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Forget The $100 PC; India Now Working On A $10 PC... Or Not
from the take-that-negroponte dept
Over the years, we've pointed out some of the more ridiculous aspects of the One Laptop Per Child program (originally known as the $100 PC). While the cause is quite admirable, the project's founder, Nicholas Negroponte has taken a rather strange way to get there. Rather than letting the competitive free market get us to a point where a $100 laptop is feasible, he would attack anyone who dared to try to create a competing product. Also, much of the OLPC was developed very much as a top down project -- rather than opening it up to various participants to look at different options for making things even better or cheaper.
In fact, when the initial designs came down, the countries that were supposed to be all excited about the OLPC, such as India, weren't particularly excited -- turning down a chance to participate in the OLPC program (though, it has run some small scale tests). Now, however, India claims that it's working on its own cheap laptop: and it'll be a $10 PC instead of $100 (and, really, the OLPC is more like $200 anyway). It's not clear how India plans to create such a cheap PC, and the article notes there's a decent chance it won't really be $10 -- but a subsidized $10. Still, one doubts that Negroponte will be very happy about this, despite the fact that it advances his vision, if not his implementation. Update: Well, well, well. Now Indian officials are claiming they misspoke, and the $10 laptop will actually be a $100 laptop. If they can actually get there, more power to them -- because, as we noted, OLPC's $100 laptop is actually $200.
In fact, when the initial designs came down, the countries that were supposed to be all excited about the OLPC, such as India, weren't particularly excited -- turning down a chance to participate in the OLPC program (though, it has run some small scale tests). Now, however, India claims that it's working on its own cheap laptop: and it'll be a $10 PC instead of $100 (and, really, the OLPC is more like $200 anyway). It's not clear how India plans to create such a cheap PC, and the article notes there's a decent chance it won't really be $10 -- but a subsidized $10. Still, one doubts that Negroponte will be very happy about this, despite the fact that it advances his vision, if not his implementation. Update: Well, well, well. Now Indian officials are claiming they misspoke, and the $10 laptop will actually be a $100 laptop. If they can actually get there, more power to them -- because, as we noted, OLPC's $100 laptop is actually $200.
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Reader Comments (rss)
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Subsidized?
That's great!
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They can do better than that...
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10 BLAZING Hertz
.01 Bits of RAM
Digital display..... One that is on Calculators.
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the usa has starving people too
Oh, wait, you mean a government can have more than one priority?
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Bill Gates did it!
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Starvation...
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seen enough
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Question is... when people are starving - should they?
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Re: Starvation...
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Re:
Why are they starving?
Government causing them to? Too Lazy to work or farm or hunt? Too religious to eat a cow or pig?
Or is it the work of Force Majure? In that case, let's help!
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Increased tech skillsets to enable outsourcing of American Jobs
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Re: Increased tech skillsets to enable outsourcing of American Jobs
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And of course Nick Neg will be ticked. It will not have his name on it.
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Re: the usa has starving people too
It's amazing that the technology doesn't exist to make $10.00 Easy Bake Ovens.
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Re: the usa has starving people too
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It's $100, the first announcement was wrong
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Re: seen enough
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Re: It's $100, the first announcement was wrong
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Re:
On the other hand, giving education (or the tools for education) seems to be a promising prospect in accelerating the standard of living of third world areas.
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With a cheap laptop and projects like OpenTextbook, people have all the tools necessary to get a very good education. Whether or not they will utilize those tools is still to be seen.
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Better Education
Also, continuing education would sprout more businesses, allowing for more jobs, etc. This process starts with education. Start there, and the snowball will roll on.
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Re: Better Education
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Re: the usa has starving people too
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That is where we are heading, won't be going to work cause there are NO JOBS!!!! Then the populous can feed off the corporations, CAUSE THAT IS WHERE ALL THE $$ is. And we'll, Its no secret whose pocket the corporations are in..........
..... And it makes me wonder .....
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Re: Re: the usa has starving people too
Something's terribly wrong when people can loose their job to someone in another country... Not even a US citizen... And the Government does nothing.
While we're on the topic of crappy ideas, let's build free roads and houses in Iraq and Tollbooths in America.
This is getting nuts
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Re: Re:
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Re:
http://walmartwatch.com/img/blog/state_tax_avoidance.pdf
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Re: Better Education
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Re: Re: Re:
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Re: Re: Re: the usa has starving people too
Go take an economics class and learn about global economies of scale!
Or move to the country where the jobs are going...
Whatever you decide, just stop fucking complaining; especially when you do not understand what you're complaining about.
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Me take your job...
Me also watch porn on it ;)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: the usa has starving people too
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Re: Subsidized?
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Re: Re: Better Education
that's africa, not india. people like you always get your generalizations wrong.
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Re: Re: Increased tech skillsets to enable outsourcing of American Jobs
the standard of living and the exchange rate of the rupee make it cheaper to export labor to india. this hurts the american economy, standard of living, and the value of the dollar.
soon the standard of living and the value of the dollar will drop to the point that it will be cheaper for india to outsource back to the US.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
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Re: Me take your job...
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Re: Me take your job...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Abt ur comment let me give an example. Gas costs about $2/liter and government subsidizes it reducing the end cost to $1.5/liter. But because as per capita income is $4000/year most people cannot still afford that price. Kerosene, which is used by most people for cooking, is subsidized further and it costs only $0.5/liter.
Likewise food is subsidized a great deal and without subsidy most Indians will hungry. But India is not rich enough to provide poor food to everybody.
Maybe we should build large armies like you, loot others and then live on luxury.
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OLPC being misrepresented. Again.
The XO laptop was never meant to be a market commodity. It was never meant to be sold int he commercial market, and throwing it into the capitalist market, and depending on it's success there to achieve it's noble goals would have doomed the project to failure.
OLPC is focused on providing laptops for education in development countries. Period, end of story. As such, it is being wildly successful, with hundreds of thousands of the devices distributed and in use.
The 'competition' snarkily referred to was an attempt by Intel to undermine OLPC's mission. Intel wasn't interested in education or green devices or low cost. The salesrep involved was motivated by dollar signs.
OLPC is one of the few projects that is not being drive by money and 'success in the businessplace'. Comparing it with commercial products sold out of Best Buy is an inappropriate metric and misses the point.
Now, to India's project, more power to them. I look forward to seeing their finished product, and seeing if it will actually deliver as promised, or will it just be another business vector for Intel and Microsoft. Me, I'm skeptical. Doing a project like this correctly is a daunting task, and there are a lot of lessons to be learned from OLPC's project, but 'starting over' isn't the proper approach.
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Re: Re: the usa has starving people too
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Re: Re: Better Education
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Getting back on the subject
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