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The Hundred-Buck PC
Posted by
michael
on Sun Jan 30, 2005 07:13 PM
from the buy-two-get-one-free dept.
from the buy-two-get-one-free dept.
skreuzer writes "MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte has a plan to build a $100 PC for the developing world, which is supposedly going to have a 14-inch color screen and run on Linux, has the backing of AMD, Google, Motorola, Samsung, and News Corp. Apparently they're all getting mixed up in a joint-venture to produce the PC, which will be sold directly to governments only."
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But does it (Score:4, Funny)
Re:But does it (Score:5, Insightful)
For example - how many people here have old hardware that would still work fine, but they personally dont have any use for it.
I worked for intel, I have had systems of every single processor model since the inception of the pentium.
All of my models were engineering samples, but in many cases I have had up to 20 machines of a particular model.
How many of you have a P3 800? or a p2 450?
I have had tons, built and sold and built and donated plenty of machines...
Why not try to build a "100 Dollar Box" *not* on NEW hardware, (which will cause even more lead and mercury pollution in areas where they may be deployed) - but to establish a standard build, a set of known components that are beyond commodity now, and then build and ship these boxes to the areas where you are looking to add value.
If they sought to get all processors/motherboards/video cards within a particular spec from everyone that has purchased them in the past, and establish a donation tracking process for future hardware - I think it would do more good - for the people receiving and the environment as well.
I would be happy to purchase something and then check a "Donors" box at time of receipt which will allow me to easily agree to donate that particular peice of equipment when I am done using it personally...
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Re:But does it (Score:4, Interesting)
Plus, it might be better for older hardware (which IIRC contains more nasties) to be disposed of in countries where there'll at least be an effort to remove the toxic parts, than for them to be (eventualy) chucked in a ditch somewhere.
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The REAL question is.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The REAL question is.... (Score:4, Interesting)
A new Logitech mx1000 costs almost that much by itself, though I'm sure it won't be making the sub-$100 PC parts list.
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Apple Lisa (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Touch pads in the future NEED to be "one button (Score:4, Funny)
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I'd be happy to pay that without a display (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'd be happy to pay that without a display (Score:3, Interesting)
For that matter, power is a big concern no matter where. If you notice, except for portable devices, we seldom worry about the power usage of most of our devices.
Besides, developing countries pay a lot more (relatively) per unit of power than developed countries, so it would definitely be something to think about.
And I wonder how LCD compares with CRT to power. Favourably, I'd guess.
Re:I'd be happy to pay that without a display (Score:3, Informative)
Pretty favorably, a desktop LCD consumes maybe half to two thirds the power of CRT for the same size screen? Mind you, my primary displays are still CRT.
Re:Jokes Aside (Score:5, Informative)
There is a huge need to digitize government record keeping which would cut on ''labor'' costs for pushing paper thus reducing government budget spending on ridiculous tasks not to mention all the other benefits. FYI
There is a saying in my village that he who does not travel thinks his mother cooks best. This MIT thing is a top-down approach to address a conceived problem for which the designer and planners have little touch with. I wonder how many of those involved have visited a truely LDC country. It will only result in cheap and unworthy PC toys dumped all over LDCs without addresssing real needs. On one end are people looking at profits and at the other are ''carputers'' as the parent article puts it.
So for you slashdotters who think ''games and code'' when thinking of PC specs, let me point that in developing countries, its not a disaster waiting to happen but one in progress and there are no jokes here.
Governments in Developing countries need massive computing power to automate their operations and processes, they need huge networking to bring the systems together, training to run the systems and money to do it, before their citizens can surf the net. Think of that next time you surf for pr0n.
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Financing Jokes Aside (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not so much a technological problem or even an economic problem, it's a political problem, and the problem is that the global *two* class society is being pushed (from the top down obviously, from the folks with the guns and money and power) instead of the global *three* class heavy on the middle society like it should be.
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Re:I'd be happy to pay that without a display (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:I'd be happy to pay that without a display (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a well-established thing in poor, developing countries called "technological leapfrogging". It's particular important in telecommunications, where people want phones, internet access, and other forms of communication, but don't have the copper infrastructure we take for granted. Nor can they afford to buy it. But they can afford to put up cell towers and satellite ground stations.
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$100 is still a lot. (Score:5, Interesting)
As Bill Gates said (Score:3, Informative)
But, to reaffirm what others have said in this thread, this machine is being designed to be sold to governments, not to families.
