One Laptop Per Child Gets 4 Million Laptop Order 419
An anonymous reader writes "DesktopLinux.com is reporting that four countries have together ordered 4 million low-cost, Linux-based laptops from the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. The countries of Nigeria, Brazil, Argentina, and Thailand have each placed the 1 million unit orders."
Let the 419 jokes begin!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Dear Mike,
Thank you once again for finalizing the order. You will know that this transaction is 100% Guaranteed.
We will send our certified funds after the customs are paid by you. Please send the customs fee of $37,000,000 ($37*1 Million Units) via wire transfer to:
Barrister MUGO Gy PAN Oguami
419 Scam DEC
Lagos, Nigeria
>>Hi Mugo,
>>We have approved your order and are ready to ship. You mentioned a custom's fee that we are very ready to pay. Please let me know how much per unit we will need to send.
>>Thanks again for the business!!!
>>Mike Undundrum
More importantly (Score:5, Funny)
The laptops are part of Nigeria's "leave no scammer behind" initiative.
Re:More importantly (Score:3, Informative)
Re:More importantly (Score:3, Insightful)
No, my friend, I'm sorry. No one deserves any ridicule any more. Kids don't fail, they have deffered success. Scores aren't kept at soccer or baseball games. We live in a world scrubbed clean by the PC bleach that we have been force-fed over the past two decades.
So please, a little love for the Nigerians, who, just like everyone else, were at some point harmed due to something that I as a white christian male did, and are thusly kept down and deserve the same
Re:More importantly (Score:5, Insightful)
If we all rely on ourselves for our well-being, as the "idiot libertarians" preach, then those who are less directly powerful lose to those who are more powerful. We're all very well aware of this, but a lot of us choose to ignore it.
If we all rely on each other for our well-being, then those who are less manipulative and charismatic lose to those who are more manipulative and charismatic. We're all very well aware of this, but a lot of us choose to ignore it.
All extreme competition and extreme cooperation do is change the fitness criteria for the population; either way, you'll get assholes exploiting the system. All you can really decide is what KINDS of assholes you want exploiting the system - and if you're smart, you pick a system that you're more likely to exploit than be exploited by. But then, if you're capable of making that choice, you're generally either powerful enough to be just fine with the way things are now, or you're in the middle of a violent coup d'etat.
Summary: In a libertarian ideal, man exploits man. In a socialist utopia, it's the other way around.
Re:More importantly (Score:3, Informative)
Libertarians are among the most generous people you'll ever find -- with their own money. Leftists are always willing to help themselves -- to other people's money.
Re:More importantly (Score:3, Funny)
Check the sig, sweety.
I'm waiting for Firefox 2.0 before I start spell-checking all my /. posts.
Re:One Laptop Per Scammer... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: This is a Joke! (Score:4, Interesting)
Assuming this is the same project mentioned in last month's Wired magazine, the laptops can be recharged using (among other things) physical labor (i.e. pulling a string, similar to how you start a lawnmower).
Really, sending something more practical like the parts to build a power plant, or tractors to grow food...might just be a better idea than a laptop
Seems like the World Bank has been trying things like that since the 1960's, and in many cases they didn't improve the situation much for anyone other than the government in power and their cronies. So why not try something new? Perhaps the problem has been that the things that would seem practical to a naive westerner aren't so practical after all.
We'll see what happens -- either these laptops will make a difference, or they won't. But don't be so quick to cast judgement on a program you don't know very much about. It's not like MIT is just jumping into this on a whim... they've given it several years of thought, and consulted with many people familiar with the areas they are trying to help.
I guess only one thing can describe ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Cha-Ching!!!
Re:I guess only one thing can describe ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I guess only one thing can describe ... (Score:2)
Re:I guess only one thing can describe ... (Score:3, Funny)
Actually is't oooone huuuundred meeeeeellion dollars!
