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September 28, 2005

| The Waiter Sneaks Up Silently Behind You >>

$100 Laptop Photos

I really hope this happens. I really hope this happens. The folks at the MIT Media Lab have been talking about this $100 laptop for what seems like forever. Today they released some photos of their prototype (see the gallery). Nicholas Negroponte calls the project the most important thing he’s ever done in his life. I think I agree. How awesome would it be if millions of very poor people could have WiFi-enabled laptops with their regenerative power supplies? (Via if:book.)

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Posted September 28, 2005 at 2:03 | Comments (2) | Permasnark
File under: Briefly Noted, Technosnark

Comments

We need to get rolling with an all-points wiki-curriculum (in fifty languages, natch) to display on this thing!

There's a good comment on the if:book entry -- I am especially sympathetic to it b/c it invokes Bangladesh -- that sort've asks the question, 'What are these things FOR?'

I mean yes, obviouslly in general terms giving every kid a laptop would be a good thing. Should we be content to leave it at that & just see what happens? (The answer could very well be yes.) Or is there a bundle of best practices re: computers and education that we should think about supporting on a huge scale?

And actually -- is education the end of the story? I think it would be just as handy for adults to have these too, for a variety of purposes.

On that note... will parents just steal them from their kids?

Seriously, I can imagine this becoming one of those 'wow, the world doesn't work the way you expect it to' case studies in a couple of years.

Here's an excellent take on some of the often unseen dangers of overreliance on computers as an educational tool. (Found, as is often the case, courtesy of Arts & Letters Daily.)

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