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COLTRANE
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| Joined: | Wednesday June 2nd, 2004 |
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Posted: Saturday February 5th, 2005 04:09 |
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this message might be of interest to some of you.
To avoid any copyright infringements, please note that
it was taken from "Financial Times" newspaper, German
edition (FTD) of Monday, 31st January.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) http://www.mit.edu
and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) http://www.amd.com are about to
start mass production of a new laptop model, aimed at developing
countries. The price is going to be around US$ 100 each,
MIT director Nicholas Negroponte told FTD newspaper
during a "World Economic Forum" session in Davos,
Switzerland, this week. The cheapest laptops available
today are sold at about ten times this price.
"The laptop has been developed, and I am now looking for
partners. I expect the laptop to be available around 12
to 18 months from now", Negroponte was quoted as saying.
A spokesman for AMD confirmed this. Negroponte would like
to see the computers used mainly for educational purposes
in Africa, Asia and South America. They are to be bought by
Ministries of Education and then distributed to students.
"We are not going to sell this on the open market", Negroponte
said. "We expect to be selling 800 million laptops in total."
The computers will run on Linux OS and provide all the
basics functions available on laptops today, including networking
capabilities. The main reason for the low price is the
lack of the usual liquid crystal screen. Instead, the image
will be produced using a chip lying beneath the keyboard, and
then it will be projected onto a mirror-like screen.
To start with, 50,000 to 100,000 laptops will be produced in
order to test the market for the new type of device. Main
countries that showed interest so far are China, Cambodia
and Columbia.
____________________
“Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.� -Malcolm X
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COLTRANE
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| Joined: | Wednesday June 2nd, 2004 |
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Posted: Tuesday February 8th, 2005 02:53 |
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4243733.stm
Digital guru floats sub-$100 PC
By Julian Siddle
BBC Go Digital
Nicholas Negroponte, chairman and founder of MIT's Media Labs, says he
is developing a laptop PC that will go on sale for less than $100 (£53).
He told the BBC World Service programme Go Digital he hoped it would
become an education tool in developing countries.
He said one laptop per child could be " very important to the
development of not just that child but now the whole family, village
and neighbourhood".
He said the child could use the laptop like a text book.
He described the device as a stripped down laptop, which would run a
Linux-based operating system,
"We have to get the display down to below $20, to do this we need to
rear project the image rather than using an ordinary flat panel.
'Skinny it down'
"The second trick is to get rid of the fat , if you can skinny it down
you can gain speed and the ability to use smaller processors and
slower memory."
The device will probably be exported as a kit of parts to be assembled
locally to keep costs down.
Mr Negroponte said this was a not for profit venture, though he
recognised that the manufacturers of the components would be making money.
In 1995 Mr Negroponte published the bestselling Being Digital, now
widely seen as predicting the digital age.
The concept is based on experiments in the US state of Maine, where
children were given laptop computers to take home and do their work on.
Broken laptops
While the idea was popular amongst the children, it initially received
some resistance from the teachers and there were problems with laptops
getting broken.
However, Mr Negroponte has adapted the idea to his own work in
Cambodia where he set up two schools together with his wife and gave
the children laptops.
"We put in 25 laptops three years ago , only one has been broken, the
kids cherish these things, it's also a TV a telephone and a games
machine, not just a textbook."
Mr Negroponte wants the laptops to become more common than mobile
phones but conceded this was ambitious.
"Nokia make 200 million cell phones a year, so for us to claim we're
going to make 200 million laptops is a big number, but we're not
talking about doing it in three or five years, we're talking about
months."
He plans to be distributing them by the end of 2006 and is already in
discussion with the Chinese education ministry who are expected to
make a large order.
"In China they spend $17 per child per year on textbooks. That's for
five or six years, so if we can distribute and sell laptops in
quantities of one million or more to ministries of education that's
cheaper and the marketing overheads go away."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/4243733.stm
____________________
“Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.� -Malcolm X
____________________
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Braxton49
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Posted: Friday February 11th, 2005 12:58 |
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So will there be a way for People like me to Purchase one or Two when they com out.
Braxton
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