The Sub-$100 Laptop? 345
Vollernurd writes "The BBC is carrying this article detailing Nick Negroponte's plans to deveop and distribute a sub-$100 notebook computer. It would be very basic and stripped down and be used in developing countries as a way of distributing school books and such. Interesting to see how they will cut costs. Yes, it does run Linux." You can read another slashdot story about this machine when it was discussed on Red Herring awhile ago.
Not just developing countries (Score:5, Insightful)
Quality? (Score:2, Insightful)
Error in TFA? (Score:3, Insightful)
"The second trick is to get rid of the fat , if you can skinny it down you can gain speed and the ability to use smaller processors and slower memory."
Um, why is using slower memory a GOOD thing? Esp. if these people are going to be using it like a textbook, it's going to be much more memory intensive than CPU intensive......
Re:Quality? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not just developing countries (Score:5, Insightful)
And I really like this guy's motivation for this. I think it just goes to show that technological gurus aren't money grubbers by nature.
Re:Not just developing countries (Score:3, Insightful)
Laptops..Hmmmm Tasty (Score:2, Insightful)
The real question... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not just developing countries (Score:4, Insightful)
Why? If they sold well, you increase the volume produced, and the cost per unit decreases.
While you would certainly want to regulate how many are sold in what market, assuming you design it once, and design it right, mass production is your friend.
One item I think that should be introduced for portable, that would REALLY help the developing world, is repairability. There is no earthly reason why you can't design a laptop with an interchangable screen. And how about a standard battery connection system and package?
These are all things that would be impossible to market to the developed world, but would be essential to the developing world. They simply don't buy into the idea that you throw something that costs many times their yearly wages away after 2 years.
Hmm... (Score:2, Insightful)
Most of the uses were for Power Point slides and other useless replacements of existing technology: a blackboard, an eraser, chalk, paper, pencil, etc. It has made research a lot easier, but not necessarily better. You can find stuff faster but is the time savings used to put together more convincing arguments or properly written materials?
I think the $100 laptop is a good idea for schools to have in small numbers, say 1 per classroom at most. If it were up to me I wouldn't have any computers in school outside of a designated "computer lab" as I think they interfere with learning. They are a tool, but they are mostly applied the incorrect way.
I would hope that for the severely impoverished we would worry about other things first, then the laptop. Although certainly it is worthwhile* $100 can buy a lot of books and learning materials.
Negroponte says: "In China they spend $17 per child per year on textbooks. That's for five or six years, so if we can distribute and sell laptops in quantities of one million or more to ministries of education that's cheaper and the marketing overheads go away."
Laptops certainly will have information more current, but laptops also need to be replaced every five or six years, or even less. A broken laptop is more expensive to fix than a broken book.
I would say a better solution is to give each classroom a laptop, say, for every five kids. Then one kid can take it home each night and use it if they wish. But back to my original point, the teacher is the best tool, not the laptop.
* I say worthwhile because the developing world can use more cheap tech. Read "Africa Rising [wired.com]" or look at Ubuntu [ubuntu.com] for example.
Re:More pressing needs (Score:5, Insightful)
People in 3rd world countries have 'basic' needs, but they also realize that there are some tools worth having. If a computer is going to cost you 5 years of income, then it's not an issue. But if you can get one relatively cheap, access to information can be extremely valuable.
Reduced costs (Score:1, Insightful)
A simple computer with Win 3.1 used to run everything I needed. You should almost be able to implement such a computer on one chip these days.
The thing I think will be a challenge is the $20 display.
Disposal? Pollution? (Score:2, Insightful)
Meanwhile, on eBay (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Laptops..Hmmmm Tasty (Score:1, Insightful)
Seriously, why is it always "treat the immediate symptoms, but anything that might improve the situation long-term isn't helping?"
Computers can help the local governments become more effective which would, hopefully, help them offer better services and better planning to improve the food situation.
But that would involve a long-term view, and as we all know, only the short-term matters.
Re:Error in TFA? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have ever worked in a factory or with a piece of remote instrumentation, cooling fans are the bane of your existance. They die quietly, and next thing you know you have random crashes, or worse, damaged components. And they have a great way of sucking dust, dirt, and other undesirables into the inner workings of the machine.
Plus, you save on the cost of the fan, the cost of the connector for the fan, the cost of the holes in the PCB to run the pins to supply the fan, and can chop that much more power off the requirements for the supply. You also have one less part that needs to be assembled onto the final product.
All of that can add up to a few hundred thousand dollars of savings over a production run of a few million computers.
