$7 USB Stick Aims To Bring Thousands of Poor People Online 201
dryriver sends this BBC report:
"The USB flash drive is one of the most simple, everyday pieces of technology that many people take for granted. Now it's being eyed as a possible solution to bridging the digital divide, by two colourful entrepreneurs behind the start-up Keepod. Nissan Bahar and Franky Imbesi aim to combat the lack of access to computers by providing what amounts to an operating-system-on-a-stick. In six weeks, their idea managed to raise more than $40,000 (£23,750) on fundraising site Indiegogo, providing the cash to begin a campaign to offer low-cost computing to the two-thirds of the globe's population that currently has little or no access. The test bed for the project is the slums of Nairobi in Kenya. The typical income for the half a million people in the city's Mathare district is about $2 (£1.20) a day. Very few people here use a computer or have access to the net. But Mr Bahar and Mr Imbesi want to change that with their Keepod USB stick. It will allow old, discarded and potentially non-functional PCs to be revived, while allowing each user to have ownership of their own 'personal computer' experience — with their chosen desktop layout, programs and data — at a fraction of the cost of providing a unique laptop, tablet or other machine to each person.'"
Re:Cloud vs stick (Score:4, Interesting)
It's less vulnerable to keyloggers and other garbage you might find on a shared PC, and there are plenty of computers junked due to bad or malware-ridden hard drives that could quickly and cheaply be brought back to life with something like this.
On the other hand, there's no standard method for changing the boot device on PCs (it's typically a rather arcane procedure) and libraries and Internet cafes often won't let you boot from your own media for security reasons. I'm not sure how practical this would be for someone with no computer experience.
Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help? (Score:3, Interesting)
A lot of the demand for safety, clean water, healthcare, etc. comes from constant, believable exposure to the concept that it is a human right that people should expect. This is why communist countries wanted to control the media and prevent exposure to decadent western cultures. Getting people in Africa "online" and otherwise educated in how the rest of the world really functions, day in and day out, will go a long way to motivating the oppressed into doing something about their condition for themselves.
Dead hard drive or EOL Windows (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help? (Score:5, Interesting)
Such a good point. I admit, this was my view of Africa before I met a couple of real Africans. One from Liberia, another from Somalia.
They both paint very different pictures of the Dark Continent.
Fungbey, my friend from Liberia, paints a modern picture, tarnished only by the civil war that ended in (I think) 2003. The country is nearly indistinguishable from any western country, but much poorer. Education is very valued and easy to obtain and for many emigrating to the west they're education is the only thing they bring with them. Yes, they have a lot more problems and poverty than most of the west, but it is nowhere near what you see on the news, which focuses on the problematic interior, where warlords are still the problem .
Kannah, my friend from Somalia, paints a picture of abject poverty, corruption, and pretty much everything you see bad about Africa.
You almost never see Fungbeys Africa in the news. Except for the civil war, Liberia is just too normal and boring to be interesting.
For the worst of Africa, yeah, no electricity, internet, food shortages, etc, the PC is a no starter. But a lot of Africans live in modern Africa. Ignored by the mainstream news until something bad happens.
And I personally think Africa will become the next China, just as China replaced S. Korea, that replaced Japan and so on for cheap labor.
I see it as a good thing. This cycle has left all of those countries better off than before.
But I understand why so many have the same incorrect view of Africa that I did. No one reports on Africa's good points, or Europe's, or America's. All any of us hear are the bad parts of other cultures. You have to search for anything beyond sensationalism.