Re:As Bill Gates said (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds about right. Speaking as someone who travelled through Madagascar for three months, all I can say is that you simply cannot understand it until you have been there and been there long enough to completely blow your prejudices, preconceptions and most of your hope out of the water.
Development needs to start with the basics. They don't need computers and they don't need college. They need roads, they need medical care, they need clean drinking water, they need immunizations, they need family planning, they need assistance with sustainable farming techniques and they need primary education. I'll concede that computers can be part of the overall strategy but they'd be pretty low on my list of priorities. And it's not going to be any use at all until you've got (a) power, (b) literacy, and (c) a phone line, and many places I saw lacked some or all of those things.
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Re:As Bill Gates said (Score:5, Informative)
Speaking as someone who was lectured in Nigeria on technology issues, all I can say is you are not seeing the big picture.
Every one of your laundry list of things that people need, are either predicated on, or at the very least made much more efficient by: The efficient and timely flow of information. In other words, IT.
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Re:As Bill Gates said (Score:5, Insightful)
I might agree that they don't need computers, but they don't need college?
They need roads,
Who's going to plan the roads? Foreigners?
they need medical care,
Who's going to provide the medical care? Foreigners?
they need clean drinking water,
Who's going to plan the drinking water systems and make sure that the water is really clean?
they need immunizations,
Where are the vaccines going to come from?
they need family planning,
Who's going to set this up? Where will medicines and prophylatics come from?
they need assistance with sustainable farming techniques
Who's going to teach these?
they need primary education.
Who will be the teachers?
You seem to advocate that the 1st world should treat these countries like dependents and poor benighted savages who need saving. They will be best off if they save themselves and a large part of that will be handled by having people educated at all levels of the spectrum, not just primary education. Having vast numbers of foreign aid workers along with vast amounts of foreign aid just means that they will be dependent in the future. And someday, politics or fashion will cause the aid and aid workers to disappear and then where will they be?
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Re:As Bill Gates said (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny, I was sure it was greedy, cynical outsiders trying to exploit them and steal their land and resources.
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Re:As Bill Gates said (Score:5, Informative)
Why do you impose what you do on a computer to a third world mother?
Of course she's not going to browse eBay! But a worker at her local clinic may well discover the proper treatment to treat the childs diarrhea, a farmers cooperative may find the agricultural practices necessary to avoid a prevalent crop disease, etc.
I'm just a farm kid from the American midwest, but I lived 3 years in Africa and 4 years in South Asia and I can tell you from personal experience that lack of access to timely information is a major factor in attempts at development in the third world.
You may think of your computer as mainly recreational or as a convenience, but there are places in the world where access to the internet is a matter of life and death.
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Re:$100 is still a lot. (Score:5, Insightful)
$100 is well beyond an average third-world citizen's one year salary
I think you are missing the point entirely. Its not meant to be a personal computer for third-world / developing countries, but more as a public computer for the town / village centre. Give them a phone line for internet and decent educational software alongside a decent encyclopdia and its a boon to people for miles around.
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Re:$100 is still a lot. (Score:3, Interesting)
So of course this will help
Re:$100 is still a lot. (Score:4, Insightful)
Riiight, and provided they WERE interested in this inferior, non standard product, what REALLY will happen is that the government will hand out these machines to select family members, party members, and local strongmen as an incentive or reward for services rendered. The PEOPLE probably won't see any of it.
I live in the 3rd world. That's how it works. Oh, but the US will feel all warm and cozy inside thinking that they did a "Good Thing", plus, as a lot of people say, it's a tax write off...
You want to REALLY help the 3rd world come and live here, start manufacturing stuff or building stuff or teaching stuff. But oh, then everyone will whine and complain about out-sourcing and stealing "American" jobs and unfair competition in the markets, etc.
It's a crappy world we live in and there will always be rich people, and poor people. And guess which ones are the ones that are always going to get screwed...
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A laudable project (Score:5, Interesting)
Take all the best linux hardware detection and auto-configuration software from the various distros -- kudzu and the like -- and make an installer that takes an old PC, and first tells you if the hardware in it can run linux decently, and if so, automatically installs it, otherwise redirects the PC to be recycled or sold for low power windows.
People would happily donate these PCs, possibly even running the linuxizing CD themselves, since perhaps they don't qualify for the donation tax deduction of the PC doesn't pass the test on the CD.
Yes, these machines might not be as fast as the bottom end AMD chip (Sempron 2000?) that will go into them, but not only are they semi-free, they solve a recycling problem at the same time.
