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$100 PC project will "invigorate Linux desktop push"
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Comments (24)
Microsoft scared
I'd love to buy two of those $100.00 laptops for $250.00 each!
I'd give them to my grade school age children to use. The extra cash could help to fund the program for kids in underdeveloped countries.
Come on, $250.00 is less than a new ipod. Less than most of us spend on coffee a year.
I'd give them to my grade school age children to use. The extra cash could help to fund the program for kids in underdeveloped countries.
Come on, $250.00 is less than a new ipod. Less than most of us spend on coffee a year.
Microsoft has been scared since about 1994. You'll just have to trust me on that :)
Microsoft is right this time
I hate to say it, but in this particular case I think that Microsoft is actually on the right track as far as the type of device is concerned - see http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2006/01/microsoft-is-right...
Of course Bill Gates has shot this idea down, it will destroy Microsoft for the next generation.
A new generation of computer literate young adults who have cut their teeth on Linux?
Are they really going to fall for "the Windows way" of doing things?
Windows can't compete because it won't work on a $100 laptop so the idea must be ridiculed and sneered at until no ones talking about it anymore.
Otherwise Microsoft are out of the race (if indeed it is a race).
In 10 years time Royal, or some other company, will probably be selling an ''organizer' with a 500Mhz processor, 512MB to 1GB or ram, and built in wireless.
It'll probably cost less than $100.00.
It may very well be primitive compared to the desktops and laptops available in 10 years, but it will be used by people who can afford it.
If students today get exposure to a $100.00 computer environment that lets them learn how to develop software, those hand held 'organizers ' will be made to do amazing thing in the future.
The Apple II and the Timex/Sinclair are primitive by today's standards, but they encouraged many individuals to learn how to program. They were used in many home brew projects. They stimulated minds, and encouraged learning. They were designed as hobbiest machines, but they planted seeds that grew.
It'll probably cost less than $100.00.
It may very well be primitive compared to the desktops and laptops available in 10 years, but it will be used by people who can afford it.
If students today get exposure to a $100.00 computer environment that lets them learn how to develop software, those hand held 'organizers ' will be made to do amazing thing in the future.
The Apple II and the Timex/Sinclair are primitive by today's standards, but they encouraged many individuals to learn how to program. They were used in many home brew projects. They stimulated minds, and encouraged learning. They were designed as hobbiest machines, but they planted seeds that grew.
"once voice recognition systems are good enough to cope with breathless speech on the move with significant background noises"
Yes once that happens, the keyboard - and consequently, the laptop - will not be the way to do this. When is that going to happen? Next year? Two years from now?
To think that it will happen soon enough to tell the poorer people of the world that a $100 laptop is a bad idea just screams "let them eat cake".
Yes once that happens, the keyboard - and consequently, the laptop - will not be the way to do this. When is that going to happen? Next year? Two years from now?
To think that it will happen soon enough to tell the poorer people of the world that a $100 laptop is a bad idea just screams "let them eat cake".
Sorry, I wasn't suggesting that they should wait for voice recognition: I meant that one day this would be a solution. In the meantime, Microsoft's idea of attaching a keyboard to a mobile phone and using a TV as the screen seems to me more practical than trying to design a $100 laptop if millions/billions are going to get a mobile phone anyway. Another problem is that nobody knows whether this $100 laptop design is even feasible yet....
The prototype has been shown.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4445060.stm
How much for the mobile phone,keyboard and TV?
Yes, but as you say, a prototype, not an early production model: if you look at the second picture in the BBC story, you can see that this is currently a rather larger object that bears very little resemblance to the sleek green thing (with the fake screen in the first picture) it needs to become.
Unfortunately, the question is not whether something with all the announced features can be made to work - clearly it can - but whether it can be made for $100.
Unfortunately, the question is not whether something with all the announced features can be made to work - clearly it can - but whether it can be made for $100.
The other point being that $100 might not be that much to you and I but there are places in the world where that is a fortune and certainly more than most families see in a year.
A $100 laptop for EVERY child on earth is a beautiful vision and one that will cost HUGE amounts of money and present logistic problems hitherto unforeseen.
It would be sad to see this idea crash and burn through lack of resources or lack of support but it would be a tragedy if it happened because Mr. Gates decided to stop it.
not such a good guy after all
quote : "According to the Times, Microsoft Chairman and cofounder Bill Gates is "privately bitter" about Negroponte's decision to use Red Hat for the laptop. (Maybe he's not such a good guy after all.)"
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060130-6078.html
I wonder sometimes about Gates. Is he just a little kid who throws a fit when he doesn't get his way? Microsoft is supposed to be a business with executives who behave like professionals. He doesn't give the impression of being an adult or a professional. The impression seems to be of a spoiled little rich kid.
[The impression seems to be of a spoiled little rich kid.]
