistas" in a half-joking, half-loving & half-scorning manner - please do not be insulted if you actually are an environMentalista :) (yes I know three halves are 150% but then again most environMentalistas try to be larger than life).

      Here's how I would look at it. The laptops introduce modern technology in an
  • It's best feature... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Billosaur ( 927319 ) *

    ...is the hand-crank. I can see kids in poor African villages spending their days out in the sun, cranking furiously while trying to play WoW. How much you want to bet that as you crank the handle you hear tinny carnival music and a small Bill Gates head pops out of the top.

    My problem is, where is all the infrastructure going to come from? At some point a lot of these places need Internet connectivity, and frankly not everyone in the Third World has convenient access to electricity, let alone a wireless I

  • I'll buy one! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ksp ( 203038 ) on Thursday November 17, 2005 @12:01PM (#14053584) Homepage
    I'll buy one for $200-300 and they can give 1-2 for free to kids in developing countries. I can afford paying more than them if I want a fun little gadget terminal to play around with. A school in a third world country probably needs pencils, paper, crayons, chalk and books instead of this. Set up a webshop where we geeks can buy these and use the income to donate computers to those who can't afford them. It won't finance the entire project, but it could help?

    • Re:I'll buy one! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by iphayd ( 170761 ) on Thursday November 17, 2005 @12:39PM (#14054025) Homepage Journal
      Actually, this isn't a bad model...

      For every one an american/european school buys for $300, two get shipped to a third world country. However... They all automatically have an email/IM attached, with links for all three laptops to message each other out of the box. This way, the schoolchildren in america/europe can pen pal with the children were given laptops due to their $200.
      • Pre-populated IM lists....

        I can see it now...."mom, whats our bank account number? my IMpal in Nigeria has a a problem he needs our help with."
      • Oooo! Great idea! Shoot, I'll buy three or four for my nieces/nephews just to give them the pen-pal experience! I think a lot of our general unhappiness comes from our complacency - see how people live in "the rest of the world" might help us appreciate what we have all the more.
  • While I find this accomplishment impressive, I think energy should be focused on the basics in poor nations. Basic necessities like food, clean water, healthcare are more vital. Yes technology is great, but look at the US. Every kid uses a computer from day one and we still lag behind many countries in the basics like math and science.

    gasmonso http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]
  • Windows to this puppy. It probably wouldn't be a big job. Microsoft has lots of tools available for getting Windows CE running in an embedded environment. That would be tres cool - a $100 laptop running Windows! Hey, this is sort of like the FOSS movement returning the favor -- playing a major role in spawning a cheap, standardized hardware platform.
  • Maybe there could be a program where an individual could get one for $200. One machine for yourself and one to be donated to a child. I would gladly pay $200 to get my hand on one of these little laptops.

  • by external400kdiskette ( 930221 ) on Thursday November 17, 2005 @12:50PM (#14054130)
    I've travelled extensively throughout the 3rd world and with this attitude the program is going to be a disaster "The goal is to provide the machines free of charge to children in poor countries who cannot afford computers of their own,". If you provide them free of charge all of the most abject poor are going to get them and sell them, especially all the children who have hardly enough $ to eat, and many parents would send their children to get them free so they can sell them. It's not nice but it's reality.

    Selling cheap stuff as long as they pay for it and cant resell it for a profit isn't such a bad idea however I've generally found that even the poorest people interested in pcs have been able to get a dodgy box to learn and use their skills to get some sort of computer related job.
    • The whole point of making them so cheap and giving them out for free, is you are going to flood the market with them.

      No one will pay for something every kid in in the country already has. Who would buy them? When there is no market *period*, the black market disappears.

      The biggest problem I see with this plan is the garbage produced in 4 years when the new models come out and all the existing hundreds of millions are thrown away. Has anyone thought about that? Are these things recycleable?

    • especially all the children who have hardly enough $ to eat

      How you managed to type that, without your head exploding, eludes me.
  • For some adults, getting one will seem to be as easy as stealing candy (er, laptop) from a baby. What kind of security/legal/whatever measures will be taken to avoid this?
  • is who these geniuses are who are coming up with these big brother innovations so that we can all go to their house and beat them up.
  • As ZDnet points out, the $100 laptop is bogus. [zdnet.co.uk] It doesn't even exist as a prototype. The device pictured is a dummy. It's supposed to use some vaporware "e-ink" display. It's not currently buildable for $100. And if it was, there would be commercial models out before Negroponte's boondoggle delivered.

    But most importantly, it's not a cell phone.. The best thing that high-tech has given the third world is cell phones. You can get a cell phone connection in almost all third-world cities, where most of

  • A crank? (Score:2, Funny)

    by KodeJockey ( 928302 )
    I, for one, welcome our new crank-wielding African pornogapher overlords.
  • In the days when Wired was a must read Negroponte wrote about the 2b1 website, I checked it out and saw there was to be a conference about IT in the developing world, but didnt see Trevor Baylis, the creator on the wind up radio on the invite list, so I got his number (yes he is listed, on Eel Pie Island) and gave him a call, and he got himself invited to the shindig, and the rest is history, and no, this isn't a "wind-up" incase you were wondering :)

Order and simplification are the first steps toward mastery of a subject -- the actual enemy is the unknown. -- Thomas Mann

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