Re:I guess only one thing can describe ... (Score:2)
Re:I guess only one thing can describe ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Ignoring the grammar, and the factor of 100 you're presumably out; where in TFA does it state the delivery price? The "$100 laptop" is a slogan, as much as "one laptop per child", not a catalogue price. When it comes to drawing up contracts, the actual numbers will reflect real costs. Negoponte has already said the first generations will likely b
Re:I guess only one thing can describe ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Is that the sound of a non-profit organization [wikipedia.org] selling laptops at cost? These people will probably make passable salaries courtesy of the organization, but these are not going to be multi-million dollar CEOs and CTOs. Their only major gain here is possibly the minor fame that comes with starting a project like this. In fact, I think most of the companies involved are selling the parts are near cost. The fact is that everybody wants to get a choke-hold on emerging markets (the same markets that these target); but even if that happens for AMD and the like, I don't think Negroponte or any other "owner" is going to be exploiting starving children or their poor governments in order to buy shiny red Ferraris.
Re:I guess only one thing can describe ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I guess only one thing can describe ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I guess only one thing can describe ... (Score:3, Insightful)
good idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:good idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:good idea (Score:3, Informative)
This may be what all of the linux users have been waiting for. It can prove linux is a desktop os as it was intended to be. Apple may get sales out of this too. (more interest in alternatives)
Re:good idea (Score:3, Interesting)
And we thought there were a lot of spam, AdSense blogs and phishing now. Wait until x% of four million new computer users catch wind of a way to get their hands on more USD than is open to them via legal means.
Re:good idea (Score:5, Interesting)
How is this different from any new people anywhere in the world? Or is it just all those shifty, foreign people in developing nations you suspect as criminals in the making?
Interesting fact: the US (the world's richest nation) accounts for the majority of all spam, at 23.2%. "These people" have more to fear from the the outside world than you do from them.
But of course you're right. Let's keep the internet safe for the gullible rich, and out of the hands of wily poor people who, as we all know, have no morals and want to take our money. Keep 'em backward and ignorant I say.
Re:good idea (Score:3, Insightful)
I suppose by that argument, we could also reduce spam by outlawing it education and training in the US.
It's a radical plan, but as long as we're agreed that widespread ignorance is an acceptable price to pay for a reduction in computer related crime, why not take it all the way?
Starving programmers (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Starving programmers (Score:2)
Re:Starving programmers (Score:3, Interesting)
This guy would disagree! [wikipedia.org]
In Other News: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In Other News: (Score:2, Funny)
UMPC pitch (Score:3, Funny)
Awesome (Score:5, Interesting)
Random Thought:
Wonder if any of the large PC vendors are paying attention, When was the last time Dell or HP sold 1 million+ Windows boxes in one shot?
Re:Awesome (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Awesome (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/globalcitizenship/gcrepo
Re:Not Awesome: Vaporware (Score:5, Informative)
Linux share in the desktop market (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah Apple is going care. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry but no, Steve Jobs offering OS-X for free was nothing but a kind gesture. His product is so out of range of the audience who would have gotten these machines it would be very hard to imagine any generated sales. Unless the project is super succesfull and instantly gives these kids western style incomes. Upper western style incomes.
Windows is an entirely different matter. MS has near dominance of the computer OS and 4 million new users who use non-ms software is nasty. Not horribly nasty but MS is often claimed to keep its dominance because it is dominant. In short you have to use windows, because everyone else uses windows. If everyone else doesn't use windows. Neither do you have to use windows.
It is the reason MS doesn't come down all that hard on piracy and is so willing to offer cheap (by western standards) versions of its OS in high piracy areas. MS rather loose a billion in sales then loose its dominance. Munich showed that MS is basically willing to give its software and services not just away for free but actually offer money on top of it just to make sure some other OS is not used.
Apple competes on quality, MS competes by being the only game in town. Oh and don't forget that linux users will have little difficulty switching to OS-X wich is after all based on that linux wannabe BSD. /me runs for it.
