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Intel Portables Government Education Hardware Politics

Intel Calls $100 Laptops Undesired Gadgets 429

Posted by Zonk from the missing-the-point dept.
dolphinlover writes "Craig Barrett, Intel Corporation chairman believes that the $100 laptop computers to be manufactured by the MIT media lab run by Nicholas Negroponte beginning in early 2006 are merely 'gadgets', making them unattractive to consumers who will be disappointed by their 'limited range of programs'." From the article: "Negroponte said at their launch in November the new machines would be sold to governments for schoolchildren at $100 a device but the general public would have to pay around $200 -- still much cheaper than the machines using Intel's chips. But Barrett said similar schemes in the past elsewhere in the world had failed and users would not be satisfied with the new machine's limited range of programs."
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Intel Calls $100 Laptops Undesired Gadgets More

Intel Calls $100 Laptops Undesired Gadgets

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  • Bah, Sayeth Scrooge (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Friday December 09, 2005 @05:06PM (#14223695) Homepage Journal
    "Bah. Humbug!", Barrett was heard to say.
    But Barrett said similar schemes in the past elsewhere in the world had failed and users would not be satisfied with the new machine's limited range of programs.
    Sounds like the Itanium, so I guess he should know.

    "It turns out what people are looking for is something is something that has the full functionality of a PC," he said. "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."
    Yeah and PDA and programmable cell phones would never sell.

    He said Intel was also expanding an IT teacher training scheme it says has already reached three million schoolteachers worldwide to Sri Lanka, and praised local projects aimed at producing computer literacy. Some 90 percent of Sri Lankans were literate but only 10 percent computer literate, he said.
    I think they call that the Save 10% off your next purchase of an Intel PC, forever locking you into our architecture plan.

    i wonder if powerhungry processors and the electric generators necessary to power them are the actual root of global warming.

    • Some 90 percent of Sri Lankans were literate but only 10 percent computer literate, he said. Class, today we will be learning about Intel...(projector displays blue man group ad for intel)...

      • Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge (Score:5, Insightful)

        by zippthorne ( 748122 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @07:13PM (#14224905) Journal
        Why do we keep using that phrase, "computer literate" when what we mean is "computer savy?" If we let ths poor analogy to be codified in the language, it will become that much more entrenched. As if understanding computers opens anywhere near the possibilites that being able to read does.

    • Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge (Score:5, Insightful)

      by paranode ( 671698 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @05:14PM (#14223786)
      Yeah and PDA and programmable cell phones would never sell.

      Not that he doesn't have a particular bias, but he's probably right in that these devices are not going to be laptops like most people think of them. Instead they're more like special-purpose hardware for special-purpose software, something like the PDA you mention only marketed as a laptop. That's not to say these won't have a place, because I do think they could very well serve the purpose for which they're being manufactured.

      • Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Friday December 09, 2005 @05:25PM (#14223901) Homepage Journal
        That's not to say these won't have a place, because I do think they could very well serve the purpose for which they're being manufactured.

        And as a matter of course, you may find developers catering to these little boxes, whether its some way to add new software, games, or cater to whatever browser is on them.

        Anything of which there are a million or more sounds like a market, no?

        • Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge (Score:5, Funny)

          by paranode ( 671698 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @05:29PM (#14223949)
          Hey as long as it runs Linux, the children of the world can play Nethack. It brings a tear to my eye.

          • Obligatory (Score:3, Funny)

            by ackthpt ( 218170 ) *

            Just a matter of time before some opportunist does thus:

            My name is Ebou Nogamono and I need your help in retrieving 14,732 gold coins from Croesus' Vault...

          • Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge (Score:5, Insightful)

            by WuphonsReach ( 684551 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @07:42PM (#14225166)
            Hey as long as it runs Linux, the children of the world can play Nethack. It brings a tear to my eye.

            You got modded "Funny", but as long as it can run Linux, I don't think there's going to be a shortage of software to run on it. And at $100 or so, that's less then what the original Palm devices sold for. Look how many applications were developed and written for the PalmOS.

            As long as we (the public) can purchase these in lots of 1 or 2, I suspect the manufacturers won't be able to meet demand.

            Barrett sounds like typical, Intel-style, sour-grapes. Something tells me that they're upset that these systems won't be based on over-priced Intel chips. (Or that, if they were involved, they got shunted to the side due to costs or licensing issues.)

