Intel, Asustek vs OLPC
p2pnet.net news:- Wouldn’t it be great if Intel decided to get behind MIT’s One Laptop Per Child project, created to bring children in Africa into the 21st digital century?
Instead, Intel is competing against it with a hardcore commercial unit purpose-designed to funnel corporate product into the homes of African families many, if not most, of whom are surviving at subsistence level, or below.
XO (right) OLPC laptops currently cost around $176, but it’s hoped to bring them to $100 within two years.
Now, Intel says it and Asustek, which makes motherboards and notebook computers, plan to offer a new family of laptops, including one model priced under $200.
“The new laptop will complement Intel’s own inexpensive laptop, the Classmate PC, which is priced similarly,” says the Mercury News.
Intel and Asustek’s offering, “would be a fully fledged, low-end notebook, while the OLPCs are green-and-white plastic, kid-friendly laptops that can be powered with hand cranks when electricity is not available,” says Reuters.
“It’s another way of solving the same problem,” it has Sean Maloney, head of Intel worldwide sales and marketing, saying. “The world is a big place and there’s room for lots of these things.”
Of course, the only problem, Intel is interested in solving is how to get more cash into its shareholders’ bank accounts.
Intel’s previous efforts targeted mostly governments as clients, but the Asustek models, “would target mass consumers through conventional channels, according to Asustek global marketing director Sunny Han, says the story.
Proving not everyone isn’t on the make and take, software coders will tomorrow get together to develop free, open-source educational computer games for the One Laptop Per Child XO project.
Beyond creating games that teach specific tasks like counting or reading, OLPC hopes the contest will produce templates that allow kids to build their own games, according to OLPC’s development guidelines.
OLPC is releasing games created at the event under the open-source GNU General Public License and plans to post them on SourceForge.
Also See:
Classmate PC – Intel: horning in on OLPC project?, May 21, 2007
Mercury News – Rivals race to get laptops to needy, June 6, 2007
Reuters – Intel, Asustek announce plans for low-cost laptop, June 5, 2007
free, open-source – OLPC 3-day ‘game jam’, May 28, 2007
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php | | And use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site
Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
July 2nd, 2007 at 2:30 pm
The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) programme is a great idea, as it will expose more kids to computers. OLPC will help children in developing countries around the world. But it will also change the world of laptops forever. The marketpace will benefit, and I’m sure that every home in the developed world will have one. What is becoming clear is that the OLPC is a not the solution but a starting point for development. This project needs to be handled in a sensitive way. Different needs and cultures must be addressed properly. Only then will the OLPC project be a success. Right now is an exciting time for technology, particularly mobile technology covering laptops, mobile phones and PDAs. Also the web and they way they all work with the web. I get my laptops and peripherals from Portable Universe and I can thoroughly recommend them. The best thing for people to do is to talk to them, let them know what your needs are (both current and future) and they will come up with the best laptop for you. I also get blank DVDs there for my backup.
http://www.portableuniverse.co.uk