And for the record, a textbook program is NOT all that CPU intensive. There is not rule that says you can't scale the format to the capabilities of the machine.
Re:Please pay attention (Score:1, Insightful)
Point taken -- I was late to this and made a bad assumption.
Now Coward, why not add something more to the conversation, than "hey, itsadupe"? My view stands, that this dupe is valuable -- while not intentional :)
BG
Re:But the questions is... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Laptops..Hmmmm Tasty (Score:3, Insightful)
This will happen no matter what. (Score:3, Insightful)
I think a bigger challenge than getting cheap screens is making the machines rugged enough. Kids + Third World living conditions = MDL. (many dead laptops).
Re:But the questions is... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Not just developing countries (Score:4, Insightful)
The tricky part is the hard drives. They really want to see +/- 12V. I'm pretty sure, and please, someone correct me, that you could actually provide that by providing the +12V leg of the system with the straight power, and simply reversing the polarity of power coming in for the -12V. That is assuming that you can't find a hard drive that operates at 5V. I'm too lazy to research it.
Couple that with a diode to prevent the system from being damaged by reversed wires, and a big Cap to handle power dips and surges and you will have a Joe-proof computer.
Re:cellphone.. (Score:3, Insightful)
the cell phone i just got for free with my two year cingular service agreement costs almost $250 to buy without a service agreement, if you can at all.
Re:Point-Counterpoint (Score:3, Insightful)
This system is designed for the chunks of the world that already have electricity and water and phones (at least in civic structures), but where $1200 is a fortune, and where a unit costing $100 that could replace 10+ textbooks costing $10, while providing some added functions, is economically advantageous.
Re:Meanwhile, on eBay (Score:3, Insightful)
No, you can't. You can get a PowerBook for $50. You can not get millions of PowerBooks for $50, for two reasons, each sufficient on their own: One, there aren't that many on the market, the supply is finite and you can not "create" new used products at any useful rate, and two, when you raise the demand, you'll raise the price and they won't be $50 anymore. Economics 101.
Besides, if you're going to create $100 laptops, believe me, you're not going to create a totally new laptop chipset, graphics card, processor, etc. These new $100 laptops will have vastly more "proven" technology than "a random used computer with an unknown history". Seriously, you'll spend more than $100 in time just vetting each machine, installing the build of software that works on this one (but not its neighbor), testing it to make sure it, ya know, works, and by the time all's said and done you're better off just making a new machine.
Your sentiment is a good one for individuals ("he said as he posted to Slashdot from a house that still doesn't have a single GHz machine"), but it is not at all a valid criticism of Negroponte's plan, as it is 100% impractical for his needs on multiple levels.
(I can almost read the replies to this in advance, and all I can say is, wishing doesn't make it so. People who wish to prove me, and the laws of economics, wrong, are invited to go ahead and actually try it. You won't be the first person to break themselves on the laws of supply and demand and the fact that labor can't be valued at $0.)
Re:Not just developing countries (Score:3, Insightful)
Selling some units in the West would be a good way to recoup some of the initial investment {tooling costs &c.}; though it would not be at all wise to rely on this as a permanent subsidy, because (1) the novelty value will wear off eventually, and (2) the ultimate aim must surely be for the third world not to have to rely on handouts.
Ideally the machines should be made using local labour as far as possible. Anything that creates jobs has to be good for the economy. One way would be to set up several production facilities in different countries, perhaps using money generated from first-world sales to offset initial building and equipment costs. By the time that particular source of revenue dries up, if the factories are managed properly they should already have begun making other products. Eventually, these developing countries might even become developed countries!
Re:Not just developing countries (Score:3, Insightful)
This is currently one of the latin american countries with the highest proportion of poor people.
But there are many levels of poverty.
There are persons who live in absolute misery (they cannot even afford food).
There are poor who have very low paying jobs and probably cannot buy a 100$ computer. They can barely afford food.
There are poor who can afford food, but cannot have much luxury. They ussually have TV, stereo, and live in very humble homes. They cannot afford cars (some may have very old cars) or better housing, but a large part of them could afford a $100 computer.
There are poor who have somewhat better paying jobs (they might be successful street sellers or something). They cannot afford new cars or elegant housing, but they can certainly 100$ computers.
There are many others who were previously middle class, but now are now poor. Many of them are probably still able to afford a $100 computer.
There are also lower middle class people (poor by first world standards) who can afford $100 (and probably, slightly more expensive) computers.
A $100 computer would certainly be a success here.
