If he has been hired to bring app-centric permissions to Mac OS, then this is the biggest news of the decade.
It is often said that the flaw that makes trojans possible is users that install software. This is misleading - the flaw that makes trojans dangerous is that OS's allow apps to run with the full permissions of the user, instead of a restricted set of permissions relevant to the app itself.
If Apple get this bit right ( and without getting sucked down the virtualization route, it's just resource permissions that are needed ) then they will have delivered bigger value to their users than anything else I can imagine. Just as MS have finally added some file permissions, Apple would have blasted ahead to the next level.
"As its fortunes began to wane, the OLPC rolled out plans with Microsoft to deliver new XO machines capable of dual booting Windows XP, shortly after Microsoft and Intel unveiled their own plan to compete against the XO with a low-end netbook offering called Classmate, designed entirely to ensure that third world children wouldn't be exposed to computers running anything other than an Intel CPU and a Microsoft operating system."
Have you been to india, it is a society base on the Cast System, simple put it is about the haves and have nots. I not sure how many of the 1.1B people there fit into the haves, however, based on my limited exposure the haves are a very small majority and they spend lots of time and money making sure the have nots stay that way.
A very large % of their population have no idea what technology exist and they live right along side people who do. Those who have the knowledge, power and money do not allow those who are below them in the case system to raise above. As they always say knowledge and information is power and you can be assured they they make sure those below them will never gain this.
How long have you been studying contemporary India and how long have you been to India to become an expert of contemporary India and Indians? Do you even keep up with current events in India?
What you just stated must be the most uninformed, if not bigoted proclamations I ever read. If what you state is true, how could this happen?
and she is not the only one. There are other prominent Indians who come from the lower castes, or who had been poor.
I have never been to India but I have met many Indians who came here to study or work -- they are not all rich, although some of them are indeed very rich.. If you ever stayed long enough in the United Kingdom (UK), you will find an even more diverse ethnic groups of Indians.
When it comes to cheap laptops and internet, there wre actually a number of Indian technologists who developed very cheap computers:
India happens to be one of the many countries that rely heavily on Open Source technologies, like the use of Linux. The goal is to develop technologies that will reach as many of the poorest Indians.
In fact, if you follow some PBS programs, there is a very successful Indian technologist who developed a unique internet device so that any individual can use it even without any education. He placed them in public places so that anyone can use it.
Unlike the falsity that you were spewing, his goal is to reach the poorest of the poor in India, so that they could improve their life.
He is not the only one. Unlike many other countries, and mainly due to the indelible influence of Mahatma Gandhi, the focus of India is towards self-sufficiency. This is not only a government policy, this idea of self-sufficiency is ingrained in the psyche of the great thinkers in India. There is a very prominent Indian theoretical physicist who decided to focus her efforts in developing what is known as sustainable technologies -- for example the focus in agriculture would be a more holistic approach to raising food that is not dependent on "agribusiness kind of agriculture" practiced in the US and most Western countries -- so that this alternative agriculture technology that will be developed will be affordable to the poorest Indians.
.
While Indian many not be the most prominent exporters, their more than one billion population is a market big enough. From what I have read, they have been so successful, some Indians prefer to go how, even if they studies abroad. Like China, there are in fact a number of Indians who were successful abroad but decided to go home to India because of all the opportunities.
Another area where India has done quite well also is in biotechnology, including drugs. It is one of the major exporters of cheap HIV-AIDS drugs. If only the United States is not so protectionist, India significantly reduced the cost of drugs in the US.
Socio-politically, India and many countries of the world, especially in Asian, are more progressive than the United States and European countries. They have been electing women Presidents and Prime Ministers even before they happened in European countries. The United States has yet to elect one.
I am not Indian, by the way. I do not know where you are coming from but if you can provide proofs of your allegations, I would be interested to know. Otherwise, if you cannot support what comes out of your mind, stick with what you know, and avoid spreading falsehood.
Interesting post overall, but the thing that you linked to turned out to be something else. It wasn't a full computer that I remember, I think it was something of a fancy storage device.
Interesting post overall, but the thing that you linked to turned out to be something else. It wasn't a full computer that I remember, I think it was something of a fancy storage device.
It was definitely not a laptop, then they decided to go with OLPC anyway. Yeah, 250,000 isn't enough laptops for every kid in India. We get it. Got to start somewhere, though.
"Mac OSX :: Because making UNIX user friendly was easier than fixing Windows”
As I understand it MacOSX is BSD based and BSD is a "Unix like" OS not Unix specifically!
I further understand that MacOSX did not offer full Unix compatability until Leopard!
Happy to stand corrected, at 11 years of age I still have lots to learn!
