The $100 Laptop: Will it Re-Define Education or Flop?

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://laptop.media.mit.edu/' target='_blank'>http://laptop.media.mit.edu/</a><br /><br /></div><i>"The $100 Laptop will be a Linux-based, full-color, full-screen laptop, which initially is achieved either by rear projecting the image on a flat screen or by using electronic ink (developed at the MIT Media Lab). In addition, it will be rugged, use innovative power (including wind-up), be WiFi- and cell phone-enabled, and have USB ports galore. Its current specifications are: 500MHz, 1GB, 1 Megapixel. The cost of materials for each laptop is estimated to be approximately $90, which includes the display, as well as the processor and memory, and allows for $10 for contingency or profit."</i><br /><br />All that for $100? Seems too good to be true, but I don't think Nicholas Negroponte would be making claims that were unrealistic. If this can be achieved, it will certainly allow for some amazing educational opportunities in developing countries. Heck, for $100, I'd buy a few of them and leave them around the house in different rooms - especially if they're powered by a hand crank. In fact, they should sell them for $200 each in economically rich countries, and give $100 back to a village that needs it, thereby creating a 2 for 1 subsidy.<br /><br />I thought this line was hilarious when talking about cutting the fat out of the laptop: <i>"Two-thirds of their software is used to manage the other third, which mostly does the same functions nine different ways."</i> :lol: That's sadly true - I installed Linux on an old machine and was amazed at how snappy it was compared to running Windows XP on the same box. The trade-off here is compatibility with the rest of the world, but if it's primarily a closed system with a fixed number of peripherals for the students to use (shared printers, etc.) it could work out quite nicely.

[Steve Jordan]

Hopefully here, Mr. Negroponte isn't quoting from an unreliable source as far as the production costs of the laptop... and no mention of the software used. Being linux, one can only hope a learning-based package will be available for essentially $0 for an entire school system, but these things have to be worked out in advance. There's no use buying $100 laptops if you have to equip each of them with $200 of software.

I've been a firm believer in the overpriced nature of laptops for quite some time, and it sounds like their licking the display issue will be the most important item to bring the cost down to a manageable level. More power to them, but the methods they mention are experimental, so we have to wait and see how well those work out. Some of the newest innovations in LCD displays may turn out to be better, but you'll have to wait for those, too. Bottom line: Mr. Negroponte's laptops may take quite a few more years to see reality.

[surur]

This will never happen because:

a) there is no inherent advantage in having computers in a classroom.

b) specialized education software which may make a difference would not exist for that platform (at least initially)

c) where's the profit/ incentive for the company doing this? The could make $10 profit more easily making cellphones.

d) In business and bureaucracy, where computers can be useful, most business can afford proper computers and get their software pirated in any case.

In short, this is just the normal idealistic nonsense. The best this will do is to teach children how to use computers.

Surur

[Felix Torres]

All that for $100? Seems too good to be true, but I don't think Nicholas Negroponte would be making claims that were unrealistic.
.

Sorry to disappoint you but if you hunt around you'll find plenty of his predictions (on AI, on digital media, ebooks, etc) that have been way off-line from the way the industry has and is developing.
He's an ivory tower pundit that talks of things that could be...if somebody *else* figures out the engineering and economics and algorithms.

He makes great quotes for the media but not much else.

To give you an idea how off-base these folks are, just take a look at the Simputer, the *last* attempt at a third-world "no-cost" Linux computer.
At last report, the product turned out to be a barely usable pocket computer with sales running in the low 4-figures. (google it!) :roll:

A $100 dollar computer *can* be built today.
Assume zero profit and zero cost IP and software to start with.
Use slave labor or equivalent (graduate students are even better; slaves you have to feed, after all) for assembly, and zero transport costs moving the pieces in and out of the slave labor camp, excuse me, factory.

Now, throw in $10 worth of DRAM, $10 case with power supply, $10 mobo, $10 CPU, $5 GPU, $3 network card, $3 keyboard, $9 mouse, $20 B&amp;W low-res 9" crt display with case and power supply and your choice of either a pre-imaged Hard drive of 256Mb of Flash ROM for $20.
Bottom line?
A $100 computer, circa 2005.

