$100 laptop OR 1 laptop per child

[cdcox]

Any one see this on 60 Minutes?

Nicholas Negroponte, and MIT professor, had a dream of equiping every child in the world with a laptop connected to a wireless network. He's designed a machine that costs $100 to build. He's run a few pilot programs to test the idea. Pretty amazing. If he is successful, there would be a huge jump in internet usage. I wonder what the other impacts of such a technology would be.

BTW, at some point he plans to market the $100 laptop in the US with the requirement that you have to buy 2, one for your child and one for a child in the developing world.

Here's a link to his program:

http://laptopfoundation.org/index.shtml

[listopencil]

In countries like China, Iran and so forth they will kill you if you try that.

[unlurking]

This has been going on for many years now. Check the archives at Arstechnica.com. They've been covering it for several years. VERY interesting to see the whole project develop, and all the changes it has gone through (like the hand crank!).

[SLAG]

I hear its going to cost $175 now

[KC Jones]

I like Negroponte and all, I mean he's something of a visionary.

However, the man has no understanding of the real world. I remember reading in one of his books from the early 90's how he thought all the technology and efficiency improvements from them were going to enable people to do more with less and consequently spend more time at home with their families. The first thing I thought was, no - it just means companies will get more output from one person (allowing them to get rid of others or assign them to different work) and expect people to work more in the off hours because they can be connected while at home. He's completely clueless when it comes to real people and their less than idealistic motivations.