Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ The $100 Laptop: Manna-vaporware

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
In an airport conversation in Calgary recently I commented - cynically - that MIT had gotten a lot of publicity over a product that does not exist. The topic was the $100 computer, which had been introduced at WSIS. Such scepticism, it seems, is not limited to my suspicious mind. Teemu Leinonen poses two questions that defy easy answers: "Why the only use case the MIT people talk about is delivering school books with the $100 Laptop?" and "Why didn't MIT decide to contribute to the Indian Simputer project that has been around already for five years?" Don't get me wrong - I am very much in favour of a project like the $100 computer. But I think it would not hurt anyone to see MIT tone down the publicity mill for a while.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Apr 25, 2024 6:36 p.m.

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