PCs for the poor: Which design will win? (ZDNet) [LWN.net]

ZDNet examines a number of technologies that are competing for the sub $100 PC space. "Only about 1 billion, or 16 percent of the 6.5 billion people living today, use the Internet, according to a running tally at Advanced Micro Devices. Designing machines that are resilient, powerful and cheap enough to reach those not yet online, though, has proven a lot tougher than expected. India's Simputer, an inexpensive handheld, flopped. Brazil has worked for years on a Linux PC for the poor, to no avail. "Initiatives of this sort need serious consideration from everyone. Developing nations need to start teaching about technology early in schools," said Luis Anavitarte, an analyst at Gartner. "But the reality kind of changes when we look at the costs and the functionality of these devices.""

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mission?

Posted Feb 16, 2006 19:13 UTC (Thu) by rknop (guest, #66) [Link]

Nothing wrong with being offline... but it'd be nice if each person got to choose whether or not to be online, rather than having to first pass the prerequisite of being rich enough in a wealthy country.

I personally want to see as many people as possible online, understanding and learning about the communication possibilities that come with a global network where each person is empowered as a "producer" as well as a "consumer". We need all the de facto allies we can against the industries that want to turn the Internet into a "more flexible (for business) TV", and are lobbying government about the evils of child porn and piracy in order to legislate that future for the Internet.

-Rob

mission?

Posted Feb 17, 2006 9:29 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

The amount of good information on the internet is vast.

For the same price as a internet connection nowadays you can get access to the same quality and amount of good information that rivals the very best research libraries from just a decade and a half ago (that were reserved to only the very richest people from the richest nations on earth.)

Not to mention the communication possiblities. VoIP, email, file transfers, etc etc.

You cannot get this any other way in a reasonable fasion other then computers and internet access. Even the cost of shipping text books for a school would probably cover most of the cost of these '100 dollar laptop'.

Compare the costs of providing school supplies, up to date school books, phone, reliable letter service, teachers, etc etc to the cost of a low-end PC and some sort of wireless internet access.

They don't even need to have reliable electricity since it's hand-cranked device. Just something reliable to run the wireless access point and reliable communications to that.

mission?

Posted Feb 17, 2006 18:20 UTC (Fri) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

Not to disagree in general, but the "hand-cranked device" feature is little more than ... spin.

mission?

Posted Feb 23, 2006 12:12 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

hehe.

I still want to see one in action. I like the idea of having a mobile device that I'd never have to worry about running out of juice.

Batteries are kinda of a necisarry evil right now.. I'd say solar would be great, but a hand crank should be considurably cheaper and also would work at night.