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39 Comments
- TKDWILSON, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I have been thinking about this the past couple of days. Google offers laptops for $100 to everyone, or even subsidizes that cost to nothing. If google made them free to everyone in the US, that would be 30 Billion dollars for the laptops plus volunteers that would distribute them. Then Google starts a wifi service for the laptops and for everyones connection. You now have a much larger base with everyone using your services. The laptops would all be set to google as the home page, google could implement their own version of the OS, include a linux version of google talk, linux version of Picasso, firefox with google toolbar, ect. What you get is a society where now google's OS dominates the market with Windows coming in second. The growth would pretty much crush Microsoft a few years after that. They would have to improve linux a lot with usability though. This is really possible I think. This could make google the leader of the computer market in every aspect.
Eric Wilson - CaptainCalculus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Is it just me or does anyone else want a hand crank for their laptop?
- dignan2681, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2A $100 laptop running Red Hat on an AMD chip surfing the web via Google Wifi? I think Ballmer is going to start throwing desks now.
Pacino is the Digg commander. He is the master of the Digg. - zwilliams, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think its a great combination. I know the idea of having a $100 laptop for poor countries and people is the intended purpose, but I'd still love to have one.
- meatypuffs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Is it just me or does anyone else want a hand crank for their laptop?" - CaptainCalculus
My battery on my year-old laptop is pretty much shot. I can get about a half hour use out of it now, and it's a 12-cell battery. It's even a Li-ion battery. A hand crank would be really nice. - cawpin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"??? What??? Laptop cheaper than books? Maybe I'm too much of a pessimist..."
Yes, yes you are...$100 is way cheaper than books for 4 years of high school. Hell, its cheaper than 1 BOOK for college. Using computers day to day is the best way to use them. They will be learning about computers without really being taught. That's the way I learned all the keyboard shortcuts for the programs I use everyday, I stopped using a mouse for a month. You'd be surprised how fast you figure stuff out when you can't just CLICK and open up Google.
If this gets off the ground it will be a great thing for the whole world. - walkerwayne, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1OKAY.... In Georgia there was a big move to place computers in all classrooms... What did it get us? The second lowest test score in the country. What exactly are poor children in Brazil supposed to do with laptops?
These aren't multi-media laptops - are they? How educational is that?
Somebody break it down for me please.......... - mit578, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1it sounds more like a PDA then a laptop.
- dbr_onix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I wonder how insanely locked down these things will be..
Their giving free laptops to children, with the main intention of being used online...
- Ben - aristofeles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0walkerwayne: books. The children could really use more books, and this could make it very cheap for they, and for the government.
I think that`s the idea... - mburns, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This is old news.
Redhat was known to be building a custom-designed OS (closely based off fedora, no doubt) for several months now. Steve Jobs DID offer OS X, for free, to be used on the laptops but was denied. They wanted a free and open system for the laptop.
The extremely low power usage (2-3 watts when running), custom hardware and storage size (128 meg ram saved to 1 gig of flash memory) would have made OS X a tough fit. Would have been fun to try though. Linux should run nicely on it, though. - turbopro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I would like to buy one, but apparently only Children are allowed to. Oh and by the way, im new so please bear.
- navaburo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0book = $50 laptop = 2books in price, laptop = all the books via internet
i beleive this to be a truly noble project. rock on Mit / google/ opensource guys - aristofeles, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1AFAIK this laptop is build for third world country... guess what: WHERE ARE WE GONE TO CONNECT THIS???
I live in one of the biggest cities on brazil, one of the countries they want to release this, and the only place I know have a hot-spot (not free, of course...) is on the airport. So why WIFI??
This is for poor, 3rd world countries, is it not?
(or are they dreaming on add features, keeping the same extremely cheap price, to release it in the US? I couldn't read TFA - i guess the site got digged...) - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3did you notice the ability to get the old $100 laptop story and another reference to Google Wi-Fi, Awesome mate, make the story happen, +digg
- walkerwayne, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0??? What??? Laptop cheaper than books? Maybe I'm too much of a pessimist...
I think capatalistic US companies are seeing a niche for making money... (I ain't mad at them!) - barbobot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0walkerwayne
Why do children in developing nations need laptops?
Laptops are both a window and a tool: a window into the world and a tool with which to think. They are a wonderful way for all children to "learn learning" through independent interaction and exploration.
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http://mail.google.com/mail/a-25489e8e46-6cff8c95f1-692db1fd8f - aphextwin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Wow, this is an awesome idea. I love this. I can't believe that there are people that are dissing Pacino. I guess some people are jealous of his diggnation fame and that fact that he always pulls the greatest stories. ROCK ON PACINO, keep bringing me the good news while everyone else is telling me about googleOS's and Ipods.
Thanks - coachace, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"One Laptop per Child Movement"
That's GOTTA hurt! - meatypuffs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Awesome story and an awesome idea by these 3 companies. Although I'd personally like to have a $100 laptop, I'm really excited that so many more people are going to have access to the internet and all the technology and information that comes with it. Think of all of the innovations and cures that will come from better education of the world? I myself don't have any ideas for the cure of cancer or AIDS, but maybe eventually some child in a third-world country country does and will now have the means for more research and publishing their idea.
I might just be really optimistic about this, but I don't think anything but good things could come from an idea such as this. Dugg. - dandiemer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0i didnt even see that sonofa, but i was totally thinking it.
it makes sense to distirbute a mesh netwrok this way - limpy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I was at the $50 iBook stampede and will happily step on starving 3rd world children to get one of these laptops.
- sonofa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"WHERE ARE WE GONE TO CONNECT THIS???"
-aristofeles
"When these machines pop out of the box, they will make a mesh network of their own, peer-to-peer. This is something initially developed at MIT and the Media Lab. We are also exploring ways to connect them to the backbone of the Internet at very low cost."
-http://laptop.media.mit.edu/ - rc_collins, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I need a cheap laptop, way cant we buy one?
--dan - scorwitz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Oh, wonderful. I can't have one. I'm so happy. Why not make the money off of those of us who can afford one to use to make more of them for the children who will grow up to take even more of the US's computer jobs.
- diggerphelps, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Isn't Georgia a third world country?
(The one in Europe AND the one in the southern U.S.) - exobot, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Digging your own story using false accounts = crap.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0ha-ha huh-ha haaaa haaaa
- fuckalpacino, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0pssht
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1If you fanboys can take pacino's dick out of your collective mouths to read the fact that "these will not be available for sale to individuals". You muttonheads. The only way you'll get to use one is if you work for Google or Starbucks, or if you're unfortunate to be in the eighth grade in a 3rd world public school. You schmucks.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3+digg
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+5great story pacino, +digg
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3+digg
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -8/+5+digg
- krg123, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0oh look, another google front page story
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4one for the front page, +digg mate
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -8/+5i agree emachine, albert is the best user ever
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+0The Digg Commander, yes
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