The $100 laptop (w/ linux)

[Kamisama]

Seems that a guy from MIT Nicholas Negroponte made a laptop for African children (http://news.com.com/The+100+laptop+moves+closer+to+reality/2100-1044_3-5884683.html) that costs about $100 for production but he will only give it to their government for distribution.

Stupid MIT idiots giving to the government instead of the people directly, what a social idiot. :rolleyes:

What is the $100 Laptop, really?
The proposed $100 machine will be a Linux-based, full-color, full-screen laptop that will use innovative power (including wind-up) and will be able to do most everything except store huge amounts of data. This rugged laptop will be WiFi-enabled and have USB ports galore. Its current specifications are: 500MHz, 1GB, 1 Megapixel.

http://laptop.media.mit.edu/faq.html


BTW: Answer the planetary camera thread if you can.

These things are supposedly mechanically charged by a hand crank and will keep a charge for 30 minutes. It takes 10 minutes to have a 30 minute charge.

If they use them correctly they'll just keep trying to crack into bank accounts and ebay anyways. Puh, sending scam letters.

Recent work with schools in Maine has shown the huge value of using a laptop across all of one's studies, as well as for play.

Uhm, that's Maine. Somewhat becoming more with Canada if I'm right. Also, this is America. We have more money, time, resources than Africa does. I'm sure laptops would be very useful if they understood the fundamental concepts of the Internet and knew all the basics of eLearning to which their society could be based on eLearning.

That would propel them way beyond many other countries if they could build a society of eLearners, however, they don't have the slightest clue like most Americans. I will say that if they understood it, believed in it, they would accept it and perhaps become a powerhouse. Who knows what would happen next. China might lose, things will go nuts, etc, etc, doom and gloom?

People at MIT are getting stupid.

If I had the power I'd go to Africa and teach them everything about eLearning. Stop the basic teacher school house crap and put in eLearning. Then I would set up tons of wireless networks there. These laptops would allow people to do biological and medicine research on animals around them, help the environment by doing ecological surveys, etc. More people would have power.

The machine vs. manual labor world will be their fear because they have food and trees that grow food. However, people who've reached enlightenment know that there is a way to use machines for manual labor if enough people get their stuff together. McDonald's doesn't need workers.

[DirtyDan]

I would have to disagree, but maybe I am just too hopeful. It is promising alone that they are bundled with linux. If thousands of curious people in Africa begin to actually learn how to use their computers, they will immediatly be more computer literate that the average American. I tend to think that they will appreciate the chance for so much knowledge and not take it for granted. Instead there will be little communities which teach each other how to use the new technology and whatnot. Plus there will be those that stay up late cranking that little hand generator and playing with the possibilities of open source software.


Or, maybe they will just download a dispicable amount of porn and play tetris all day.

[Jacks Complete]

Or, maybe they will just download a dispicable amount of porn and play tetris all day.
Only the once. After that, using the mouse with no hands gets hard, but cranking the handle will be impossible!

It is a cool thing. However, MIT don't want to attack the vested interests that fund them by flooding the US or other western markets with cheap laptops. Mikey Dell and Billy Gates would stop sending them money.

I can see huge numbers being sold on eBay to us types who like making things, until the market finds equilbrium. Of course, the odds of getting the goods, rather than another scam, are close to zero.

[DirtyDan]

Sorry, I skimmed your post the first time, and didn't fully get where your critizism is aimed. I agree that MIT should give the laptops directly to the people. I would be worried that the governments could impose restrictions on web use and whatnot, but I guess that could happen either way since they will be in control of the wireless access points. We'll see in a year or so I guess. What's going on with the 'net over in China blows my mind...

According to this (http://news.com.com/Intel+calls+MITs+100+laptop+a+gadget/2100-1005_3-5989067.html?tag=nefd.top) article found via digg.com (check them out if you havent already! ) Intel is calling their attempt at a laptop a mere "gadget", and something that has been shown to fail in the past. Also stated by Barret, the laptops will not be "Reprogrammable to run all the applications of a grown-up PC...not dependent on servers in the sky to deliver content and capability to them, not dependent for hand cranks for power." Im not quite sure where he's coming from on the first part; the computer in front of me is more than 5 years old and I still could still use any top-of-the-line software until last year or so. The power on those laptops is limited, but so is the type of technology to demand it in a 3rd-world-country.

