$100 Laptop Still $400, But Now With More Advertising
from the market?-bah dept
Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child initiative has received plenty of press over the years, though we've never quite fully understood it. While the idea of making cheap, durable laptops available to people worldwide has some value, theMeanwhile, the prices of other netbooks, as these things do, continue to fall. While none are yet down to $100, it's hard to imagine that it will be too much longer before somebody breaks the barrier. And it probably won't be the OLPC group. With that in mind, Negroponte's anti-competitive, go-it-alone stance continues to confuse. If the market and competition can drive prices down, that's great for the OLPC mission, right? So why not abandon the single-product model (especially since hardware is basically a commodity, even with the XO's features), and focus on getting as many devices as possible -- even if they're another brand -- into schools worldwide? If the real OLPC innovation is the software, install it on the machines. It would certainly seem that the best course of action is to do whatever will drive the cost down the most quickly, and somehow using the growing consumer netbook market, rather than OLPC standing alone with its own machine, would do that. Negroponte seems hesitant to acknowledge that the bigger market can actually help OLPC's mission, even when ignoring that fact hampers that mission.
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Filed Under: $100, advertising, olpc
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Interview Negroponte
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Maybe I'm just being cynical...
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Re: Maybe I'm just being cynical...
In my opinion, most people in developing countries would be much better off with clean water and clean politics than with a cheap laptop. Students have been learning for THOUSANDS of years without a computer; yet we're led to think that so many poor children will suffer if we don't go out and spend some of our ill-gotten loot on Negroponte's program. How supremely arrogant.
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Not commodity hardware
It is specifically designed for the target market:
* Ultra low-power and designed to be recharged from unstable power sources
* A screen that can be viewed in direct sunlight and can be used as an 'e-book' drawing virtually no power
* Mesh networking for sharing an internet connection
* Durable and easy to repair
These (which are only the ones I know about) are largely features that are uninteresting to manufacturers wanting to sell to western consumers.
Although I disagree with various aspects of how Negroponte has led the project (not allowing small trials and not properly managing the sugar project) it does *seem* that some of the competitors are more interested in killing the OLPC project by selling unsuitable hardware at a loss than genuinely serving the 'market' that the OLPC is targetting.
More competition won't drive down the price of the OLPC, that isn't how the market works.
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Re: Not commodity hardware
The OLPC is designed for use in less developed countries. You know, where people are starving, but their kid has a laptop.
The "competition" that delivers low cost PCs are really about maintaining their monopoly on hardware and software. What would those people do if these emerging markets grew up on open software and non-intel hardware. Microsoft might have to provide a better product to make money there.
And that's the OLPC's judgment call. At some point you have to decide between quality and price. I might disagree, but I have no idea what sort of cpu a kid in a developing economy needs.
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Re: Re: Not commodity hardware
Can you provide evidence for that statement?
As far as I know, the OLPC project does not aim at communities where people are starving. The OLPC project aims at improving the education of children in poor countries, so they can improve their lot. The improved education might help the country avoid sliding into starvation in future bad times, but I can't recall anyone connected with OLPC advocating bringing it in where people currently are starving. I don't claim to know everything about OLPC, so I might have missed that, but it seems to contradict what I have learned about OLPC. If you can point to statements the OLPC project has made that indicate they think they the OLPC should be introduced where people are starving, I'd be very interested in seeing them.
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Re: Re: Re: Not commodity hardware
September 15 2008
“5000 children receive laptops in Ethiopia, starting with schools in Addis Ababa, Oromiya, and Amharra”
from the OLPC website.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Not commodity hardware
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"One Laptop Per Child at under $100 is a wonderful thing, as long as it is OUR laptop"
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uses for third-world laptops
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$400?
And by "fairly nice", I mean 10x as fast, nearly twice the screen resolution, more and faster I/O, 100x the disk, and 50x the memory that I got with my first laptop for $4000, about 10 years ago.
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http://www.chl-tx.com Without the 2nd Amendment, the rest of the document is only wishful thinking. Which is why Obama wants to repeal it.