Negroponte's laptop could be built, in 20 years, when the hardware he postulates is as obsolete as a VIC-20 or Sinclair ZX-80.

But not today; not with state-of-the-art un-amortized hardware (those folding screens Negroponte talks off? They're based on DLP chips, which he *assumes* he can get for the price of the silicon, ie, free). Anybody want to guess what they cost TI to manufacture, test, and ship? (Never mind the return the owe on stockholders' investment?)

Conceptualizing is not building.
And assuming that folks will essentially give away technology and products that cost millions or more to develop, for free is beyond fantasizing.

Ivory-tower pundits aside, products do not exist in a vacuum.
They exist as a balance between customer needs and manufacturers capabilities and need to make a profit. So, while a $100 education-market laptop would be great to have (I'd settle for a $100 PocketPC phone!) wishing isn't going to make it happen.

Not now.
Not soon.

[freitasm]

Short comment: with those features, can't be built now.

"... $100 Laptop ..., full-color, full-screen ... rear projecting the image on a flat screen or by using electronic ink .... rugged, use innovative power (including wind-up), be WiFi- and cell phone-enabled, and have USB ports galore. Its current specifications are: 500MHz, 1GB, 1 Megapixel. ... $10 for contingency or profit."

1 Megapixel what? I can think it's a digital camera... Or the number of pixels on the screen. Actually, what a bad text.

[Bajan Cherry]

Simputer guys recently launched Rs. 10,000 (roughly US$ 200) laptop with Linux. It got, as before a good press coverage and lot of back-patting, but I am not sure if the sale channels are properly setup or not. In quite likelyhood, they'd sell few units to Govt where they'll gather dust.

I would very much like to see such initiative succeed, but somehow, feel cynical.

[Jonathan1]

Whoever first said you get what you pay for was right on the money. I will NEVER purchase or recommend any laptop that is under $1000. (I rarely do that with desktop systems either.) You get what you pay for.
If I had a kid and it was a matter of them getting a cheap *** laptop from school or a good quality one from me I would shell out the money myself. Becasue you know what? Even though all laptops can have problems every now and again because of the nature of the device I've seen too many cheap laptops crap out. I'm not going to say it’s because they were cheap but I'm just saying that it’s pretty curious that it’s always the cheap crap that I'm running across that's having the problems. *shrugs*

[twalk]

P1 is selling the color screen Zire 31 for a decent profit at $129. A cut down laptop can definitely be built today for &lt;$100, if you leave out all the other cost of business things...


However that's never been the problem with these kind of things. The problem is where is the market? People living in rich countries will completly ignore it, while people living in poor countries can't afford it (even at just $100).

For this to be even a little viable, you'd have to sell at a rate of a minimum of 10M/year. That's $100M "left over" for all the manufacturing (including equipment &amp; location), salaries, etc, etc. That's not much... Taxes alone will eat up more than that.

Ramping up to 100M+ after just one year... Yeah right...

PDAs can be found, in quantity, right now for &lt;$100/unit. PDAs have never been anywhere close to 10M/year, not to mention 100M+/year.

Simputer found out the hard way that any significant sales will take time and a lot of customer education. As a general business rule of thumb, any time you have to educate the customer about a product, it's going to take 3X as long for sales to ramp up.

Todd

[Steve Jordan]

Todd makes an excellent point: Below-$100 PDAs would be a lot more practical (and possible) than cheap laptops. In fact, if they were hard-coded with education-based SW and room for nothing else but assignment storage, I could see that coming in at below $25, and being much more useable and trouble-free. Hell, the developing world could subsidize that right now.

[randy80016]

I'm not sure what this professor teaches but it sure as hell isn't economics. This just goes to show that someone who is good at one thing (I would hope, being from MIT?!) can be really bad at another.

The only people stupid enough to buy into this are at or below his own level of understanding of reality, i.e. the media.