Thursday, September 29, 2005
$100 Laptop from MIT for developing countries
music: MC5 - Motor City's Burning (live)
colors: light blue, silver
mood: ok
thoughts: This looks like a breakthrough idea, so that kids and people the world over can communicate with one another, regardless of budget. The incredibly sturdy body, lack of hard drive, and hand crank for energy production are brilliant. (note that this will not be available for sale to the general public, only through major distributors for the purposes of getting these into the hands of those who need them, and also not to invade the markets where people are willing to pay $2000 for a Dell or Gateway.
I'm wondering what the downsides to this may be. The upside is that this is a huge blow against Microsoft and other big money in the computer business (some of the companies behind this are Google, Red Hat, and AMD). Oof, I just found the downside: one of the other companies behind this are News Corporation (Fox, Rupert Murdoch). The cynic in me says that this is backed by the ability to get hundreds of millions of new kids indoctrinated into playing ball and giving up their eyeballs, and that this is partially about making sure they have access, but also making sure that they can push the access toward Fox controlling where their eyeballs go.
As long as: 1) the boxes themselves aren't wired/coded not to see the greater internet, 2) the wi-fi griddability is really built-in (for amoeba-like connection to one another and the internet in general) and 3) these people read the cards that the news and information they're being handed is crap, and go looking for better news sources (see a few options in my list of media reform links) on their own, this could be a big benefit for all.
It'd be nice to get one of these -- they seem like they'd be better for my needs than what I've got right now in many ways. But I suppose it can wait until all the kids in Calcutta or Kabul who need them get one.
chant/prayer/mantra:
Starship, starship take me, take me where I wanna go.
Link of the day: Click here for more pictures of the laptop design.
go on,
joel
colors: light blue, silver
mood: ok
thoughts: This looks like a breakthrough idea, so that kids and people the world over can communicate with one another, regardless of budget. The incredibly sturdy body, lack of hard drive, and hand crank for energy production are brilliant. (note that this will not be available for sale to the general public, only through major distributors for the purposes of getting these into the hands of those who need them, and also not to invade the markets where people are willing to pay $2000 for a Dell or Gateway.
I'm wondering what the downsides to this may be. The upside is that this is a huge blow against Microsoft and other big money in the computer business (some of the companies behind this are Google, Red Hat, and AMD). Oof, I just found the downside: one of the other companies behind this are News Corporation (Fox, Rupert Murdoch). The cynic in me says that this is backed by the ability to get hundreds of millions of new kids indoctrinated into playing ball and giving up their eyeballs, and that this is partially about making sure they have access, but also making sure that they can push the access toward Fox controlling where their eyeballs go.
As long as: 1) the boxes themselves aren't wired/coded not to see the greater internet, 2) the wi-fi griddability is really built-in (for amoeba-like connection to one another and the internet in general) and 3) these people read the cards that the news and information they're being handed is crap, and go looking for better news sources (see a few options in my list of media reform links) on their own, this could be a big benefit for all.
It'd be nice to get one of these -- they seem like they'd be better for my needs than what I've got right now in many ways. But I suppose it can wait until all the kids in Calcutta or Kabul who need them get one.
chant/prayer/mantra:
Starship, starship take me, take me where I wanna go.
Link of the day: Click here for more pictures of the laptop design.
go on,
joel