Re:Yeah Apple is going care. (Score:3, Interesting)
Opportunity for new designs (Score:3, Interesting)
If you're going to turn out a few million identical machines to people who don't have a whole lot of backwards-compatibility requirements, you can suddenly do a lot of things that mainstream PC manufacturers can't. I'd really like to see them blank-slate design the architecture, within the requirements of cost (i.e. using off-the-shelf parts).
I guess the only problem is that you don't want to stray too far from 'conventional' PCs, because you want the experience th
Re:Yeah Apple is going care. (Score:3, Informative)
It's an AMD Geode [wikipedia.org], which is an x86 computer-on-a-chip (onboard graphics, io, memory controller). It's a little late to try rearchitecting it to make it work differently.
Re:Linux share in the desktop market (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Linux share in the desktop market (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Linux share in the desktop market (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Linux share in the desktop market (Score:3, Interesting)
In my part of the world, Canada, I have gone from installing a few GNU/Linux machines each year to doing 150 next month. At about half the cost of Windows, per seat, if the project works out (I do not see any obstacles), other schools and school divisions in my area are lik
Unfortunately... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:2)
Second thoughts, I think they way they're doing it might work better.
This makes more sense than India (Score:4, Informative)
Re:This makes more sense than India (Score:3, Informative)
This is not the US we are talking about here. Recognition of disease is not the problem. People can't just hop into the family car and drive the kid to the hospital. Poor people who make up the majority of South Asia have no cars and few hospitals. Medical care is extremely limited. Having laptops doesn't solve people's basic needs. Vaccination and antibiotics do help and are much needed. This is the probl
Re:This makes more sense than India (Score:3, Informative)
On the divergent topic the US is not a good representative of how medicine is handled in 'developed countries.' Most wealthier nations have a state-based universal health care model. This is true for all of Western Europe I think. These state based models are never perfect, but few countries think that the US sys
How about the source... (Score:3, Interesting)
Considering the low specs of this thing how about releasing the distribution and libraries that will run on this? It should be trivial to build a VM that allows you to play with developing software to run in this kind of environment.
To ensure that this project doesn't flop right from the start -- I presume that they would like people to develop some software for it.... (visions of US$ 100 doorstops all over Asia)
Re:How about the source... (Score:2)
Re:How about the source... (Score:2)
I seem to recall reading that they do. It's just that it'll cost you three hundred bucks. (That's 100 for the laptop, plus the cost of two more which will be used to send laptops to families that couldn't afford one).
Re:How about the source... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How about the source... (Score:5, Informative)
Riots? (Score:5, Interesting)
Still very tough to pull off (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I am usually an optimist and i do believe that the OLPC project is at its core a good project but the competition is heating up with China, AMD and Intel with their own programs and china's project being almost competitive on price. Also the OLPC project relies on AMD and indirectly china's production capabilities to make it a reality.
Also in my opinion (and mine only - don't want to start a flameware) it is too much of a one man crusade. I think that there is way too much emphasis and publicity surrounding Negroponte and what he thinks that people (like me) will start to wonder if this is really a group effort or just one man's dream. There are times that the distinction between non-profit and corporation are blurred and the line between philanthropy and publicity are not clear.
However I think idea is sound and I think that the OLPC project has served notice to corporations that there is a very underserved market that can further the adoption of computers and thus overall help everyone out (like the Intel's and AMD's of the world). I think that a few years from now the lasting legacy of the OLPC project may be the fact that it spurred companies to serve this market.
And regardless of what people may say about computers and learning it does let me slack off and post on slashdot all day so they can't be so bad.
Re:Still very tough to pull off (Score:2)
Seems to me they're about half way there.
Re:Still very tough to pull off (Score:5, Informative)
You remembered wrong:
"The laptop won't be produced unless at least five countries sign up at a million laptops each. [worldchanging.com]
Four out of five isn't that far off.
