PCs to developing world 'fuel malware' (Register) [LWN.net]

PCs to developing world 'fuel malware' (Register)

Posted Jun 14, 2006 10:35 UTC (Wed) by drag (guest, #31333)
In reply to: PCs to developing world 'fuel malware' (Register) by rmstar
Parent article: PCs to developing world 'fuel malware' (Register)

Laptops provide people opertunity to learn and communicate.

Remember it's just about internet access and not just having the laptops to do home work on.

Right now, for the first time in history, all levels of society have free and easy access to large amounts of information just as long as they have the basic equipment and internet access. Previously in order to get equal amounts of information you had to be wealthy in a already rich country and attending a large university.

Now all you need is internet access. A child in Ugaunda will have access to the same amount of information that I have living in the United States. Of course most of it will be in English, but thats nothing compared to having to figure out a way to get a scholorship to some European or U.S. University in order to just read books or do research.

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PCs to developing world 'fuel malware' (Register)

Posted Jun 14, 2006 11:01 UTC (Wed) by MathFox (guest, #6104) [Link] (1 responses)

You are assuming that the OLPC computers will be connected to the internet; allthough I think that may happen in the future, the first priority will be networking the kids with their schools. The goal for these laptops is to make distribution of educational material more convenient. One USB stick can hold the equivalent of over a hundred schoolbooks and is much more convenient to transport than a crate of dead-tree books.
It's hard to predict what will happen as the next step; internetworking between schools, telco's offering a private education network, collaborative writing of textbooks by rural teachers, "ugandapedia.org"... It will be interesting to see which development paths the people themselves choose.
For the first five years they won't be an internet problem.

PCs to developing world 'fuel malware' (Register)

Posted Jun 14, 2006 18:15 UTC (Wed) by freemars (subscriber, #4235) [Link]

Owners of OLPC computers who share a slow link to the internet will have a powerful incentive to keep out any malware which would use up limited bandwidth.