$100 Linux laptop for kids
p2p news / p2pnet:- MIT has announced a $100 Linux laptop with a colour display, Wi-Fi connection, 500MHz processor and a gig of flash memory.
Specifically designed for emergent markets, it’ll have a hand crank for when there’s no power supply.
“Costs have been kept low by using cheap LCD screens, by thinning down the operating system and software so that minimum processing power is needed, and by cutting distribution costs – the laptops will be delivered to ministries of education who will distribute them to schools with textbooks,” says Bios. “The project is backed by AMD, Brightstar, News Corporation and Red Hat Linux.”
“We’re looking to 100 to 150 million $100 laptops,” MIT’s Nick Negroponte is quoted as saying.
Governments in poor countries will be asked to buy the laptops by the truckload and distribute them to schools like textbooks. The goal: “a laptop for every child”.
Children in Brazil, China, Egypt, Thailand, and South Africa will be among the first to get the under-$100 (£57) computer, said Professor Negroponte at the Emerging Technologies conference at MIT, states the BBC.
It’ll also have a dual-mode display for varying light conditions outside.
“The following year, Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney plans to start buying them for all 500,000 middle and high school pupils in the state,” says the BBC.
The entertainment and software cartels (to begin with) are doing their level best to use their frightening, bought-and-paid-for political and law enforcement connections and bottomless pockets to regain domination of their ‘consumer bases’ by controlling what happens on online.
However, for the first time, they’ll fail because knowledge, information and innovation are the 21st century currencies. Not money.
As more of the world goes online, more and more people are turning away from the traditional media to blogs and news sites for their information, with all that implies for corporate control.
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See:-
Bios – MIT Media Lab Launches $100 Laptop Initiative, September 29, 2005
BBC – Sub-$100 laptop design unveiled, September 29, 2005
September 29th, 2005 at 2:05 pm
Nice. Now I know what to get my little bro for his birthday next year.
September 29th, 2005 at 2:42 pm
With my first child being due on 29th November I think this is fantastic.
Now all we need is the world of open source to start working with the world of child development to start writing applications that will stimulate the cognitive development of our children from an early age.
I would like to see an emergence of technologies like phonics. Free, as no child should be denied access to such things simply because of money. At the moment most of the phonics systems out there are commercial products, which to me just highlights the problems we now face in the world.
A similar argument for music and film can be made as well. If children cannot afford to pay for a record or a movie and get sued for downloading it, where will the NEXT generation of screenwriters, actors, musicians, artists etc come from? It certainly won’t be a diverse field as the only people coming into it will be those priviledged enough to have been able to afford to subscribe to the commercial market.
This will have a dramatic effect on culture as the experiences of the socially wealthy classes are far different to many of the experiences of the lower classes. Cultural diversity is something we learn from and any society that outlaws the free access to arts and culture is risking their cultural development becoming stagnant and nondiverse.
Examples of this can already be seen in the US, where instead of continuing to develop culture they are merely remaking what was doen many years before (this is particularly prevalent in the movie industry, how many remakes have their been in the last 5 years?).
Sorry I ranted a little off topic there, but I think you my point. Now where do I buy one of these laptops for my as of yet unborn child?