I'm in the minority, but I think this is useless (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I'm in the minority, but I think this is useles (Score:2, Informative)
For the hundredth time....
They are not going to STARVING KIDS IN MUD HUTS!!!
Please, scroll up and read the responses to the post by bcrowell.
Re:I'm in the minority, but I think this is useles (Score:2)
David
compo time! (Score:3, Funny)
It's ok (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because we're outside the US doesn't mean we aren't enough intelligent to operate a computer. Well, they have food, a clean source of water, a chance to go to school, they only need a teacher.
Education leads to economical power. (Score:3, Interesting)
I for one welcome these laptop weilding children of the world!
So how can we get one to develop on? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So how can we get one to develop on? (Score:3, Interesting)
Come to think of it, the moment they have access to ebay you might be able to buy one from them ;) Still, just know that you won't gain much f
Re:So how can we get one to develop on? (Score:3, Interesting)
Prediction of this in 2000 extrapolating Cybiko (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.bootstrap.org/dkr/discussion/0754.html [bootstrap.org]
From there [with some outdated links removed]:
I'd love to make a souped up version of this for OHS/DKR use: (Read about in May 2000 Popular Mechanics) "Cybiko Introduces First Handheld Internet Wireless Entertainment System At Toy Fair 2000"
US $149.00 The Cybiko system combines instant messaging, interactive gaming, email and personal information manager (PIM) capabilities in an all-in-one device.
Wow!
Imagine what we could have for $1000 by the end of this year by integrating technology that already exists:
Develop a beefed up version supporting a distributed file system like Freenet...
http://freenet.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
Using technology like this 6GB in 14 ounces $500 portable audio player/recorder: [nomad Jukebox]:
And a two mile radio range: [Motorola walky talky]
Maybe with a next generation StrongARM 600Mhz processor:
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/e
Like a faster version of: [BossaNova mobile processor]
Running Squeak (and maybe Linux) as an open source OS/Development environment:
http://www.squeak.org/ [squeak.org]
Using Bootstrap OHS/DKR type ideas for the interface...
Powered by solar energy and/or Baygen radio windup technology and/or fuel cells.
And with a digital camera for fun and creation of educational how-to tutorials... (And on the spot news reporting...)
And remember that in five years this entire thing will cost US$100 each.
As an alternative, this could be a set of HandSpring modules instead: [Springboard]
Consider a couple of these souped up devices given to each village in Africa. Anyone with $1 billion for true development aid to 500,000 African villages? (This is just the cost of one unfinished dam or one shut down nuclear plant.)
Consider millions of these devices airdropped into Iraq and Yugoslavia -- instead of more expensive cruise missiles! Anybody got $1 billion to spend on ensuring democracy with a true defense against tyranny in those places? (This is probably what the U.S. military's spends on gas/oil for a month cruising the area...)
This is like a system I wanted to develop and deploy pre-Y2K just in case... But it still has much value in preparing for any potential (natural, political, economic, biological) disaster, as well as aiding the development of democracy.
It's somewhat like the wearable crystals described in The Skills of Xanadu" by Theodore Sturgeon (available in his book The Golden Helix), although the one thing it lacks is easy self-repliaction...
Developing and then deploying this sort of device is the sort of thing the UN or a major foundation should fund (if they were on the ball). But luckily, there is hope from toymakers!
====
Anyway, glad to see six years later this is going ahead at that $100 price point (and developed by other than toymakers). My hat goes off to the dedicated people making this happen.
Re:my guess (Score:4, Insightful)
the real reason for this laptop is to turn a second world country into one that interacts economically with the rest of the world. i really wish people would look closer before condemning the whole project, such ignorance.
Re:my guess (Score:2)
Re:my guess (Score:5, Insightful)
To recap the responses to this kind of argument when it came up the last three or four times stories about the $100 laptop appeared on
Also, did you notice the part where the governments of not one, but four poor nations are buying the computers? That would seem to indicate somebody thinks they will be useful.
