The $100 Laptop

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419Eater is my life Joined: 21 Nov 2005 Posts: 264

I just wonder how long it will take for the lads to get hold of these.

http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/topstocks/archive/2007/11/26/how-a-little-laptop-is-changing-an-industry.aspx

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

Probably before I get mine, but after many thousand school-children in the developing world get theirs.

I can get a well-spec'd laptop for �399. That's a single average payment for a lad. The $100 OLPC XO, (actually around $200 now unless you buy direct from Tiwan, because of the dropping dollar,) is not a particularly good laptop for general-purpose use; it is specialised for child education. A laptop is useless to the lads without an Internet connection.

The small amount of harm this initiative may do is trivial beside the huge good it promises.

419Eater is my life Joined: 21 Nov 2005 Posts: 264

It doesn't say it in the linked article but in a TV article some time ago (I think it was 60 Minutes or some such) I was given the impression these would come with some kind of internet access. It wouldn't be much use even to a student without that. As you know a lad has little use for the more advanced features of a modern laptop. Internet access to an email account is usually all that's needed to run scams.

Also considering the things the mugus will stoop to (I've yet to find a limit) I wouldn't be surprised if they wouldn't just bully some kid to give them theirs or maybe have a young relative get one then take it for their own use.

No doubt these will do a lot of good but I wonder what measures are in place to keep them out of the hands of people who would use them for a negative purpose. Of course there might be some kind of check for eligibility I don't know of. I'd imagine that even at $100 it would still be more than the average family in West Africa can afford so possibly the school would purchase them and limit their use to the classroom. I haven't seen the details of the program. This is mostly just idle speculation.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 28 Apr 2007 Posts: 60

try teaching a lad linux Shocked

that's what they run on.... oh the deeducation we could do before that Wink

Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 4:45 am

How does giving a kid a laptop improve their education.
Give them clean water, books and a good teacher. It's madness the money that is wasted these days in schools. Teach em a trade.

Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 4:48 am

^^^ I'm taking it you didn't vote Labor then... Laughing

(don't answer that question... political joke... not political discussion Wink

... avoid jackboots Very Happy

)

Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 5:22 am

The One Laptop Per Child programs has good goals. The problem isn't the water. (My brother was actually involved in this and there are stories.) If they have access to this program they have most of that and many other programs can provide these. The problem is that the world is becoming more technological and the divide is increasing. Without some kind of background in technology, 3rd world children will just fall further behind. Plus that the technology creates many other abilities in problem solving and quick feedback. It is used in US schools as well. It also promotes an international identity and their place in it. Without that, they will just think as the past thinks; that they are victims and owed a life with no work involved and there is nothing they can do to change it.

They are not intended as a main computer. Only as a teaching aid. Bought and provided by the schools and the government. It comes with wifi. The school would have to provide a wireless access point. The OLPC laptop can talk to each other if one discovers that there are others in the locale. What I have seen, it looks like a good simple computer for travel. No moving parts. Expandable with thumb drives and SD cards. Easy internet access; email, browsing, word processing, has a video camera and actually can play video. And who would want to steal it? It has no value outside of its intended use.

Unless things are tried, any complaints about how best to spend money is kind of pointless. Unless those complaining can show how their system is working better.

After the OLPC started and countries started to express interest, intel and M$ jumped into the market to try to stop AMD and Linux from converting new users to a cheap alternative. The intel version is not as powerful as the OLPC version.

So I'll see how it works when I get mine.

[edited: From OLOC to OLPC]

Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 5:33 am

Well me being a kid who uses a laptop (with wireless Internet) in high school I can say it has its advantages and disadvantages, my handwriting and spelling has deteriorated but for researching for assignments its golden.

We have online databases, dictionaries, Encyclopaedias, Newspapers, journals, online books. Other tools like bibliography makers, how to evaluate a website, literary resources like text types, information skills, practice tests..

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

Here are the specs and vision before they've been filtered through a journalist, darkly.

http://laptop.org/laptop/

Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 12:46 pm

@Red

I ain't gonna tell Laughing

I'm a non political person so I will shut up and delete all that stuff that none of you saw me type.

I hope Crying or Very sad

Can mods see it if you don't hit enter ?

@reaper
I almost forgot - your argument is absolute. Bring back the three R's Very Happy

419Eater is my life Joined: 11 Jul 2004 Posts: 443

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/629/629/7113548.stm

Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2007 1:18 am

I've been following this project for a while and think it is not only a very cool idea but far more practical than most people realize. Also I've always felt that negroponte is one of those people who not only 'gets' tech but also understands the ramifications of what technology does. For good and bad.

Anyway the naysayers are pointing out that many of these places need, chairs, electricity and water more than a laptop. Actually what's needed most is knowledge. If any of us google "small wind power plant" we would quickly get enough information to know how to build one. Same for water purification and so on.

Even without the internet an entire school years worth of reading and text books can be put on a CF disk.

I think that a lot of the resistance to the laptops in class will be of the same kind that any organization has when faced with something new and difficult to understand. Lets face it, a chair and a child's book are pretty easy to comprehend. These things are going to start a lot of questions that the teachers aren't going to be able to answer. I'm sure that is a consideration.

Anyway, these laptops in the hands of the children with just a few good teachers will do more to change the world then almost anything else I can think of.

Even if it means sitting on the floor. Very Happy

Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2007 1:20 pm

OH great! This is perfect. Evil or Very Mad

Quote:

BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - November 27, 2007) - Lagos Analysis Corporation, a United States-based Nigerian-owned company with a subsidiary called LANCOR Management Limited, in Nigeria (LANCOR) announces today that it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the Federal High Court, Lagos Judicial Division holding at Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria against Nicholas Negroponte, One Laptop Per Child Association (OLPC) and its enablers in Nigeria.

The prior art to invalidate this claim exists in almost every regional keyboard that I have seen!

Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2007 5:34 am

I think we can guess who instigated this newest debacle. Maybe part of the $3 OS deal.