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135 Comments
- bluehouse, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18how am I supposed to crank that thing and myself while looking at porn?
- play_it_leo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Official site.
http://laptop.media.mit.edu/
Please note: these laptops are not in production. They are not—and will not—be available for purchase by individuals. - sparty1969, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I can see the advertising campaign now. "Crank it with one hand while you yank it with the other".
Or they could just call it the "Crank and Yank".
It was too easy!! - capran, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I think you guys are missing the point. It's intended for the third world where people are dirt poor. Make it cheap enough, reliable enough, and simple enough that these indigent people can use them to get access to the Internet and the possibility to better their lives.
- TallStv, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Hand crank would be good for use during a hurricane!
- ChaosTheory, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Related article:
http://tinyurl.com/ajnus
"The proposed design of the machines calls for a 500MHz processor, 1GB of memory" - adml_shake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2^^^ search monster.com for jobs?
- UGM2099, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"no no no. Unacceptable. How on earth am I expected to turn the crank for power, download porn, and jerk off all at the same time??? How many hands to they think we have!"
learn to jerk it with your feet like all good primates. - bookishboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1From a related article:
http://beta.news.com.com/The+100+laptop+moves+closer+to+reality/2100-1044_3-5884683.html
"While the initial goal of the project is to work with governments, Negroponte said MIT is considering licensing the design or giving it to a third-party company to build commercial versions of the PC. 'Those might be available for $200, and $20 or $30 will come back to us to make the kids' laptops. We're still working on that,' he said."
This is the biggest problem that I see for this very VERY cool invention. What do you get when you give a bunch of poor children/families, and school/government/NGO officials a $100 commodity that either:
-isn't available at all retail-side?
-is available, and sought after in retail channels, at twice the "price" that was paid for their computer?
Most likely, you get a $150 black-market computer that I buy when I'm on my next vacation, or from ebay.
It's possible that in some authoritarian countries, this can be minimized by outlawing the possession of these machines unless you were issued one from the ministry of education. A better way (IMO) to keep these machines in the hands of the children who should be using them, is to make them universally available, at a standard price, as much as is possible.
Where the price goes up in retail channels is because of the front-end work for Customer Service, someone to man the cash register, write the receipt, take back damaged merchandise, etc. I'd prefer something, if it's possible, where the MIT lab can sell 1000 or 10000 of these computers at a time to co-op groups who distribute them among their (paying) members, show up themselves to the warehouse, pack them in their own vehicles, and deliver them. Also, since the next large pricetag on computers is from after-market support, MIT should organize .org sites and community forums for people to exchange information on maintenance, upgrade, and repair of these systems.
Another thing I'd be interested in seeing is how much attention is being paid to interchangeable parts in these systems? How easy are they to disassemble, to take a still-functional screen from one unit and a still-functional motherboard from another and recombine them? Will you need to be a computer tech to do it?
With the manufacturing in the millions, this computer has the first real chance to be the "Brown Bess" of computers. - Alaerus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This item looks very promising, but I'm wondering what kind of specs it will have? Will it be upgradeable? Can I run my choice of OS on it?
- spadin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Only one thing can damage this laptop, something that occurs everyday... rain!
- Dhalgren, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wow, $100. I imagine the cabability would be limited, but I would pay $100 for a laptop that can run a web browser and a text editor...
- fugitivALiEN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Make it $500 and sell it as an actual product with some beefier specs to send proceeds to developing countries. Because most have bigger issues such as drinking water, famine, then lets concern ourselves with electricity running water, indoor plumbing, etc. Then you may worry about communications infrastructure such as the cell towers, satellite communications then feel free to worry about putting a laptop in every hand ;)P
- hax0r, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2it's probably got a grayscale screen
- Grandfinale1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This is so cool. Hopefully it comes out soon or at all.
- snapcase, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If they end up making a retail version of this, as long as it can get me online for basic browsing, and play all of my DivX/Xvid and DVD movies, I'd buy one in a heartbeat.
- fduplex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Wow it even looks nice. And the keyboard appears to be sealed, no need to worry about getting dirt in there. Very nice design.
- a_penguin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0People, It is 1GB of hard drive memory. Not RAM.
- Staggx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Wow, I could see this product becomming the iPod of Laptops, easily. It would definately become a necessity for college students, businessmen/woman, everyone that is on the go, and needs more power than a Palm, but not as much as a $1500 low-end laptop that weighs 5lbs.
+ Digg - tehLazyPirate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0too bad its ugly
- ke4wkp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I want one of those. That is awesome.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0ill buy it it nice looking
- heydigital, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Brilliant design!! I want to see laptops like this now! Why didn't anyone think of this design before?
- samgab, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Hmmm, lets see: TFT screen, Chassis, Motherboard, CPU, RAM, HDD, Optical drive, Network card/modem, WiFi card, Li-ion Battery, Power supply, Cable, Keyboard, Speakers, OS, R&D; That all makes $100 a very very good deal!
- Papa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Amazing! 100 dollars for a laptop that has multi-funtionality! The people at MIT are amazing...
- dzmetcalf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0...$100 bucks AWESOME I'd pick one up just to have a windows machine. Nice design, but in the same breath Ugly, the handle thing is obnoxious, looks very bulky w/ that, other than the handle and the fact that for $100 it'll probably be cheap part I'd still buy one given the chance, hell just use it cause us mac users gotta have a windows box from very rare time to time.
