01 December 2005

Green Laptop May Help Poor Bridge Digital Divide



According to CNN.com, a green laptop weighing only a kilogram and not reliant on electricity was the center of attention at The World Summit on the Information Society held in Tunisia. Its inventor, Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claims the $100 machine will help eradicate poverty. Negroponte's non-profit group called "One Laptop Per Child," will sell the machines directly to governments in the developing world.

Read more at: $100 Laptop or at One Laptop Per Child

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There's extensive discussion of it here:

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003707.html

Interesting how much pooh-pooing of this is going on. Intel Corp. chairman Craig Barrett calling it a "gadget," the very skeptical CNN article, etc.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051209/tc_nm/technology_intel_dc

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/ptech/11/30/laptop/index.html

I think it's huge, and obviously threatening to vested interests everywhere. What's threatening is the constructivist principle--the idea that, gee whiz, children in developing countries might have some sort of organizational autonomy.

The greatest resistance to these may come from within the recipient nations.

Interesting how corporatized education in the developed nations, which has spurred huge investments in connectivity, is also creating a centrifugual force, a crisis of authority.

And the hand-crank is a no-brainer . . . soon enough backpackers are going to be clamoring for these little machines!

JS