[Paleopsych] NYT Mag: Laptop That Will Save the World, The

[Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.]

This is truly visionary, a technical breakthrough that can change the 
world. Thanks for sharing it, Frank. Romney's commitment to buy a half 
million is likewise visionary, putting power into the hands of the 
children.
Lynn

Premise Checker wrote:

> Laptop That Will Save the World, The
> http://select.nytimes.com/preview/2005/12/11/magazine/1124989448443.html
>
> [How far does anyone predict that the educational achievement gap will 
> be closed internationally?]
>
>    By MICHAEL CROWLEY
>
>    Here in America, high-speed wireless Internet has become a
>    commonplace home amenity, and teenagers with Sidekicks can
>    browse the Web on a beach. For many people in developing
>    nations, however, the mere thought of owning a computer remains
>    pure fantasy.
>
>    But maybe not for long. This year, Nicholas Negroponte,
>    chairman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media
>    Lab, unveiled a prototype of a $100 laptop. With millions of
>    dollars in financing from the likes of [3]Rupert Murdoch's News
>    Corporation and Google, Negroponte and his colleagues have
>    designed an extremely durable, compact, no-frills laptop, which
>    they'd like to see in the hands of millions of children
>    worldwide by 2008.
>
>    So how can any worthwhile computer cost less than a pair of
>    good headphones? Through a series of cost-cutting tricks. The
>    laptops will run on free "open source" software, use cheaper
>    "flash" memory instead of a hard disk and most likely employ
>    new LCD technology to drop the monitor's cost to just $35. Each
>    laptop will also come with a hand crank, making it usable even
>    in electricity-free rural areas.
>
>    Of course, the real computing mother lode is the Internet, to
>    which few developing-world users have access. But the M.I.T.
>    laptops will offer wireless peer-to-peer connections that
>    create a local network. As long as there's an Internet signal
>    somewhere in the network area - and making sure that's the
>    case, even in rural areas, poses a mighty challenge - everyone
>    can get online and use a built-in Web browser. Theoretically,
>    even children in a small African village could have "access to
>    more or less all libraries of the world," Negroponte says.
>    (That's probably not very useful to children who can't read or
>    understand foreign languages.) His team is already in talks
>    with several foreign governments, including those of Egypt,
>    Brazil and Thailand, about bulk orders. Gov. Mitt Romney of
>    Massachusetts has also proposed a bill to buy 500,000 of the
>    computers for his state's children.
>
> References
>
>    3. 
> http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/rupert_murdoch/index.html?inline=nyt-per 
>
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