11 December 2006

A step closer to OLPC

A Beta version is out, advancing Negroponte's efforts to build a $100 laptop that can be distributed to African villages and Brazilian ghettos acheiving his goal of One Laptop Per Child. While it is still a little buggy, you can study the photos and imagine for yourself whether or not this is such a good idea.

I would encourage everyone to watch, because this really looks like an idea and a force for change that could change the world forever. Can you imagine the amount of spam that a new generation of web-enabled users could create? Are there enough Universities ready to absorb a larger student population if this doubles the number of college-prepared students in Africa or Southeast Asia? How will villages keep their children loca for another generation when they've grown up excited about distant places like Mumbai, Shanghai and Dubai? Will relief agencies be able to use these to pinpoint specific places and times of acute need?

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