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2nd amendment
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Re: 2nd amendment
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Re: 2nd amendment
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Re: Re: 2nd amendment
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Re: Re: Re: 2nd amendment
Yeah, right. If Ghandi had been up against either the communist Chinese or Muslim Arabs, he wouldn't have made it into the history books at all. There is an even longer history of tyrants disarming the population before subjugating them completely. As Mao observed, political power flows from the barrel of a gun.
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http://www.chl-tx.com Without the 2nd Amendment, the rest of the document is only wishful thinking. Which is why Obama wants to repeal it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: 2nd amendment
oh, and there is the whole issue that Obama isn't trying to take away the second amendment or guns. if you were actually informed, instead of just listening to the (heavily biased) media then you'd know that.
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Re: 2nd amendment
Remember, change is hard to come by. The 'change' Comrade SG Leader Obama has for us includes reverting back to the Clinton Administration, closing down that evil coal industry despite proof that coal burns clean and does not pollute when used correctly, redistribute wealth through the Supreme Court, increase the number of states to 58 and change Sioux City to Sioux Falls. The TRUTH SQUAD is taking names. Reeducation will begin 1/21/2009.
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Re: Re: 2nd amendment
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Re: Re: Re: 2nd amendment
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Re: Re: Re: Re: 2nd amendment
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
--Benjamin Franklin
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy”
--James Madison
“Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpation”
--James Madison
“The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.”
--James Madison
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
-–Thomas Jefferson
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OLPC's and Americans
Then look at the fact that information is more of a weapon then a gun. In theory it could ammount to us providing quite alot of countries who harbour hate against the west, and some of them have damn good justification for it, a more powerful weapon and that is of information.
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100$ laptop
And a if we distribute enough of these to other poor countries we can just write it off as training to future call center workers.
Or we can give it to the countries which dislike us the most so that they can create new websites in which to bash america on.
I'm not so sure laptops are what these children need.
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Re: 100$ laptop
the laptops are designed to run of off virtually any power source, including solar energy
And a if we distribute enough of these to other poor countries we can just write it off as training to future call center workers.
giving access to the internet to someone with a thirst for knowledge allows them to learn many more subjects than they would without. also, there are a lot of computer science related jobs besides working call center.
Or we can give it to the countries which dislike us the most so that they can create new websites in which to bash america on.
so you are all for supporting Free Speech as long as you agree with it, nice example of the spirit of america there, thankfully not everybody thinks like you. and perhaps helping out poor countries will actually create a little something called good will....
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Damned misleading headline ...
The XO laptop is NOT "still $400". The $400 buys two of them. Of course you know that -- you describe the actual situation in the body of the article. But that doesn't make the headline any less misleading. You ought to be ashamed.
As for your question about why the OLPC project doesn't abandon their custom-designed XO laptop and adopt netbooks, which you say will soon approach the $100 price: It is hard to believe you are serious about asking that.
You say that the software is the imporant component, so OLPC ought to be happy to run it on any hardware, but that is a very flawed view. The software is important, but without a device that is suitable for use in the environment in which you need to use the software, you are out of luck. Look at the list of critical characteristics listed by Michael Foord in comment #3. No netbook I know of approaches fulfilling all those critical characteristics very closely, especially not the ruggedness requirement, but many other unique aspects of the XO are very important. So it doesn't really matter whether the netbooks will soon approach $100. The cost is only one of the critical characteristics. The netbooks might someday get to the point where they meet all the requirements. When that day comes is the time to ask the question. Not now.
The OLPC project is a charitable education project. It's intent is to develop and deploy a new approach to educating children in poor regions that will give them a better education than they've ever received in the past. The project may be flawed, and Negroponte's motivations may be questionable, in part, and he may not be a very good project manager, but the project seems to be an honest attempt at improving education. No doubt it isn't perfect, and ways to improve the project for improving education should be encouraged. So far, I am unable to see any of the competition as being capable of improving education. All they offer is the typical U.S. give-them-computers-and-pray approach, which hasn't worked in the U.S. and I'm sure won't work elsewhere, either.
Some education authorities will fall prey to misinformation from the competition and choose other approaches. I hope that enough adopt the OLPC approach that the project survives, grows, and improves. If the OLPC education approach proves ineffective, it should be, and will be, abandoned. But it should be given the chance to be tried. Purely commercial interests should not be allowed to smother it in its crib.
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