You might add cunning to that.
You might add cunning to that.
Cunning? Ballmer is cunning. Gates is a buffoon.
bwhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
tadelste you are such a comedian......
lol
tadelste you are such a comedian......
lol
"Is he just a little kid who throws a fit when he doesn't get his way?"
He's an extremely successful and throughly unscrupulous businessman who throws a fit when he doesn't get his way.
Although that's not an unusual trait in extremely successful, unscrupulous businessmen, it's magnified in this case because Gates has more fit-throwing resources available to him.
He's an extremely successful and throughly unscrupulous businessman who throws a fit when he doesn't get his way.
Although that's not an unusual trait in extremely successful, unscrupulous businessmen, it's magnified in this case because Gates has more fit-throwing resources available to him.
Quoting:He's an extremely successful and thoroughly unscrupulous businessman who throws a fit when he doesn't get his way.
Somewhere I got a little different impression. I thought that his mother was overbearing and domineering and really ran the show from the background. She was on the Board of IBM and got him his appointment with the IBM PC Company, Inc. where IBM was desperate for an operating system for their new entry into the PC market.
Then, when she died I understood he turned to Steve Ballmer for leadership.
Oh, well, the things one picks up when they investigate.
{
Somewhere I got a little different impression. I thought that his mother was overbearing and domineering and really ran the show from the background. She was on the Board of IBM and got him his appointment with the IBM PC Company, Inc. where IBM was desperate for an operating system for their new entry into the PC market.
Then, when she died I understood he turned to Steve Ballmer for leadership.
Oh, well, the things one picks up when they investigate. }
Interesting.I never heard that before.I guess a little more investigating is in order.Thanks for the insight.
Then, when she died I understood he turned to Steve Ballmer for leadership.
Oh, well, the things one picks up when they investigate. }
Interesting.I never heard that before.I guess a little more investigating is in order.Thanks for the insight.
"Ballmer is cunning."
Cunning like a box.
Cunning like a box.
From: Robert X. Cringely
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20001123.html
In his own right, Ballmer once took an individual business risk that pales anything ever accomplished by Gates. In the late 1980s, when Microsoft was approaching the release of Windows 3.0 — the first version of the software to do more or less what it claimed — Ballmer borrowed almost $50 million against his Microsoft stock and anything else he owned, and used the money to buy more Microsoft shares. Software tycoons don't do things like this. They sell shares, not buy them. Gates has never bought a single share of Microsoft, but Ballmer did, and the $50 million grew over the following decade to more than $12 billion, earning him the CEO job he has today. That Gates allowed Ballmer to not only succeed him, but to remake Microsoft in Ballmer's image, indicated that Gates was ready to move on to a new level of competition.
Some Box. And insider trading at that!
In his own right, Ballmer once took an individual business risk that pales anything ever accomplished by Gates. In the late 1980s, when Microsoft was approaching the release of Windows 3.0 — the first version of the software to do more or less what it claimed — Ballmer borrowed almost $50 million against his Microsoft stock and anything else he owned, and used the money to buy more Microsoft shares. Software tycoons don't do things like this. They sell shares, not buy them. Gates has never bought a single share of Microsoft, but Ballmer did, and the $50 million grew over the following decade to more than $12 billion, earning him the CEO job he has today. That Gates allowed Ballmer to not only succeed him, but to remake Microsoft in Ballmer's image, indicated that Gates was ready to move on to a new level of competition.
Some Box. And insider trading at that!
t,
I know he's a smart business guy. I truly believe he is probably one of Microsoft's best assets on the business side. Tech companies have all the best tech people, but rarely have any competent business people (cough, Sun, cough).
However, I've just been dying to use that pun for years, and it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. People just don't use the word "cunning" in regular conversation that often.
That opportunity may not make be a billionaire, but it gave me a good laugh!
You gotta admit, as puns go, its a good one.
;-)
I know he's a smart business guy. I truly believe he is probably one of Microsoft's best assets on the business side. Tech companies have all the best tech people, but rarely have any competent business people (cough, Sun, cough).
However, I've just been dying to use that pun for years, and it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. People just don't use the word "cunning" in regular conversation that often.
That opportunity may not make be a billionaire, but it gave me a good laugh!
You gotta admit, as puns go, its a good one.
;-)
number6x, indeed! It was a good one ;)
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This will disrupt the computing infrastructure in each of the countries that has the foresight to participate. 7 at last count.
MS knows this and is frantically trying to figure out how to block it. If you have any doubt how scared they are read this article from NYT today http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/technology/30gates.html?_r...
At Davos Bill Gates demoed a MOCK-UP mobile phone attached to a TV with attached keyboard just to have something to show.
PS: Read about the program before you comment so as to avoid the usual /. "insightful" nonsense comments about feeding the starving children first.