$100 Laptop Repriced at $175 323
prostoalex writes "The $100 laptop introduced by Nicholas Negroponte as part of the One Laptop Per Child program will end up costing $175, Associated Press says. The demand for the program is apparent as 'seven nations have expressed interest in being in the initial wave to buy the little green-and-white "XO" computers — Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Pakistan, Thailand, Nigeria and Libya — but it remains unclear which ones will be first to pony up the cash.'"
Why not....? (Score:2, Interesting)
"one laptop per child"
which are devices that hardly fit the description of "rugged"..
why aren't we going for:
"One desktop per family"?
Much easier to repair when broken, and that lends itself better to donations of old equipment.
No story here. (Score:1, Interesting)
€100 laptop? (Score:4, Interesting)
Kind of cool but is this really worth it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Best Buy is currently selling a laptop, retail!, for $399. $399 laptop [bestbuy.com]
And the specs on it are actually not half bad, not as bad as you might think:
15.4" screen
1.5 ghz Via C7-M
512 ram
128 meg shared video
DVD +/- DL burner
60 GB HDD
802.11 b/g
10/100 ethernet
v.92 modem
Vista Basic
Drop Vista and install Linux and you can save a few bucks, scale down the screen size and maybe eliminate a few usb ports and some other stuff, mass produce it and you could have a full on pc capable of running even windows vista for probably under 300 bucks. I have to think that something like that would be much more useful, even if you bought half as many it would still be better in the long run with it's upgradeability and standards compliance. Thoughts?
Re:And if Microsoft or Sony did this? (Score:5, Interesting)
The idea of putting a laptop in the hands of somebody who can't afford the technology is very appealing. We like it. It makes us feel good. It makes us feel like we want to be part of that. Look at the other posts that say they'd spend $500 to buy one for themselves if they'd also send one to the originally intended recipients. That's a very strong statement of support. If the price goes to $175... well, who can really fault us for not willing to take back that we like the idea that low cost computers are being given to people who could really really could use them.
It wouldn't matter who made the mp3 player. Nobody wants to hear about a significant price increase on a plentiful commodity like an mp3 player. There's too much competition and Microsoft, explicitly, has a long history of credibility problems with delivering on their marketing claims in their product in the first place.
Aren't there a host of things missing from Vista? Aren't we all aware that the "revolutionary" new file structure got cut and that DRM was a priority? For Microsoft, you reap what you sow.
So I reject your comparison. We're not assholes (as your suggest - or at least, not for this reason), we just want to see the OLPC thing succeed.
Re:me thinks kids in inner city schoos ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Fuckin' a, buddy. I'm all in favor of helping humanity, that is other humans, in any way possible, but every time someone looks to take on a humanitarian aid project they look to do it overseas.
Our schools here in the US are total shitboxes (most of them, and not as bad as those in some other countries), we have starving people just like everywhere else, homelessness is on the rise, New Orleans is still somewhere between the stone age and the 21st century, etc., etc., etc.
Keeping stuff like this out of the hands of American kids who need a little help, just to watch it all go overseas is kinda stupid. What's the worst that's going to happen? Kids will benefit from having the technology and people will realize that they don't need $2,000 laptops (with expensive operating systems and productivity suites) to look at porn and read emails, or maybe do a little homework?
Re:€100 laptop? (Score:3, Interesting)
And finally, lets not forget the pledge bank were we were asked to donate/buy and never receive, a OLPC laptop for $300. [pledgebank.com] I don't think they ever hit the $100 mark outside of marketing and know full well they wouldn't. It is a decent goal though.
Economic Reality Knocking (Score:2, Interesting)
5000 rupee laptop (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sugar GUI (Score:3, Interesting)
It's designed for kids and people who have never used a computer before.
Just because you can only see one use for a particular application, doesn't mean that that's all it's good for.
Re:DAMN IT, SLASHDOT!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'm just waiting... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, Europeans should be very worried. Their stores are getting flooded by cheap american imports that local companies can not compete with under a 50% premium. Their jobs are getting outsourced to US. They are losing their import market to US companies that are able to offer a much better price. European tourists go and spend money abroad rather than investing it back into local economy.
There is no desktop. (Score:3, Interesting)
The laptops *desktop* is in fact a load of icons which show your position within the community of laptops. It is a very cool idea.
As for Rugged. The laptops are extremely rugged and are designed to be very portable, work without an electric power source (hand generator) and works as its own router for other laptops.
Very few people live in mud huts (Score:3, Interesting)
People don't want to be locked into something, so they fix things themselves.
Re:Why not....? (Score:3, Interesting)
If we go for desktop machines, there are two approaches:
** Custom-built **
All machines would be the same. Yes, you can swap parts, but the system as a whole will be more expensive. Pluggable cards means a bigger case (more money), more connectors (more money), more board space (more money), more mounting hardware (more money), and more complex assembly (more money).
** Ad-hoc systems **
This uses hardware "cast-offs," such as outdated technology (would be great for the environment, since you could recycle old computer systems). This also presents problems, since each system would be, in effect, unique. Some would have sound card A, some would have sound card B. Others would have graphics card X and even more would have graphics card Y. Same goes for mobo chipsets.
Just ask a big business how well this works. This greatly complicates administration when you have to include different drivers. Businesses tend to buy a lot of computers that look alike just to make the job of maintaining them easier.
Another thing to keep in mind is that outdated technology was once top-of-the-line bleed-edge power-hungry technology. Even a Pentium 133MHz system still probably required a 150 Watt power supply. That is a LOT of hand-cranking on a generator if the village does not have electricity.
*** OLPC approach ***
Also, keep in mind that the OLPC has no moving parts. The hard drive has been replaced with flash memory. Everything runs cool so there are no fans and no posibility of overheating. These things should be VERY reliable, assuming the kids don't use them for footballs. Hardware is uniform. If the software works on one system, it will work on them all (the only thing that won't be uniform is the local language).
I want one...