Re:A laudable project (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A laudable project (Score:5, Informative)
That being said, I wholeheartedly agree with you and think it should be done regardless. I guess in principle I object to just simply throwing things out and buying new stuff when older equipment could, with a bit of work, be perfectly serviceable. (I'm typing this on a crappy old 1998-vintage 633mhz Celery II as I'm broke too right now! But I do think it's fine for what I need at the moment)
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A plan and a profit, put to good use... (Score:5, Interesting)
Idea of the VIC-20 Lives! (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe, MIT should call the new computer the "VIC-10" and ask Shatner if he wants to do some ads for it. I wonder how the audience in Vietnam would feel if they see William Shatner being dubbed to speak Vietnamese?
Great idea, (Score:5, Insightful)
It should have a power cable, not requiring a power adapter since that adds to the costs... a power-down IC with a power regulator IC should do the trick along with a fat capacitor. A modem or ethernet will certainly be a requirement, and will add to the costs. I wonder if in mass production 802.11b will be cheaper.
The GUI itself should be minimalistic, and I dont know if adding sound to it will be important. Remember this should be profitable at $99.
ARM SoC= $10
DRAM at 128MB = $20
flash at 128MB = $30
LCD = $30
everything else = $10
Last time I was checking the prices for such a computer, the LCD was the most expensive part, even in monochrome at 640x480. If they intend to bring that down to 320x200, the LCD cost wont drop significantly unless the size is also reduced. They could also reduce the flash, but thats removing alot, even though the kernel will be 2MB, glibc and busybox for a non-MMU machine will be 10mb. X, browsers etc will only take it to a maximum of 32MB, unless the browser has flash, real, quicktime etc. in which case its 64mb. Still having 128mb is reasonable for flash.
RAM is also very critical in running the system. 128mb is plenty of space but they can also live with 64mb. anything below that is choking the machine.
So with 64mb ram and 64mb flash, and 320x200 LCD, its still approaching $99 in BOM alone, which means the volume of production must be very high to make profits at $99...
To make it x86, add $30 extra, add more voltage, but that gives us much more applications, and the computer will sell in much greater numbers everywhere, and you dont have to lose money on hardware like the XBox.
Computers are nice. Computers are fun... (Score:3, Interesting)
This idea is getting popular (Score:4, Interesting)
But both efforts are predated by the Simputer [simputer.org], a low cost device that was designed to be shared by Indian villagers. Each user stores their data on a Smart Card, which is plugged into a single Simputer as it is shared by various members of the community.
Biggest Market for $100 PC? Developed World (Score:5, Interesting)
Today's, over-powered (not just in terms of wattage) PCs are overkill for the typical consumer. The bottleneck in downloading pornography is not the rendering done by the processor; the bottleneck is the network. Depending on the size of the pornographic file, 384K DSL line is slow; a 56K line is a pain in the you know where.
The cynical side of me says that Dell, Samsung, and the other major PC makers will keep the $100 PC out of the developed markets like the USA in order to maintain the $600 price point that they are currently stealing from the consumers.
Re:Biggest Market for $100 PC? Developed World (Score:5, Insightful)
But, that's not what most people use their computers for! Read up on the The 80/20 Myth [joelonsoftware.com] to get some idea what I mean.
True, 80% of computer use is what you specify - but what about the other 20%?
It's ALL OVER THE PLACE. CAD/CAM. Web design. Graphic arts. Video games. Taxes and book-keeping. Software engineering. Encoding MP3s. Playing DVDs, MP3s, DivX, MPG content. Building quilt patterns. Serving database content.
Just because you can satisfy 80% of the uses of a computer doesn't mean that you can satisfy 80% of the users out there with 80% of the applications. If they were to be sold, your 80% computers would leave 100% of its users 20% dis-satisfied.
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x86 or MIPS (Score:3, Interesting)
Picture of the new device (Score:5, Funny)
Here [cpan.org]
./ers aren't always the brightest bulbs (Score:5, Insightful)
"$100 is more than a years salary for many third-worlders!"
"Selling to the governments only? But developing governments are especially corrupt!"
"Hmm... I'd like on of these for my car."
Okay. Well, here's the thing folks. This project isn't meant to be a personal computer to be installed in the hut of some starving family. This computer is something that developing governments can choose to buy cheaply and install in public locations or sell to third-party providers. Primary schools, libraries, vocational training centers--those kinds of things. Currently, many of these places need a completely out-of-reach IT budget of thousands of dollars (or else a patchwork of random donated PCs) to get set up at all. This project is a means to reduce that problem. It'll make it more likely that some 15 year old in rural Africa will at least have had access to a computer a couple times.
