$100 laptops made by MIT

[tainowarrior]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050929/ap_on_hi_te/hundred_dollar_laptop

Um...I want one of these laptops. $100.00 dollars only? Hand-crank electricity generator when away from a powersocket?

Um...please...where can I get it. Why don't they make enough for everyone?

[amber dog democrat]

1. If Apple makes one.....

then I might be interested.

[nine23]

7. Hey bud, I'm a life-long Apple fan myself...

...but you're obviously missing the point.

Firstly, re: your statement "I might be interested". Did you even read the article? It's not being "marketed" to you. In fact, it's not really being "marketed" at all.

Secondly, as I just touched upon marketing, let me remind you of this: Apple is every bit the corporate monster as Microsoft. Last time I checked, they were giving fucking NOTHING away to ANYONE. In fact, they're so busy basking in their new role as the ones who "beat Sony at their own game" (ie. the iPod), they could give a fuck what's behind MIT's laptop, not to mention THE PEOPLE who will benefit from the product MIT is trying to develop. (If you have a moment, Google the retail cost of an iPod in a third world country, such as Brazil. You'll find the costing structure is much the same as a luxury car, that being: "Fuck 'em. Most of these poor folks can't afford our product anyway, so let's charge them a premium price with shipping and handling reflected in that amount. No costing breaks here; iPod's will be the 'Mercedes' of portable music players in these markets..." In other words, my friend, iPods are much more expensive in third world/developing countries than they are for us in the west.)

And on the subject of Brazil, Lula, the current socialist President of Brazil, also saw a need for laptops in classrooms throughout Brazil. His approach, however, is a little different from MIT's. Brazil will be buying millions of cheap laptops from China (not quite at a hundred bucks per unit, but pretty close), and will be loading them with the Linux OS as MIT is doing as well. But, that was only AFTER MICROSOFT REFUSED BUDGE ON THE SOFTWARE COSTS FOR BULK SALES OF WINDOWS.

And where was Apple during all of this? Selling you and I a fucking "lifestyle" called iPod, much the same as Starbucks sells it's cultural "lifestyle". But, unlike Apple, at least Starbucks "claims" to give a fuck about where and how their primary product (coffee) is produced.

But getting back to the original thread/topic: I love to see people, such as this man from MIT, actually addressing some of these issues and acting upon it, rather than just paying "corporate lip service" as Starbucks does, AND APPLE CLEARLY DOESN'T.

[tainowarrior]

10. the only free hardware software

Is cheap IBM compatible hardware coupled with Linux and/or BSD Unix. Everything else is proprietary commercial software.

I run PC-BSD Unix (www.pcbsd.org) on an Ebay bought generic computer, 3.0ghz processing power, and 512 MB of RAM.

Works like a charm, fast as hell, secure from viruses and spyware, and running the most stable and secure OS known to man: FreeBSD.

I'm a happy camper.

[benburch]

12. As I posted below...

Darwin is OSS, and is the basis for the MacOS X operating system. I think Darwin would be a good candidate for this machine.

[tainowarrior]

15. but Darwin on its own is not as developed

as FreeBSD

If you're gonna use a Unix or LInux based system, go with the two most developed ones. Linux is great for desktops, and FreeBSD is great for servers. I use PC-BSD because it's trying to use FreeBSD's desktop capabilities to its fullest.

Darwin is something like NetBSD or OpenBSD, they can work as an operating system, but are not as extensible nor have the amount of applications to them as FreeBSD does. Darwin gives MacOSX its stability, but it's Mac's proprietary software that gives it ease of use.

I'd strongly recommend Linux or PC-BSD as a basis for these cheaper computers.

[benburch]

17. Actually...

Darwin IS Free-BSD running on a Mach kernel.

In this way it is a lot like the old mkLinux that Apple ported. (And which I made a lot of use of on my 7100/100 and my 7500/132)

Anything ported to Free-BSD ought to work in Darwin-X86!

The lack of some ports to the PPC version is due to endianness and other processor-related porting issues that are not a factor on Darwin-X86!

[jim3775]

14. Based on recent events I wouldn't buy one if Apple made it

Defective Nano screens, powerbook fires, defective batteries. Apple has a history of releasing defective hardware.

[benburch]

18. Well, if you call a 0.1% failure rate "defective" you might have a case.

The only defect with the nano screen I am aware of is that they scratch easily. And almost all laptop makers have had battery and overheat issues, if you do some checking! I know of a house fire started by a Windows-type laptop's battery, for example.

But I have six macs here in daily server use 24/7, the oldest ones since 1998. Zero failures other than CRT fade on the old ones, but ANY CRT on 24/7 for seven years will fade.

And I have one of the original tangerine iBooks. Had a screen failure once due to being dropped, and had to finally get a new battery after 4 years because the original would no longer charge, but those were the only issues ever.

*Any* hardware manufacturer has issues with shipped designs.

[CBGLuthier]

21. there have been reports of cracked screens

very few, a problem with a vendor.


I too though have had "bad luck" with Apple products. Had a brand new iMac with a bad CD drive. New out of the box.

Have a friend who is a a major Mac user and he has had issues with incredibly noisy power supplies and flimsy keyboards.

I think they have a good OS and the software is usually good, but they do sometimes cheap out on stuff, especially when you consider the high cost.

[jim3775]

22. Blame it on the vendor

How PHB of them.

[benburch]

23. Any machine can have an out of the box failure, though.

In the Consumer Electronics industry, we speak of a "bathtub curve" for failures;

http://www.weibull.com.nyud.net:8090/hotwire/issue21/ht21_1.gif

And that is why you have a warrantee!

