Intel Aims 'One Tablet Per Child' Program at Developing Countries 93
retroworks writes "Digitimes Reports that 'Intel is set to push a tablet PC product codenamed StudyBook to target emerging markets. ... The StudyBook tablet PC will feature a 10-inch panel with Intel's Medfield platform and adopt dual-operating systems and will target the emerging markets such as China and Brazil. .. The StudyBook tablet PC will be released in the second half of 2012. ... Intel also hopes to push the product into regular retail channels priced below US$299.' Will this be another 'OLPC' disappointment, or is it starting to look very tough for the traditional school book industry?"
Creating a World without Poverty (Score:4, Interesting)
what you're describing is what Professor Muhammad Yunus (joint winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize) outlines, in his book, "Creating a World without Poverty". in it he describes the best way to achieve the results that you've highlighted.
the absolute most critical point that professor yunus makes is that you can't just go in blithely and "help" people. you *HAVE* to get them to help themselves (or at least offer them the *opportunity* to help themselves). it's none of our business - not a government and not a charity - to go dictating what's best for people. that's what's so brilliant about the micro-loans system: the PEOPLE decide what they want to do - they decide what works for them, and, out of sheer overwhelming gratitude they go for it like you just wouldn't believe.
the loan repayment success rate is so high (over 98%) that the Grameen bank actually considers it THEIR failure if people get into difficulties. compare that to an EIGHTY SEVEN percent default rate in the west (which starts to make you appreciate that there's something desperately wrong with the western mindset). the Grameen Bank is so successful that they don't even bother retaining any lawyers. at all.
it may interest you to know that one of the chapters of Professor Yunus's book calls for IT specialists to take the initiative and create some infrastructure that would help people to uplift themselves out of poverty. that still hasn't really happened yet, and i'm really perplexed and slightly frustrated that it hasn't happened.
anyway, bit of an old article that's still relevant: http://www.advogato.org/article/966.html [advogato.org]
Re:Creating a World without Poverty (Score:4, Interesting)
...one of the chapters of Professor Yunus's book calls for IT specialists to take the initiative and create some infrastructure that would help people to uplift themselves out of poverty. that still hasn't really happened yet, and i'm really perplexed and slightly frustrated that it hasn't happened.
There are many initatives for this kind of thing, but it's very hard to see how the pieces fit together to produce that kind of infrastructure. There's a good reason for that too: Anything that could be cost effective as a communications medium in the 3rd world would oblitherate those company's strangehold on the current (expensive) infrastructure.
But we're all well aware that the internet as we know it has gone to shit and we need to solve the problem of how to create a connection between two nodes that cannot be eavesdropped, does not rely on a 3rd party (central authority) to work, and can provide for anonymity. It's obvious that money is required to build an IT network, but we need some very strong controls to make sure that the interests providing that money can't later co-opt the network for their own purposes. The network needs to provide communications in a way that can't be fucked with to selectively block content.
The only way to do that is wirelessly. Software defined radio will eventually create the network outlined above, but it will probably be "pirate radio" as it were, since every country in the west auctions off spectrum to corporations -- there is no concept of 'public use' across most of the spectrum, and the few areas that are 'public use' are actively being attacked by corporate interests who want to reclaim it.
In short, it's a non-trivial problem to solve. People are working on it, believe me... but we're not being public about it nor are we recruiting many of the youth of today because they've grown up in a DRM-enabled world where everything is ruled by a corporation. My 15 yo sister is deathly afraid of using anything but iTunes because she fears the government will bust our door down and take her to Guantanamo bay if she downloads a .mp3, despite the fact that she knows I have 4x 1TB drives filled with 'pirate' material under my bed and download with impunity.
Ironic that for the first time in history, it's the 'older' generation that is risking their lives and livelihood to ensure freedom for the 'current' generation... usually it's the kids we sacrifice to war. -_-