Return of the $150 Laptop
December 1st, 2006
After several years of development (and a rising cost from the original $100 price) the $150 laptop is nearing completion at the MIT Media Laboratory and about to enter wide-scale production through Taiwan’s Quanta Computer. The device has no hard-drive, but uses innovative screen technology to make the device readable in direct sunlight without large amounts of power. Five countries – Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria, and Thailand – are to be the first to receive the devices beginning in mid-2007.
While no one doubts that the computer’s cost will broaden the reach of technology into the developing world, several major players have expressed doubt that the laptops benefit anyone, let alone revolutionize the education of millions. Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman and head of the largest philanthropic fund on Earth, criticised the project as “just taking something we do in the rich world” and assuming it is good for the developing world as well.
In the end, both sides are probably right to some degree. The laptop by itself is at best a novelty, at worst a waste of money, if not part of large-scale reforms aimed at solving the myriad of problems faced by the average child in the developing world. Access to technology is quickly becoming a basic human right, one with important and long-term benefits, but so is food, water, sanitation, medical care, and any number of others.
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