One Laptop Per Child: Are we there yet?

[thatcrazycajun]

The British technology webzine, The Inquirer, reports here that a Taiwanese company (figures...) has finally broken the $100 barrier on producing laptop computers sought by Prof. Nicholas Negroponte's "One Laptop Per Child" project. Quanta Computer will supply the group and its developing-country clients with 10 million Linux-running, fully loaded, hand-crank-powered and Net-capable units inside of a year. The project, which seeks to bring what it feels will be quantum-leap economic and educational progress to the Third World's poorest even in areas where electricity is scarce or prohibitively costly, had previously still been a few years away from offering a unit for any less than about $130.

Some have suggested that poor children need food, clothing, water, health care and shelter way before they need computers, and that the benefits OLPC suggests will come from having laptops are exaggerated at best in any case. I'm of two minds myself (comes with being a Gemini, donchaknow :-) ). On the one hand, I see the detractors' point, and wonder whether the benefits of having the kids get laptops will be severely reduced unless Net access can also be provided along with them. On the other, I have myself experienced the life-changing effect of computer and Net access, and the connectivity and information they can bring.

What do y'all think? Is this a case of misplaced priorities, or are the Prof and company on to something? And how is Quanta accomplishing this engineering and manufacturing feat -- honest innnovation or just old-fashioned sweatshop labor and corner-cutting? As Linda Richman would say on Coffee Talk, "Discuss."

Comments

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

Hopefully, they will all also be equiped with wireless chips for p-2-p group networking. That, a bicycle, a coffee can, and a CAT-5 cable can get you plugged into the 'net. You have now created telephone service, video and radio in an area where it may not have previously existed.

Did I mention that you don't even need the bike if you can get the new, hyper-efficient solar cells. But the bike is good for monsoon season.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

That assumes that there is something there to hook your CAT-5 to in the first place. Bear in mind that some of the regions they want to deploy this are very rural and have little to no basic infrastructure in place at all. And then there are the various gatekeepers (phone companies, ISPs etc.) who own the pipes and whose tolls must be paid to gain access.