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$100 dollar laptop (now $188)

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ShawnLG

Wed Jan 03 2007, 01:07AM

Registered Member #286 Joined: Mon Mar 06 2006, 04:52AM
Location:
Posts: 399

I have read in the paper that they are manufacturing affordable laptops for kids around the world.

J. Aaron Holmes

Wed Jan 03 2007, 01:31AM

Registered Member #477 Joined: Tue Jun 20 2006, 11:51PM
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 546

It will be interesting to see how this project goes. I think the challenges are not so much technological as cultural and practical. Both of my parents are teachers, and both have expressed frustration over the lack of end-to-end planning in technological "initiatives" aimed at increasing the use of technology by children. Often times, no guidance is given to faculty (and, thereby, none to the children) on how to actually apply the technology. Rather it is simply mandated that they "do it" (somehow). Solving this problem, in addition to simply overcoming the inherent aversion on the part of these people to things as alien as laptops (in developing countries), is going to be really difficult, methinks. In seeming adherance to the failed technology deployment strategy of American public schools, the website you refer to doesn't seem to talk much about how these laptops will be put to effective use, but rather simply talks about handing them out. To be successful, they'd really have to work harder with the schools to get these laptops integrated into the curriculum. I've seen it done in local private schools, but thus far the public sector just hasn't shown any competency in this area.

Well anyway...

Regards,
Aaron, N7OE

...

Wed Jan 03 2007, 01:39AM

Registered Member #56 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:02AM
Location: Southern Califorina, USA
Posts: 2445

They have been making them for a few months now, but they have had trouble selling them (although they have sold a few million). The problem seems to be that pesky decision between spending the money on computers, or using it to fix the school/train teachers/buy books/whatever. I personally think that for something like this to work, that $100 needs to include licenses to all of the text books a student would need. This basically allows the computer to pay for itself

The problem would be that no book manufacture would ever consider allowing that to happen, the ask way to much for licensing...

Carbon_Rod

Wed Jan 03 2007, 06:18AM

Registered Member #65 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:43AM
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Posts: 1155

Gates products still cause problems in schools. The lab fees I spent over the years on campus to pay for MS licensed products could buy well over 60 of those laptops. The grade schools also spend untold portions in their budgets to buy new computer equipment. The recent MS philanthropy is only going to make the problem worse for low income areas. The $100 laptop's strength will be in controlling internet access cost and forcing MS to reconsider its academic pricing policy.

The weakness:
1.) Remote areas where network communication and literacy are sparse. It reminds me of a dilbert comic strip on pragmatism.

2.) Many people have network access already. Dedicated recycling systems refurbish corporate e-waste for local schools. ($0 laptop project)

3.) There will be a battle of will with content providers if the laptops become popular and start to reclaim open standards for media compression.

Here is a good comic strip for any developer, =]
Cheers,

1167805083 65 FT19450 Software Development

Bjørn

Wed Jan 03 2007, 07:15AM

Registered Member #27 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 02:20AM
Location: Hyperborea
Posts: 2058

Microsoft does not have an academic pricing policy in Burkina Faso. Neither is there any power to run a $0 laptop if one was available. If it was available it would not last a week for the intended use. The $100 laptop is meant for people living in places where a school has about as much money to spend as the average student on this forum spends on beer and drugs in a month.

I have read the design documents and it is clear that it is possible to make a $100 laptop that does everything what most people would ever need for serious use. There is not even a need to be innovative.

What I question is to use of a power hungry and expensive AMD processor with the worst architecture known to man and the use of extremely inefficient software like Linux.

Carbon_Rod

Wed Jan 03 2007, 08:59AM

Registered Member #65 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:43AM
Location:
Posts: 1155

you mean FreeDOS and Win3.x ?

LOL

Steve Conner

Wed Jan 03 2007, 10:20AM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

Let me guess, this $100 laptop initiative was thought up by... AMD? It reminds me of Boeing executives getting all excited in the boardroom: "Holy sh**, there are 2 billion people in China, imagine if just 1% of them bought 767s!"

The problem is not so much that rural Africans can't afford laptops, as that they have no clue what to do with them, no use for them, and nothing to power them with, and are too busy fighting off corrupt government troops and gathering firewood to update their Livejournal blogs anyway.

I'm cynical about this because I spent years researching alternative technologies like this and tried to get a job in that area, only to be defeated because nobody actually wants them. So I got a regular job and spent my money on beer and drugs like my fellow monkeys.

If you're interested in this kind of thing, the buzzword/search term is appropriate or intermediate technology:

I'm going to guess that Bjoern's idea of appropriate technology involves ARM instead of AMD

He is actually right. As far as I know, Palm and Psion type handhelds turned out to be very good solutions. They don't have fragile hard drives, are light to carry when you're walking 20 miles through thick jungle, and the efficient ARM processor lets them run for days off a couple of AA batteries, which you can get just about anywhere in the world. The Indian Simputer project did in fact use an ARM, but China are going with the Chinese-designed Godson CPU for theirs

*edit* I found the hardware spec for the $100 laptop:

It actually seems much closer in spirit to a palmtop than a regular laptop, and you could almost call it "appropriate" with the right pair of rose-tinted glasses. The CPU isn't ARM, but it's an AMD Geode which is close enough.

ragnar

Thu Jan 04 2007, 05:17AM

Registered Member #63 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:18AM
Location:
Posts: 1425

Funny, I actually logged onto the net at university yesterday, checked 4HV, and didn't see this topic. I actually had the opportunity to fiddle with two of them... they're green, make annoying sounds, and crashed on me three times in one sitting whilst I was twiddling. The membrane keyboard is cute, though.

Ben

Mon Jan 08 2007, 06:36PM

Vigilatny
Registered Member #17 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 02:47PM
Location: NL
Posts: 158

I have a feeling all these projects are going to be overtaken by cellphones. I have a friend in the peace corps in Burkina Faso, apparently many poor Africans already have cell phones. Much to his good fortune. The last letter I read from him, he had just survived a local fracas between the police and the army, due in large part to cellphones(I get he feeling he doesn't have one though).

Alex

Mon Jan 08 2007, 08:46PM

Geometrically Frustrated
Registered Member #6 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 04:18AM
Location: Bowdoin, Maine
Posts: 373

balsamplack wrote ...

Funny, I actually logged onto the net at university yesterday, checked 4HV, and didn't see this topic. I actually had the opportunity to fiddle with two of them... they're green, make annoying sounds, and crashed on me three times in one sitting whilst I was twiddling. The membrane keyboard is cute, though.

Lovely. Was it alpha software, or was the stuff actually expected to work? When you say annoying sounds, are you referring to silly clicks and boobs of their kid-oriented OS, or do they generate noise unintentionally?

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