Re:my guess (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cui bono? (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's stop using the term "Third World". It's not very accurate or meaningful, and in certain cases is completely wrong, i.e., China is not and has never been a third world nation since we began using the term. "Third World" is a vestige of 20th Ce
Re:my guess (Score:2)
I'm sure they will be useful - for resale on the grey market.
Re:my guess (Score:2, Informative)
Anyway, you put a right kibosh on those whiney do-nothing nay-sayers.
Re:my guess (Score:5, Informative)
The National School Lunch Program Background and Development
http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Lunch/AboutLunch/Prog
To summarize: mal/undernourished children don't learn for shit. Since they will only learn a minority of what you teach them, the majority of the money spent on teaching them is wasted.
"Few of us sufficiently realize the powerful effect upon life of adequate nutritious food. Few of us ever think of how much it is responsible for our physical and mental advancement or what a force it has been in forwarding our civilized life." - Robert Hunter (author of Poverty in 1904) wrote that in the introduction to John Spargo's 1905 book The Bitter Cry of the Children
You can read more history here [usda.gov].
Some objective numbers (Score:5, Informative)
WRT education hear are some stats on the literacy rate:
Argentina: 97.2%
Thailand: 92.6%
Brazil: 88.4%
Nigeria: 66.8%
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by
Okay, so except for Nigeria, most people in these countries seem to have a decent (though not necessarily high tech) education.
WRT general human development, here are some stats:
Argentina:
Thailand:
Brazil:
Nigeria:
(Source: http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005/pdf/HDR05
Okay, so except for Nigeria, most of these countries seem to be decent places to live (even though life is likely much harder than what north americans and europeans are used to)
Re:my guess (Score:5, Insightful)
This whole 'foreign countries are mud holes' theory that people like you in the US (you're in Cali, i did a little digging) share.
I am from Nigeria, and sorry to dismay your lively opinion of Nigeria and the other countries, but I did not live in a tent, hut, nor was my house supported with bamboo sticks.
I have been to Brazil and Argentina and it is the same as it is here in America, several cities bursting with industrial, urban life, and yes like a few places here in America (Central plains, deep south) ther are places that missed the technology bandwagon and could use all the cheap technology they can get (there are a lot of elementary school in the south that have no computers). My point being these are not third world countries, they are first world.
But back to the thread's main focus, this will be an ideal kick in these countries behind to help them catch up to European and Western countries. If 4 million computers can produce just one more person who can go to college and stand on his feet, then everyone wins.
Re:my guess (Score:3, Informative)
Garry Glitter, is that you? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:my guess (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:my guess (Score:5, Insightful)
Gosh, I wasn't aware that poverty was endemic in Argentina and Brazil. I know it's too much to expect people to RTFA, but you could at least finish the summary before going into knee-jerk response mode.
But, let's assume that by 99% you mean 25% and we're just discussing Nigeria. It still doesn't make the OLPC program "totally useless". The thing to understand here is that just because the news channels only show you pictures from Africa when there's a drought or a famine, that doesn't mean that the entire continent is in a permenant, continuou state of starvation.
And yes, clean water and better educational facilities are sadly lacking in many parts of Africa. But that doesn't mean that clean water should be the only problem anyone is allowed to address. We can do things in parallel.
Four million kids, some of whom might never get a chance to see a computer, are going to grow up with marketable skills for the 21st century. They're going to get a chance to bring some money into their countries, and maybe get a chance to fix some of the other problems themselves.
And that can't be a bad thing
Re:my guess (Score:5, Funny)
What are you talking about? They will probably be forced to use OO.o and the Gimp.
Joke! Joke! I'm totally kidding!
Re:my guess (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:my guess (Score:5, Informative)
We don't need to count on future Einsteins, that's a plus. Don't underestimated the power of normal people with access to information. It's empowering. See the two USA Today articles below to understand my point (the ones with cell phones). A network is a useful thing indeed.