      • I disagree with that they'll only used for special purposes. So what if they have limited power? They're infinitely more powerful than what was available before.

        When Tandy introduced the Model 100 with a z80 and about 32k ram, most people used them for the built in PDA, word processing and comms programs. But others found very unusual and creative ways to deploy them. In many ways, the fact that it was such a lightweight made it more valuable.
        • So what if they have limited power? They're infinitely more powerful than what was available before.

          Yes, and they have infinitely more power than NO computer at all, as the current situation with most third world schoolchildren is.

          Hell, if I were one of them, I'd love to get such a device, because it is definitely better than nothing.

    • Re:Bah, Sayeth Scrooge (Score:3, Insightful)

      by kesuki ( 321456 )
      i wonder if powerhungry processors and the electric generators necessary to power them are the actual root of global warming.

      wonder not, it has nothing to do with how much power is being used, but rather the _source_ of the power is fossil fuels. the earth used to be a lot hotter, in fact at one point in time the entire planet was covered with magma. global warming won't quite acheive that level, but we can easily reach jurassic era warmth... just a few more decades of reliance on good old coal and oil, a

  • Oh, what a surprise! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lord Byron II ( 671689 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @05:08PM (#14223710)
    The CEO of the company that makes product A, when he finds out that product B will be sold for much less than his, says that product B is no good. What a surprise!

    Next week: Bill Gates denounces its operating system.

    • The CEO of the company that makes product A, when he finds out that product B will be sold for much less than his, says that product B is no good. What a surprise!

      I'm surprised all the battery makers haven't jumped on the badwagon, saying hand crank is no way to run anything and solar power is impractical, now if you'll just look at these lovely Duracells...

    • It's a Zonk article. What did you expect?
    • ... Me! Me! Me! Pay attention to ME!

  • IBM said nobody would want a PC (Score:3, Funny)

    by stankulp ( 69949 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @05:08PM (#14223712) Homepage
    Deja vu all over again.

  • Later he was overheard saying.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Mean_Nishka ( 543399 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @05:09PM (#14223719) Homepage Journal
    640K ought to be enough for everybody!
    • 20 mins of operation per windup should be enough for anyone... there, fixed that for you

  • Good News (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 09, 2005 @05:09PM (#14223725)
    Intel wouldn't make a hitch if it wouldn't feel at least a bit threatened by this gadget. So this might be good news for MIT people.
  • They're clearly jealous AMD snatched the opportunity to sponsor this project from under their noses when intel weren't even bothered. Since when was anyone expecting intel to say `the product with our competitor's chips in is better`? Intel's honeymoon is over, they're going to really have to work to get people to buy their products when this laptop is powerful enough for 90% of users.

    • Re:Jealousy (Score:3, Insightful)

      by abscondment ( 672321 )
      I don't know if it's so much that AMD snatched the opportunity, but that their lower power chips are much better suited for cheap overall cost of production.

    • Underdog project (Score:3, Interesting)

      by porkThreeWays ( 895269 )
      The fact that this project contains so many underdogs just might make it succeed. Their egos won't make it fall apart. Except for the MIT staff, almost every company involved can be replaced with someone bigger at any minute. AMD, Brightstar, Google, News Corporation, Nortel Networks, and Red Hat. They've all got bigger counter parts. I think it really pisses off the bigger companies that these smaller companies had more insight than them. When they realized how big this thing is going to be, it was too lat

  • Intel is just... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tradiuz ( 926664 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @05:10PM (#14223732)
    Intel is just afraid that people will come to realise that you dont need a $500+ processor to surf the web, and you can get by just fine with 4 year old technology.
    • Oh don't worry, crappy designers who care more about looks than function and macromedia are doing everything to prevent such anti-capitalist ideas.

    • Re:Intel is just... (Score:5, Funny)

      by mlg9000 ( 515199 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @05:50PM (#14224111)
      Intel is just afraid that people will come to realise that you dont need a $500+ processor to surf the web, and you can get by just fine with 4 year old technology.
      Yeah but can you browse the web AND run all your spyware at the same time with a 4 year old processor? That's what your average home user does.

  • Undesired if you used a Pentium 4 (Score:5, Funny)

    by GeoffSmith1981 ( 795607 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @05:10PM (#14223740) Homepage
    Maybe Intel is just jealous because to hand-crank power a Pentium 4 laptop would take you a few hours.

  • missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)

    by joe 155 ( 937621 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @05:10PM (#14223741) Journal
    I thought the whole point of these laptops was for people in far poorer countries who could not possibly hope to afford anything remotely as good as these anyway... I can hardly see people living in Brazilean shanty-towns saying "this laptop can't hash files fast enough"... Besides I'd buy one just because they sound impossible to destroy and it would be good to take to uni and have kicking around in my bag; I'd only need notepad anyway.

    • you're dead on (Score:3, Insightful)

      by johnpaul191 ( 240105 )
      these are not to be sold at CompUSA or even walmart..... if they read the specs and explanations for these they would know that they are not intended to be state of the art, and they cost $100 each in quantities of a million or something. the one prototype or mockup that was posted here before even had a crank to generate power because they are going to be used in places either without electricity or with unreliable electricity. if somebody is in that situation i don't think they will give a crap how well t

      • Re:you're dead on (Score:3, Informative)

        by KiloByte ( 825081 )
        if somebody is in that situation i don't think they will give a crap how well the machine can run Doom

        Actually, on a machine of that class Doom will run just fine. It started being playable on a mid-end 486, and this $100 box is a lot better than that.

  • I'll buy one. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MikeFM ( 12491 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @05:10PM (#14223742) Homepage Journal
    If they're as good as they sound then I'd buy one. I think laptops today are rather stupid. To slow to do anything demanding power and yet hot, noisy, and power hungry. I'd rather have something light, quiet, with a long battery life that does the basics I need - web, email, im, ssh, light word processing, and light image manipulation. I'll be surprised if the $100 laptop can't handle those and more.
    • My BlackBerry fits most of that and was only $100 with a very reasonable plan.
    • Personally I'd love to have an 8 pound brick of a laptop. I take mine with me every day, and I need to be able to handle video editing, 3D rendering, audio synthesis, etc, while at school (Parsons School of Design). My Powerbook is fast enough, for now, but I'd take something a bit bigger with twice the power if I could. When half of your heavy computing needs to happen outside of your home, such laptops are hardly stupid.
    • Me too. You make a good point. Besides, the people behind the project should seriously consider sell these babies at a premium to people in developed markets. Many people will buy one as a way to partially subsidize the production. Plus you get a pretty useful gadget.

      Hell, I live in an expensive area of the US. I spend over a 100 bucks anytime I go to the supermarket and pick up a few things for next week for me and my family.

      • Re:I'll buy one. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by humina ( 603463 )
        You should be able to buy one for $200, and that money will be used to subsidize the laptops going to the developing countries.

  • limited range of programs (Score:5, Funny)

    by 7macaw ( 933316 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @05:10PM (#14223743)
    You can only get finite-sized memory for $200 and therefore the range of programs is limited. For $2000 the amount of memory you get is... oh wait

  • Duh, of course... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by metlin ( 258108 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @05:11PM (#14223751) Journal
    Of course, Intel is going to say that.

    Quite obviously, when you are going to be selling an entire computer at the price of their processors and motherboards, they're going to be pissed.

    Sure, I could use a dual athlon if I'm running the latest game or doing some serious number crunching - but for a user in an developing country with limited funds, the choice is definitely beneficial.

    Today's computers have a lot of crap that most users don't use - but they have them anyway. The idea of a computer is to be a tool - give those people a simple, straightforward system that a user can truly use in doing their job, and you'd have gone far.

    Of course, given the choice, companies like Intel would sell a $500 processor to a poor man who'd have no use for it. But that doesn't mean the idea itself is flawed. If anything, it's a nice way to help bring technology to the needy, and give them a chance.

    I've seen the use of some of these technologies (MIT's Michael Best does some work on e-development -- they've some really nice work) - and they truly are helpful. Just because it doesn't help Intel's bottom penny doesn't mean it's useless. Given time, I'm fairly certain that it would be proven so.