So quit complaining and pay attention.
Shut up. (Score:5, Insightful)
These people are doing some good: they're creating a computer priced so low that local governments can afford to buy even large numbers without much of a decision. And they're also pushing the limit of a price of a full-featured computer. If they keep working at it, they'll help to modernize the developing countries by introducing the people to computers, and they'll push the price even lower.
Meanwhile, you're posting on Slashdot (as am I, I admit, but I didn't make any pretention of wanting good for third-world denizens). You can't very well argue that they're doing something to harm the third world, and they're considerably helping parts of it, so why're you complaining?
Oh, and I've seen the $2/day figure quoted around here. It's reasonable to say that a month's wages in America can buy a high-quality computer. A month's wages at $2/day is about $60. Remember that this is the first wave of cheap computers for developing nations. They're already close to the same price point with respect to purchasing power, and they'll get to it very quickly.
Good, but recycle more first.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Having said that, ok $100 PCs are good - but again with the environment/pollution pressures, how far do we go? Remember each machine eats 200W+ of power - nice when we are trying to get everyone to cut back..
Solutions for 0m altitude (Score:4, Insightful)
In the e-society session, everyone except me and a bright Intel VP thought politicians would solve all the problems, we thought engineers would. Then a man from Nigeria stood up. It took him 2 days to get to Kyoto. He said he appreciated everyone's enthusiam, but you know there are problems like where to get firewood. A major problem is smart people leaving the villages. In the Cambodian projects I know, political problems and human, ground level problems are like an axe taken to bright slashdotesque suggestions (I have offered plenty believe me), and the number of people working full time with insight into what it takes are very few.
I have been a volunteer helping a website that asks people to buy mosquito nets for Cambodia. It is very cheap to buy a net that can keep malaria away when you sleep. A couple days ago Sharon Stone raised a million dollars for these nets and that was a stunner. Wow. I think she said something like, "People are dying in your country now and that is not okay with me now" and started with a 10,000 bucks donation.
The ex-Newsweek journalist I have worked with on Cambodia (Bernard Krisher) has gotten companies and individuals to donate 10,000 dollars each to build a school with their name on it (matched by the World Bank). A little more for solar panels that could drive a computer. Negroponte's media lab has been involved in these projects too - in fact maybe it is all connected.
I think computing definitely is useful. But I think we need more people who know what is going on there. I feel that there are lots more technological solutions out there but not enough knowledgeable people networked together to converge on solving specific problems. For example you may remember the story about LAN on a motorcycle that drives through Cambodian villages to exchange email and maybe take someone to a hospital (Krisher's Motoman project). I have wondered if ham radio or satellite radio might not be better but am not trained in it, and the reality is it takes someone who is really tough to get things done. If it is done at a primitive level with minimal technology and a lot of stubbornness, people on the ground and some sponsorship, it has a chance at working it seems.
But I wonder about the physicist in Rhode Island (mentioned on slashdot?) I heard of who developed a new kind of antenna that could provide the same output as a massive tower. I know there is packet ham radio which can go around the world. Satellites are passing overhead all the time probably. But where is the discussion by the physicists, ham fanatics, solar power geeks, and satellite geeks? How to plug it in to participation by the people who know the ground and what works?
As it happens I think one issue that used to be a big worry (maybe no more) in Cambodia when I started 10 years ago was that radio use would draw fire from the military. Oh well. Is that still true? I doubt it.
So my conclusion. I think Sharon Stone is wonderful and anything that can have similar effects is good, provided the money is used well. So an English documentary on the conditions on the ground might be good, anything that makes it more transparent to the media-saturated world and gets visible to the people with resources and heart. Certainly open source, technology, and ad hoc networking is useful there. I also think more attention and support needs to be given to the people who are actually doing things, to help them, learn lessons, and accelerate aid. Networking might be useful to get people who have left the town to talk to peop
Re:Good goal? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Good goal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sigh.. there's always someone just ready to take a piss in the cereal.
So, please enlighten us. What are these goals? And how do you propose to solve them? Once you have answered these two questions, answer the third: when are you going to start working on these solutions?
It is very easy to criticize someone else for making an effort. It is very, very hard to get your ass out of your parents' basement and actually do something about it.
I'm sorry if I sound so harsh, but this attitude just bothers me. You got a better idea, Bub? Then do it. Until then, STFU.