[pop goes the weasel]

2. making enough for everyone

definitely seems better than designing them to carry a stigma.

I suppose that MIT thinks that Americans wouldn't want them, since they would be slow. But there is a digital divide here, too, and children here are also likely to drop things and need laptops that they can carry safely. Sell them in the US for $100, and maybe they could sell them for less overseas.

Frankly, I've seen a lot of low-/slow- tech made available through universities for the 3rd world that never catches fire. Not making that tech generally available creates a stigma on it own. People in developing countries are skeptical--if it was so good, why isn't it used in the developed world? It also betrays a lack of understanding of the economic and social divisions in the US. Most any product for the developing world would still find a market in the rural US, where dependibility is more important than style.

[tainowarrior]

5. Unless you're gaming

500 mhz processor with a distribution like Vector Linux will be just fine. you could send email, browse web, make documents, even edit photos, if you had a big enough harddrive. For what these kids need it, it's an efficient Internet workstation. Probably could play some older games (like Nintendo and Sega emulators), which would give the system some entertainment value as well.

[goclark]

8. It would be perfect for Seniors!

[lectrobyte]

3. Cool. I'm kind of surprised that someone hasn't made something like

this already -- since today's PDAs seem to have as much power as computers from a few years ago. I'd definitely like to have something like that for the house.

[jarnocan]

4. awesome

I like that they are going to give students in Mass. Hopefully this kind of thing will catch on.

[papau]

6. The first million made are committed to China - and expected to

be out beginning 1sr qtr 06 - they are made in China per MIT design -

at least the above was the the 1st qtr 05 story on the above.

[deminks]

9. Did you see who is in charge of this project? Nicholas Negroponte

Our illustrious intelligence czar's brother. I have been looking for some scandal here. Either this guy is night and day in comparison to his brother, or there is something going on.

I am just sceptical. It is my nature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Negroponte

[benburch]

11. This sounds like a platform that could run Darwin X-86

Or could with some minor modifications.

I run OSX here on a 233MHz PPC-G3 processor machine with 192 MHz, so a machine with those specs should easily be able to manage it.

And for the mass market it is aiming at, the OSS Darwin-X86 operating system that is the base layer for MacOS X would be a great alternative!

Not that Linux is a bad choice, but having an alternative is always a great thing.

If I can get my hands on one of these, I will try to port Darwin to it.

[tainowarrior]

16. tehre is OpenDarwin

that already runs on X86 systems.

But why use a X86 based system that is half as developed as Linux or FreeBSD. Darwin IS a BSD, or BSD derivative, but FreeBSD has already more years of development on it. OpenDarwin is as developed as NetBSD or OpenBSD are (which is to say, they are great for servers, but not as extensible as FreeBSD on desktop usage).

My suggestion: stick with Linux (preferably Slackware based ones, they are stable) or try FreeBSD. I use PC-BSD (www.pcbsd.org). It's great.

[benburch]

19. Open Darwin is quite developed, as I wrote above...

And why would you want ANY enduser to have to deal with Slackware???

Geeze... I did Slackware in 1996 when there WAS nothing else, and liked it fine, but unless I was dealing with some very odd requirement I would not pick it now.

[moddemny]

13. Real Solutions to Real Problems........

Hmmmm, and I thought all we needed to solve the world's probelms was a new political committee....... (sarcasm)

Whiny loudmouth activists take note......... America Just Sucks Doesn't It? After all who thought someone in this country would care about the world's poor or schoolchildren?




Ohhh man, I wonder what got into me...... phewww.... must have been all those ANSWER protests.

[fujiyama]

20. It reminds me of a pocket pc or palm pilot in some ways...atleast

in terms of power...or an older laptop. Nowadays, laptops running at thhis speed (including the one I'm using right now), can be bought pretty damn cheap (under 200 on ebay).

But obviously this is more rugged and I like thhe idea of using flash memory (though it's much more expensive than HDs).

If this thing is light and allows expandability for various components (like a USB device), I think it can be marketed to the mainstream as well. A 500MHz system is fine, unless your a gamer or are using high end graphics or imaging software. It's certainly good enough for any applications kids will use it for. If it has a DVD drive or proper codecs it would even be able to play movies...

[hootinholler]

24. Ubicomp advances.

UbiComp, you ask? Ubiquitous Computing.

This is way cool!

-Hoot

[Must_B_Free]

25. it doesn't exist folks...

and won't for at least two years. it won't be available to individuals either.

[MazeRat7]

26. Academics.... what a hoot.

Apparently they don't quite understand the production aspects of this goal or should I say the limitations.

The most significant being:

a) Neither AMD or Intel still produce a 500mhz processor since their fabrication process has changed since those days. Hence, they can only build what that can find parts for on todays market. Those two are not going to re-tool to produce something they no longer are setup to produce... not for the $10-20 price tag needed to hit the $100 total cost target.

b) A minimal Desktop Linux configuration for a basic user takes about 1Gig of disk storage and that much flash will cost you several hundred dollars on todays market. BTW, Win2k and XP need about twice that much storage.

c) Battery technology is such that those poor "children" will spend more time cranking the charger than actually using the computer....and that is assuming they use low power hardware.....

Sorry, this "idea" has been discussed in many technical circles over the past years, each time it is greeted with lots of "what are they thinking" head shakes. Not to mention, that Dell, HP, and others can build conventional laptops (basic configurations) for about $200 today (their cost). In a couple of years it will be under $100.


MZr7

edit: One more point. MIT does not have the capability to "manufacture" this product in mass quantity. That would have to be done by a foundry like Compal, Quanta, or other companies that do "contract" manufacutring... my point... more cost.