  • Oh really? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by iibbmm ( 723967 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @05:12PM (#14223759)
    $200 for a laptop that I could slip into my backpack on a camping trip and not worry about battery life since I can hand crank it? Put me down for one. It would be perfect for logging camping trips, vacation abroad, ebooks on a plane, etc etc. So what if it's not the most powerfull thing in the world. Open source and the very nature of the product SCREAM oodles of programs and potential. I'm reminded why I haven't found myself removing the shrinkwrap from an intel box lately.
  • It might be underpowered for a lappie but it's not half bad for a PDA. And it runs Linux! But the hand-crank thing is what really interests me. No more looking for an outlet when your battery is running low! 10 minutes of elbow grease and you're back surfing again. I'd pay for a mod like that for my ThinkPad 600x or my iBook.

    This is a reversal...the $200 price to the General First-World Public. Negroponte was talking about not even offering this to developed countries. I guess he knows that there is a secon
  • Well, that all depends on whether or not it will run linux...

    Because if it does, then any application can be added. If they design it with hacking in mind, then there will be a myriad of uses for them, and economies of scale will drive the cost down, and the value up.

  • The real acid test will be Henrico, VA (Score:3, Funny)

    by dubbayu_d_40 ( 622643 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @05:13PM (#14223774)
    If anyone gets kicked in the balls over one, then these laptops are gold.

  • What people want (Score:2, Insightful)

    by GroeFaZ ( 850443 )
    FTA:
    "It turns out what people are looking for is something is something that has the full functionality of a PC," he said. "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[sic] hand cranks for power"

    Uhm, as opposed to be dependant on a power grid infrastructure, centralized power plants, money to pay for the power, and whatnot? Truly an ugly piece of competition diss.
  • I'd buy it today for $100.
    I don't even need to think much about it at $200.

    I'm drooling over this computer.

    Sure, it won't do what my 700 dollar p4 3.0 with 600 gigs & a 6800OC card will but it is useful in several cases where my p4 isn't.
  • You will not be satisfied with an economical competetitor.
    You will not be satisfied with an economical competetitor.

    You must pay $3600 for the latest and greatest Dell XPS laptop or you will never be happy.

    Intel is your ONLY friend.
    Intel is your ONLY friend.

    Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

  • Racism? (Score:3, Funny)

    by NotoriousGOD ( 936922 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @05:20PM (#14223843)
    I think someone should change the name "Negroponte" to something more politically correct. Like "Africanamericanponte".
    • Totally off topic, but back in the day when I was part of a community theatre group (working lights), one of the actresses was British, and she had cause to say that she had "sniggered" at someone. I had suggested that she should use the phrase "snafrican-americaned".

      She looked at me quite blankly at the time.

      Much like you just did.
    • If I pronounced Niger the way the people in Niger pronounce Niger, I would be driven out of town.

    • Re:Racism? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by metlin ( 258108 )
      :-)

      On a serious note, he's Greek in origin - and Negropont [wikipedia.org] (or Euboea) is one of the bigger islands around the Greek archipelago. It was called that by the Venetians after the bridge which connected them with mainland Greece.

      I think the term, "negro" is common around that area - there is also a place in the Balkans called Montenegro [wikipedia.org].
  • ...You will buy only laptops with Intel Inside(tm).
    ...You do not need low-cost, $200 laptops.

    Well -- the Jedi Mind Trick seems to work for Micro$oft; why not Intel, too?
  • Such laptops would ideally use ARM processors and free OSes, unless you can get by with PalmOS or WindowsCE. Intel as a matter of fact makes the highest performing ARM chips out there. Only theyre real expensive compared to others' ($5 in qty) ARM chips. Intel also has access to 90nm and 65nm process technologies, which should make their chips much more powerful for the same price. They CAN benefit from the $100 laptop, maybe taking a good $40 of it considering they also make good flash chips.

    But selling Pe

  • From the FAQ (Score:5, Informative)

    by rhoder ( 690061 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @05:28PM (#14223930) Journal
    http://laptop.media.mit.edu/faq.html [mit.edu]

    WiFi-enabled
    "USB ports galore".
    Its current specifications are: 500MHz, 1GB, 1 Megapixel.

    • Re:From the FAQ (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Alsee ( 515537 )
      WiFi-enabled "USB ports galore". 500MHz, 1GB, 1 Megapixel.

      Christ! And Intel is calling it an underpowered "gadget" capable of a "limited range of programs"? Someone is smoking crack!

      I set up a family member with an old hand-me-down system...
      No WiFi, just a dialup modem.
      Zero USB ports.
      350 MHz
      0.125 GB (128 MB)
      Capable of a megapixel, but set at a default of 0.5 megapixel (800x600) to keep all of the fonts and icons larger.