I find myself using my computer for just the internet on a greater portion everyday. What are they going to be missing out on? Wikipedia for every child in the world alone would make a difference. Of course, my brain is feeling more and more like a sponge as I get older and stop doing so many trivial things (like porn and tetris :) ) .

BTW, what exactly does "500Mhz, 1Gb, 1 Megapixel" mean? 1Gb harddrive? 1 Megapixel screen? These things sort of remind me of those old NEC mobilepro computers.

[Jacks Complete]

It will turn out like over here. They will have machines that save the data all the time, writing every ten seconds to disk or whatever, so when the power dies it doesn't matter. When they want to do something special, they will take it to the guy with the five fast machines wired up, or else they will email the entire job to a data farm elsewhere, or they will just do what we used to do with ray tracing and leave it to run overnight (though that might be hard with a hand-cranked version!)

Given the lack of firearms and bomb laws in the majority of Africa, it would seem to be the ideal place to host a site like this, too. Just avoid places where they actually have a government, to be on the safe side... ;-)

[James]

I think that any overnight rendering could be farmed out to people with big machines that run on line power. I remember that Weta Digital is supposed to have a nice render farm. Pixar, Dreamworks and ILM could also pitch in clock cycles. Setting up a wireless mesh over most of Africa would be expensive. You might be better off communicatiing via a satelite link. Why not kick some money into other improvement farm machinery, seed and irrigation would bring Africa closer to self sufficiency. Biodiesel and all that.(/babbling)

[Jacks Complete]

I think that any overnight rendering could be farmed out to people with big machines that run on line power. And not much takes more than a few minutes, even on a "slow" laptop these days. I recall when I used to leave a computer on for a week to render a single fractal, and how some machines were so slow running BASIC that you could watch as it counted to 1,000,000. Try it now, and you'll miss it!

I remember that Weta Digital is supposed to have a nice render farm. Pixar, Dreamworks and ILM could also pitch in clock cycles. Why on earth would they?
Setting up a wireless mesh over most of Africa would be expensive. You might be better off communicatiing via a satelite link.No, the mesh would be effectively free, whereas satellite time costs big bucks.
Why not kick some money into other improvement farm machinery, seed and irrigation would bring Africa closer to self sufficiency. Biodiesel and all that.(/babbling)You won't need to. Once they work out how to browse on Google for farming tips, you will see a step change. No-one will be burned as a witch for knowing things, either, as the response will be "I googled it". A lot fewer people digging ditches to take the sea water to water the hills, hopefully...

[anonymous411]

There was an interesting documentary on the BBC World Service the other week about how corrupt African government officials are stealing NGO-donated AIDS drugs, giving them to their cronies, and reselling them on the black market with a jacked-up price. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if most of these laptops end up in market stalls going for $200. Sad, but that's human nature for you.

Anyone who wants a good $100 linux laptop should use E-bay and get a Dell C610.

[ShadowMyGeekSpace]

I own two c610s, had them for the better part of 5 years now. They make great little work horses(pentium 3 coppermines, mine are each 1.2ghz w/ 512kb of l2 and 512mb of pc133 in them).... but they're worth more like $300. The radeon mobility M6 they come with aren't half bad either, and come with svideo out.

I also strongy recommend the latitude c610's if you're just looking for a machine to do basic stuff (word proccessing, listening to music, so on and so forth) on... don't expect it to be able to play many games.

[anonymous411]

They're worth $300, really? I must have found a deal: I snagged mine for under $200. I'll bet there's a glut in the market due to so many work machines going off-lease.

I got my first C610 as a work machine back when it was new...this summer, I spent a long time poring over my options, and decided getting another exactly like it would be perfectly fine. I can't understand why everybody goes apeshit over the latest $1000+ machine when you can get something almost as good for a fraction of the price. Then again, I don't play games, so I'm sure that's part of it.

[ShadowMyGeekSpace]

That would depend on how you define "almost as good". While the pentium 3 is a much better workhorse than the pentium 4 series due to it being designed with instructions-per-clock in mind rather than clocks-per-instruction, it doesn't come anywhere near the pentium-m/core/core2 series at all in power efficiency or clock efficiency.

edit: That's not even to mention the huge difference inbetween pc133 and say ddr2-667(pc5300) or the FSB improvements or the l1/l2 cache improvements/size increases.