The vaunted 'USD 100 laptop' that Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers dreamed up for international schoolchildren is becoming a slightly more distant concept. The USD 100 laptop has many innovative features including a pull cord for recharging by hand. Leaders of the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child that was spun out of MIT acknowledged Friday that the devices are now slated to cost USD 188 when mass production begins this fall. The last price the nonprofit announced was USD 176; it described USD 100 as a long-term goal.
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Member since:2005-07-06
I see people here who lives in shanty towns and can hardly support their families yet they have at least one cellphone.
I see homeless people who beg on the stree who have cellphones. And personally I think it's a good thing. Cell phones cost almost nothing and are vital if you hope to pull yourself out of the gutter. How to you expect to apply for a job for example if your prospective employer cannot contact you, to take a simple example. It is also easier to look for work and housing by making phone calls rather than walking all over town from place to place.
Most people who say that mobile phones are useless generally have a land line and internet connection both at home and at work as well as an address which one can send mail to. If you had non of those things you'd probably start seeing more value in a mobile phone.
Member since:2005-08-18
Member since:
2005-08-18
Oh how I wish that was only the case but alas...
I see people here who lives in shanty towns and can hardly support their families yet they have at least one cellphone. People of all ages, genders and classes are text messaging like there's no damn tomorrow.
Lets not even get started on the curse that is Internet cafes (or CounterStrike/MMO cafes, as it would be).
Presuming these laptop even reach the schools, that is. If the target countries are anything like here corruption will run pretty rampant and I somehow doubt they would reach their intended schools. Seeing the abysmal conditions that schools in the poor provinces here are in I doubt a laptop is much help anyway. How about paying teachers a salary they can actually live on? School improvement projects where 50% of the budget doesn't go to someones pocket? Seriously, I see the budget of projects here, school and otherwise, and think "Holy shit, that would be way over budget in Sweden for this kind of project. Even if you convert from pesos to dollars. And Sweden is an expensive high-salary country!".
No doubt there are, at least some, noble intention behind this but there are just SO many other things urgently in need of fixing in these places.