      Sure it's an "old klunker", but for your average non-geek it's more than powerful enough

    • Re:From the FAQ (Score:3, Informative)

      by burns210 ( 572621 )
      Needs to be clarified:

      the 500MHz AMD processor is a custom building, using something like .5 watts of power (the system is expected to use 2-3 watts total) as this system is meant to have very low battery usage.

      the 1 GB is for flash memory, used in place of a harddrive for nonvolatile storage. There will be 128 MB of RAM for the actual running system. 4 USB ports, which may change. Wi-fi, and some form of cell phone wireless connection, i believe. They support some customized ad hoc wireless mesh networkin
  • That's stupid. Many, if not most of these users have never used anything better than these laptops. Say we went back 10 years and had one of these instead of an old 386... we wouldn't be complaining about lack of features!

    Also, standardised and limited hardware actually make development on the babies a whole lot easier than for a PC, provided there are good development tools.
  • I guess he has never been to the local toystore, where they sell borderline worthless junk for more then that..

    Ever see the fake laptops they are pushing this season?

    For 200 you get a *real* laptop, and arent tied to batteries? Sign me up..
  • Seriously, how could Barrett be so stupid? Yeah, lets launch FUD against a low cost laptop designed to give computing capabilties to people could otherwise have nothing. Does program diversity matter when the only other option is no computer? Brilliant PR move! Maybe Barrett is just pissed that Intel's stock price has been flat since his tenure as CEO.

  • Of course they are going to say this.

    What the hell are they supposed to say? "Damn! sucks to be us! I guess we can kiss that market goodbye, cause there is no way we can compete with that price."

    That statement would be followed by the swirling vortexy sound of their stock price going down the toilet.

  • But Barrett said similar schemes in the past elsewhere in the world had failed and users would not be satisfied with the new machine's limited range of programs.

    You mean like eMachines? I still have one of those chugging away out in the garage. What similar scheme would that be, Mr. Barrett?

    I'm pretty happy with the range of programs available for my Linux machine. Not going to do much video editing on a $200.00 hand crank computer anyway. If they were available today, I'd buy one today. I could th

  • Books don't break! (Generally speaking)

  • Sign me up (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Schlaegel ( 28073 )
    I would love a few of these. A notebook for each kid, and one for mommy and daddy too. They are cheap. They don't have power cords to worry about. We can take them anywhere. They are cheap. They claim they are durable. I can write software for my kids. They are cheap. There is a large quantity of open source apps just waiting to be ported.

    Did I mention you can put me on the waiting list?
  • It will be hooking the crank to a foot pedal devise. That way you can charge it, and use it at the same time.
  • I guarantee you the school children in 3rd world countries or otherwise will be absolutely thrilled with these "undesired gadgets." On a consumer in the US level, not really sure. Heck, i'd buy one just for kicks and so would a lot of people, but who knows how big of a seller they'll be. 200 bucks for a new laptop running linux is a steal no matter how you look at it.
  • This was said before, but to say something like this sounds like a marketing attack.

    How could one find these laptops to be underpowered? Either:

    1. You know you paid $100 for it, so you couldn't expect much anyway! (Even if you paid $200 because you live in a western country)
    2. You never had access to a computer before - let alone a (n extremely) portable one - and you'll astounded at how much stuff you can do.

    Even disregarding this, these things should be impressive machines for what they're worth; they run

  • The Single Biggest Step Up (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @05:54PM (#14224153)
    The single biggest step up is from no computer to a computer. It's all diminishing returns after that.

    (P.S. The same thing applies with printers.)

  • Limited functionality... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by spagthorpe ( 111133 ) on Friday December 09, 2005 @05:57PM (#14224189)
    For one thing, the hacker community will be on these immediately, and I expect them to have a lot more functionality when that kicks in. I also look forward to having a laptop that I can use in less than ideal environments without fear of loosing something much more expensive. Last, I don't mind paying more for the device if it helps fund the project somewhat and helps provide the laptops for people less fortunate.

  • He's right! (Score:5, Funny)

    by lheal ( 86013 ) <{moc.oohay} {ta} {9991laehl}> on Friday December 09, 2005 @06:00PM (#14224213) Journal
    I believe that there's need for maybe 5 inexpensive laptops in the world.

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