I applaud everyone who's doing anything to make the world a better place. This, IMHO, will make the world a "better" place (note, I did not say "the best place"). If nothing else, at least they tried (which is more than can be said of 99% of this world's population, and this readership).
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Re:Undue Focus (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, if only someone would pony up hundreds of millions of dollars... oh, wait. Bill Gates has been doing it for years.
Re:Undue Focus (Score:5, Insightful)
That is often the first response that projects like these elicit. The typical reaction is "aren't these people more concerned with surviving than surfing the web?"
Well, the intent of these devices is to help as much as possible with improving the basic qualities of life, rather than enabling typical "high-level" PC tasks most of us Slashdot readers are concerned with, like creating spreadsheets or writing code.
For example, a farmer in a developing country might be able to use such a device to determine whether his crop would fetch a higher price in a village to the North or the South. In the past, he might have had to walk 10-20 miles to find out what price he would get, so if he picked the wrong village, the mistake would be costly...and probably irreversible. Believe me, a device that could help him make that decision would make a very big difference in this fellow's life.
Information can improve people's lives regardless of their relative prosperity.
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Not to Mention (Score:4, Insightful)
Farmers here in the West are surprisingly technical people, and treat farming as a science. One can't help but wonder how much better third world nations would be doing if they had access to some of that science and knowhow.
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Re:Dumbest Distribution Scheme Ever (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't really blame people for wanting to live semi-normal lives. Refusing to pay those corrupt officials is not really an option.
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Re:But I thought (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if you simply ship bulk old PCs with no testing to where the labour is cheaper, the cost of collecting and packing the systems is substantial, not to mention the legal issues of shipping systems whose hard drives haven't been wiped of software.
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Re:But I thought (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever see the clips showing mountains of computer parts in some of those countries with people just out there banging on them like something out of 2001 space odyssey?
They aint' going to do anything with a pile of parts. They are going to do about as much with that as all of use with the pile of parts we built up from out old stuff for that robot project thats never going to happen.
The better solution is to not make computers such a throw away item and have them be easily recycled when done with and such.
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Re:But I thought (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, so first you have to create local programs around the country to get the computers. You have to pay advertising costs to let the people know that the program exists. Chances are you have to pick the computers up because most peope won't bother to drop them off. You have to then store the units until it's worth moving them to a more central location. This has to be done year round, as people don't all upgrade at the same time, and most people would prolly just chuck it rather than hold onto it for 9 months until the yearly pickup. Space costs money. You have to arrange for some kind of centralized pickup/delivery system to regional centers. Which, incidentally, cost money to rent and operate. Then you have to somehow package them up (just chucking them into a shipping bin (ie what they go across the ocean on) almost guarantees that they'll arrive broken, which kind of makes the whole exercise moot). So to be practical, you have to box them up, except you can't use any kind of standardization, because the computers are in all kinds of different form factors. Then you have to get the large containers across the country to a port, on a ship, and across the ocean.
And you still haven't dealt with the issue that some software can't legally be transferred. Not to mention the fact that many people aren't savy enough to wipe their data, so you'd be handing over all kinds of personal data. (No, you can't just use a bulk demagnatizer, as pretty much any demag unit powerful enough to wipe a hard drive will physically destroy the drive.) It's not like the Nigerian-style scammers need any additional tools in fooling people.
So your costs have now added up to the point that you can pretty much make something new that you know works, you know has legal, properly installed software, etc., is designed for the target user, and is designed for the expected power supply. If your villiage only has DC power available, that 386 that takes 110/220AC doesn't do them a bit of good.
Why do we have to handhold them through setting up stuff we're giving to them for free?
Just like trying to derive water by eating snow, some things are a zero net gain (or even loss) even when it's free. Not everything that's free is worth it.
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Re:But I thought (Score:4, Insightful)
The type of places these machines go people cannot RTFM and go search on google, they have no computer skills, these are people that live in small rural villages in many cases. Ever been to Laos, Burma, etc? Obviously not, your just another damn yankee that thinks America is the center of the universe and cares little for the problems in other regions of the world.
I knew a guy in Mercy Corp that went over to help with the tsunami relief and in one village he was in they had one roughly 100mhz machine they were using to use for searching for missing people, all the while your on your 3ghz machine wanking off to porn.
In fact what you describe of "keeping all that old shit out of our landfills" happens all too often, computer "recycling" operations merely dump the equipment in other countries and have poor villagers in most cases without adequate protection (nor are they aware of the dangers) against many of the toxins disasemble the equipment.
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