One Laptop Per Child - Comments Page 1

The $100 laptop reminds me of Trevor Bayliss's hand cranked radio. Originally designed for areas with no mains power it became a cult 'toy' and sold very well to rich kids who were fascinated by the novelty as well as its functionality.

I'm neither poor nor in a powerless area, but I wouldn't turn down one of these laptops. It may be a 'gadget', but it could be a damned useful gadget for a wandering writer who doesn't need anything too fancy, just simple text input.

I currently use an old 8-bit Amstrad notebook for this kind of work. It only has about 8 lines of text visible at a time, will work with dry cell batteries at a pinch, and I'd love to be able to crank it up again by hand when the power drops.

Gyppo(UK)

The laptop in every lap sounds great. Who is paying for construction of the Internet infrastructure to allow communciations, such as VOIP, email, surfing, etc? Generally there is a monthly charge per connection not to mention, someone has to lay cable and maintain connectivity.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Given that these are being sold to government and educational institutions, I assume those entities would pay for the Internet access. And who needs cables? These things are wireless!

When I sent the first articles about this laptop to my school district technology coordinator, I got no comment. I later sent the link to all of the teachers in my school building and technology integration specialist. The teachers were excited but the word that I got back from our TIS was, "Well, if we (the State of Wasington) were to order a million Real Laptops we could get them for much less than $100. My comment was, "Just do it!"

EDITOR'S NOTE: With all due respect, that's ridiculous. If that kind of pricing existed, Negroponte and his very smart friends wouldn't have spent several years developing new technologies to make this possible. They would have just bought them!

As a person who has first-hand experience with a third world country in West Africa, I wish I could buy one today to send over to a child where I lived during my Peace Corps days.

I was just going to say "Barratt's an idiot" and leave it at that, but of course he's not, he knows that before long this creature will be a fully functional computer, he also knows that 3rd world kids from Madagascar to Cuba are performing wonders on machines that we'd laugh at, and it scares him.

On the positive side, between this and Ubuntu there's hope for spoiled rich kids yet!! :)

What about the kids in America that can't to eat ever night? Never mind afford a computer!!!!

I would emphasize the MIT link and background and just ignore Barratt. Giving voice to a vested interest is not news, its just whining. Ignore him.

Theres no particular reason a program could not be implemented in North America as well. A slightly more expensive unit (the "commercial version" mentioned on MITs site) could be sold here and used to fund the implentations elsewhere.

Don't forget the story - give a man a fish or teach him to fish... Knowledge is power.

And there is a lot of power in a mesh-networked system connected to a global library.

AMD is to be commended for their compassion on 3rd world children/adults, by their willingness to supply the necessary cpu's for the '$100 Computers.'

Unless you have actually lived (and I don't mean vacationed)among a really destitute population, you cannot comprehend how much any help is truly appreciated by kids and adults alike. I lived and worked nearly half of my adult life in third world countries. People begged me for paper and pencils which I gladly passed out. I can only image how they might react to this “gadget”. Its unfortunate that political and financial incentives have caused Americans to criticize the good works of others as well as ourselves. Our narrow mindedness continues to amaze me.

I'd be happy to pay $250 for one as it is described.