I would also imagine that the people in your country and other developing nations who can afford a $100 laptop are not the poor but the middle class.
No. Many poor people here (just not the poorest) could afford $100 computers (especially if it can be payed for in several monthly payments).
Middle class people (a minority here) can afford much more expensive computers.
In many other countries like Colombia, Brasil, Argentina, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay the situation is similar or, in many cases, better.
Also, what happened in California was an anomaly.
Well, it hasn't happened in my third world country. Yet you talk like it is the norm in all third world countries. It is not. (Perhaps it was an anomaly in the Dominican Republic. I don't know. I've never been there).
Remember. There are many levels of poverty.
Anyway, this discussion is a little offtopic, because IIRC these $100 can only be bought by governments in quantities of at least one million.
Venezuelan government can easily shell out 200 or 300 millions and give away the computers if they want to.
This is Horrible . . . God Forbid We Recycle (Score:2, Insightful)
It seems really bad to manufacture a bunch of already obsolete machines, that will wind up in the trash anyway! Why not reuse what we already have, at least for this cycle? Someone is making money here, otherwise recycling would have come to mind first.
Re:Why only for 'developing' countries? (Score:4, Insightful)
And the point here is that not only would it be useful to make available in sub-Saharan Africa or rural India, but to inner-city youth of Liverpool or Los Angeles.
As well, the point here is that you can make something like this available as a cheap commodity computer (avoid the feature bloat... this is to make a very cheap mass-produced computer), it will drive the price down even more simply due to economies of scale. Electronic components are particularly sensitive to volumes of production.
In addition to simply having these computers around at the check-out stands of your local Wal-Mart, there will be a community of developers and tinkerers that will be using the equipment...many of which could translate and port some of the tools and concepts from more expensive equipment to a very cheap platform like this.
There have been some amazing things done with some of the old 8-bit platforms, like the Comodore 64 and the Apple ][, including TCP/IP stacks and web browsers that would have been unheard of when they were originally put together.
An example of a projct made for "an initiative only making sense in desparate circumstances" that has practical application in 1st World countries, The Freeplay Wind-up Radio [ccrane.com] is one of the most innovative projects to come up. This is a device that doesn't need an external power source, is very rugged, and works in areas of the world like Rwanda or Congo. It is also sold in the USA and Canada to people who want to keep an emergency radio available during a disaster, so you don't have to constantly check and see if the batteries are working.
How come a laptop computer couldn't be any different?
Or to paraphrase your Bill Maher quote a little differently, why not go from 10 to 11 when we can also help a country go from 0 to 1? It doesn't have to be a zero-sum game.
Re:Why only for 'developing' countries? (Score:3, Insightful)
The distribution infrastruction in many developing countries is almost non-existant, and I think you would find that the labor costs associated with selling items like this computer would be much more in Gambia or Rwanda than it would be in London, Paris, or St. Louis. The distribution costs are not the big issue here, but rather identifing what commodity CPU and memory chips could be had to make this a truly cheap computer.
Re:Not just developing countries (Score:3, Insightful)
To be sure, this is a noble idea. But the track record in this area is awful so far. I shall be quite surprised if one actually succeeds.
Chips keep getting cheaper. This much is true. But the problem is that there is plenty of money to be made in DDR and DDR2. So, even if you imagine that old-fashioned EDO should be dirt-cheap, nobody is still making it -- precisely because it is so dirt cheap.
And hard drives are more of the same. You still have the same voice-coil head actuation unit. You still have the same number of screws. A drive 1/2 the size of the ones at Best Buy is not 1/2 as cheap.
I certianly hope that this does succeed, but I am not holding my breath.
Re:Why only for 'developing' countries? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you had paid attention to the discussion here, you'd realize that the sub-$100 price is only possible in depressed economies. There's too much financial overhead to sell and manufacture goods in the Western world due to legislation and cultural baggage. Assuming you try to sell that same laptop outside the Third World, you'd likely have to charge $200-$300 for it to cover duties, distribution fees, and legal coverage. At that point, you may as well make a laptop that leverages the local infrastructure, since you are paying for it anyways. One of the points of Negroponte's initiative is to make technology that works with limited infrastructure, technology that can't compete in a market where other products use it.
It sounds stupid, but in some ways, it's easier to help a homeless person in Africa than in the United States, if the homeless people I walk by everyday in Downtown Chicago is any indication. The change I and other others handout can only do so much. I've seen people stay at the same corner for years because the US economy is such that people can get wedged at the bottom, no matter what the various churches and civil groups try to do to unwedge them.