- IronChef, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0*YAWN* Just like we will ever see a 100 MPG car from U.S. car manufacturers or gas under 2 bucks a gallon. Never happen.
- falloutsyndrome, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Agreed, much desired :)
- duke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@timmayk,
Turions aren't too bad on power consumption. - haileyz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I WANT! Gimme gimme!
- pixelmatrix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0That thing is one ugly piece of crap!! I wouldnt buy one! Tiny too!
- rpotee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Since the idea is to make the laptop cheap, of course, they'll run a Linux distro on it. It looks like in the related article, MIT is working with Red Hat. I'm kind of bummed about the 500MHz processor.
- V-Spec, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0i really like that!
- shpider, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Hey as long as it can email the Nigerian money scam... It should be a hit !!!
- OrangeTide, on 10/12/2007, -0/+012" display (color or monochrome for sunlight readable), 500Mhz cpu, runs linux, 1Gb of "memory" (I'm guessing that's flash disk space), USB ports, WiFi and Cellphone "enabled", and built-in "mesh networking" for peer-to-peer for sharing a single internet connection (I'm guessing 802.11 Ad-Hoc mode plus ZeroConf/Rendevous)
$100 is the price if some government buys thousands of them. More like $200 if sold on shelves in the US by 3rd parties. But it would be nice for educational uses, plus having Linux means it's easy to hack into something more interesting. - kingjames13231, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0very nice i might buy one when i get some money. i wonder were you can get one
- .Steven, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I so want one. I hope it has a PCMCIA Slot free for a WiFi card.
- geoffrey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Finally, a laptop I can buy 6 of so when one of them pisses me off with it's slowness, I can slam it on the concrete repeatedly.
- OrangeTide, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I think $100 is rather optimistic. Even a refurb grayscale Palm Pilot costs that much. I'm guessing more like $300-$400. but I'd probably pay that for some simple portable device that I could write notes on and read text on.
Even a ZipIt wireless instant messager is $100, and that has a 16 shade grayscale display and tiny rubber buttons and only 802.11b (not g, but honestly b is plenty fast for AIM/Yahoo/MSN chatting) - SenatorPenguin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0My uncle works at the MIT Media Lab, and helped a lot with this project. So far, the project is going pretty well. They aren't fast, they have only 1 GB of flash memory, a wireless card, and minimal specs, but all for really cheap. They aren't meant for induviduals by any means, but for countries. The minimal storage is meant to be remedied by a massive central array of storage run by the country. The minimum order is 1 million, and few induviduals have 100 super-grand. The only problem is production. It is likely that they will only get a few orders for the laptops, and very few factories are willing to give up that much production power that sporadically for so little profit.
- jakejarvis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I think the hand crank is a big lifesaver!
- SenatorPenguin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0You guys don't understand. MINIMUM ORDER OF ONE MILLION LAPTOPS.
That's 1000000.
One followed by six zeroes. None of you will likely ever see one. The cheapest laptop made will be the most expensive personal computer because you don't have 100 million dollars. Countries will have to spend $100000000 to get any of them at all. It doesn't matter if you would buy six at $200 each, because it is all about bulk. And the whole purpose is to build a laptop to sell at $100. That is the top priority. They may comprimise on other things, but NOT ON PRICE.
Induviduals in third world countries won't buy one, but the countries themselves will. That's the only way they could satisfy the price limitation, by selling in monstrous bulk. - MilfordCubicle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'm sure my comments are only going to be echos of previous comments, but what the hell... This thing is by far the coolest piece of potential technology I've seen in a LONG time. It's going to be exceedingly hard to hit the $100 mark, but who cares? This thing has all the bases covered. My freakin' jaw is STILL on the floor.
- unitedkronos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'd buy one at $100 which is £56.50 for us Brits... hell, I'd buy one for £100, which is around $176.70.
- TK99, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0AMD chip? That's what the site said... Aren't those just a little too power hungry?
If they are the old K6's even at 500MHz then they can also heat these peoples homes as well as boil water.
But damn that SkyNet, he's trying to expand his reach as far as possible for when Judgment Day comes. - incu_vamp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0thats fricken awesome
- kingfoot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I WANT ONE!
- RayMetz100, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0another lame dream. nice idea, but it won't happen. If those governments really wanted to buy $100 laptops for their students, they already would have. There are lots of existing $100 computing devices that would be helpful to students such as programmable HP calculators and personal organizers. Even $100 worth of books, paper, and pencils would be helpful. The fact is that those governments aren't interested in spending $100 on their childerens education.
If this device were made for $100, I bet millions of american and 1st world countries would offer $120 each and buy them before the 3rd world countries governments could. It's a free market planet. No chinese manufacturing company is going to sell these for $100 to the Nigeria government when there's people in the US willing to pay $150. Even if they did, the Nigerian government would rather resell them for $150 than give them away for free to their students.
This whole idea reeks of old USSR thinking. It can't work. If people really want nigerian students to have computers, then we should adopt the kids and fly them home to us. Because if we buy anything for $100 and send it to the students or governments, someone is going to take it away from them and sell it for food money. Even the students themselves would rather sell it for food than use it themselves.
no spell check. - skyhighrockets, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0brilliant design, id buy it for more than 100$.
- jk_baller23, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Great design, and looks good, but lets see the real thing in use. Might grab one depending on its specs.
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