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geo
Nigeria:
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 68%
male: 75.7%
female: 60.6% (2003 est.)
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geo
Brazil:
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 86.4%
male: 86.1%
female: 86.6% (2003 est.)
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geo
Thailand:
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 92.6%
male: 94.9%
female: 90.5% (2002)
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geo
Argentina:
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 97.1%
male: 97.1%
female: 97.1% (2003 est.)
See also:
"Africa's cell phone boom creates a base for low-cost banking"
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/gear/2005-0
"Africa's cellphone explosion changes economics, society"
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/gear/2005-1
Re:my guess (Score:4, Funny)
Re:my guess (Score:5, Insightful)
Nigeria, Brazil, Argentina, and Thailand. Not Somalia, Bolivia, and Laos.
These are among the most economically developed countries on their respective continents. Hell, Brazil is a country that manufactures jet airliners that are operated by major U.S. airlines.
The computers are not going to naked starving kids in mud huts! These countries' governments know full well what it is that people in such circumstances (which all of the countries probably do have nonetheless) really need. They are likely going to cities which are relatively poor, but with a minimally sufficient economies, and working-class children (boys and girls) who would benefit most from education and the economic mobility it provides. And they've decided that cheap computers are the way to implement that.
These kids can't afford computers, and that's a problem. Because in the very cities they live in, people use computers every day.
computers already widely used (Score:2)
It's not a question of "when"; in many towns in third world nations, a room with a bunch of old PCs and CD-ROM drives in it is the library, and there is a lot of open content available for them.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:my guess (Score:3, Insightful)
You really should become a sponsor of Plan [plan-international.org]. For a monthly fee (here in the EU it's about EUR. 20):
If you did this, you wouldn't say things like 'all they need is food and water'.
Re:my guess (Score:5, Interesting)
They have food and water (ever been to thailand? Food's the last thing they need help with), but they don't have access to technology.
A day's eating in Thailand can cost around $1. A good salary is anything over $200/month. Not much to you and me, but it's plenty for all of life's (biological) essentials there, including health care.
But $200/month limits people's access to technology. Sure, you can get broadband access and they seem to have more mobile phone shops than the rest of the world combined, Bangkok even has one of the world's largest computer shoping centres...but outside the cities, technology and salaries are more limited.
Therefore the OLPC project will help bridge this gap.
Re:Didn't RTFA but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Didn't RTFA but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Dunno, perhaps they'll use them for the million things that were done before the internet was widespread?
Re:Thats great but.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Just be patient - once they've been delivered, it probably won't take long for them to start popping up on eBay...
Re:$100 laptop per child... (Score:4, Insightful)
Right, because all possibly avenues for relief and charity dropped what they were doing to work on the laptop project.
Oh, and last I checked, Bob Geldof and Sally Struthers weren't making the world a better place-- and that $1 a day to "feed the children" doesn't seem to be doing much to provide for their future. Maybe a combination of current huminatarian efforts, with the access to education and knowledge that the laptop project will make possible could help some of these kids grow up to make their societies a better place.
You know, "teach a man to fish" and all that.
Re:$100 laptop per child... (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you sure about that [lifestraw.com]?
And even so, you can give each family 100$ and they can eat for a month from that. That's what organisations have been doing for decades now and keep on doing. But there will be new children, uneducated, unable to provide for themselves, in need for medical care, food, clean water, shelter.
Are you going to give another 100$ for the next generation or a factor of that cause the past generation is still starving? OR would you ensure educatio
Re:Pass out something other than Laptops.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pass out something other than Laptops.... (Score:3, Funny)
laptops ARE birth control... (Score:3, Funny)
* how much longer will it take these people to meet the opposite sex if they are laptop obsessed ?
* now we just need some really involved mesh network games.
* if they get educated, they will want to stay in school longer, and again delay reproductive activity.
ITs win, win, win...
Re:What ever happened to the $100 laptops? (Score:3, Funny)