I thought the Leopard thing was more of a UNIX certification thing, not necessarily compatibility, I thought it was pretty compatible before that, you could use a lot of the standard UNIX tools and such. As I understand it, certification is very expensive, so you have to be pretty serious about doing it.
As I understand it MacOSX is BSD based and BSD is a "Unix like" OS not Unix specifically!
I further understand that MacOSX did not offer full Unix compatability until Leopard!
Happy to stand corrected, at 11 years of age I still have lots to learn!
All true. The Open Group owns the trademark to UNIX so you can't just call something UNIX unless it has the SUS certification. However, if we don't get too pedantic about it we can say that BSD is UNIX and now that Darwin is SUSv3 compliant we can easily say that it is UNIX, for all intents and purposes.
You write better than many of the posters on this forum, considering your age that is impressive. Welcome to Apple Insider.
maybe. It appears from the article that he's 23. Fact is, no matter how awesome you are, at 23 you're still pretty naive. It will be interesting to see how long the guy stays at Apple. 2 years is my guess.
That depends. There have already been some wins. Last I saw, Apache servers are used a third of the web servers for a decade now and the program included on all Macs too. Firefox is open source and still has a growing share last I've seen. Safari is based on an open source project. Mac platform is built using a lot of open source projects. As I recall, all or almost all Mac software is compiled using open source compiler system that's under the XCode IDE.
And desktop open source operating systems have been a resounding failure despite it being the "Year of the Linux Desktop" for the last decade.
Apache is not rabidly "free" software and is plumbing. Firefox and Firefox are not rabidly "free" software. gcc is crufty old crap and badly needs to be replaced by something not ideologically driven by the FSF. Like LLVM. Which hopefully can dump GPL someday.
The point isn't that there isn't useful open source software. There is. The point is that the ideology that software MUST be FOSS to be useful is not based on any evidence and IMNHO frankly stupid.
Had OLPC been based on the iPhone OSX and with Apple involvement I believe it would have been far better.
Quote:
I don't know the specifics on the situation, it's hard to comment on it. I wonder if there's sour grapes though.
Given that OLPC has been a failure in it's stated goals I'd say the business model was borked from the beginning. The only thing they can really claim as a success (and it's a weak case) is that they MAY have jumpstarted the netbook market.
Quote:
The problem is that some of those that mess with computers as a kid are the ones that eventually make ones that help build towards something that just works. How kids learn technology is by "messing with" it. Giving them a sealed box to learn from might be found to be the equivalent to just giving someone a fish rather than teaching them how to fish.
Bullshit. Messing around with linux, make, gcc and gdb is not a better learning experience than using osx and xcode or windows and visual studio. Learning cocoa, wpf, or xna equally if not much more useful than learning gtk.
In what way is OSX a sealed box?
Frankly, the technology presented in proprietary SDKs and APIs are better documented, more consistent, more programmer friendly and more modern than what you see in the Linux world and far more accessible to tinkering. Because time wasted figuring out why foo v0.3 doesn't want to work with bar v0.9a because of some dumbass undocumented dependency on xyzzy v1.22 isn't time spent learning anything particularly useful other than how NOT to do things.
Quote:
I think the chances of making quality technology workers are higher for those that were tinkerers as children. If a person didn't have an innate curiosity of how things work, I don't know how they can make things that do work when the time comes.
Yes, because teaching kids excellence of craftmanship at the beginning is a sure path to disaster.
Interesting post overall, but the thing that you linked to turned out to be something else. It wasn't a full computer that I remember, I think it was something of a fancy storage device.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FuturePastNow
It was definitely not a laptop, then they decided to go with OLPC anyway. Yeah, 250,000 isn't enough laptops for every kid in India. We get it. Got to start somewhere, though.
You have to think out of the box. They are not creating technologies for Westerners or for rich Indians. You have to focus on the ultimate goals:
1. universal awareness and introduction to the internet and information technology
2. more widespread access to computing, software and internet technology to Indians who are likely to pursue careers in science and technology
Obviously, the more well-off Indians can afford any computer and other intenet technologiy device they want.. So, that the technology needs of these well-off Indians are not always the focus of initiatives intented for indigenous computers, softwares and internet technologies.
This is especially true with those undertaken by government sponsored initiatives (e.g., via academic and technology research institutions), and those initiated by the leaders of some very enlightened and successful executives of commercial technology companies who did quite well in computer, software and internet technologies.
The primary goal of the latter initiatives is to increase awareness and introduce the concept of computers, software and internet to the poorest in India. For this purpose, India is experimenting with a lot of formats and possibilities.
For example, since electricity is not widespread, they developed and continue to explore the use of solar powered "computers" and other internet devices. [By the way, the use of solar power is not limited to computers. And, as far as "solar power" is concerned, the solar technology does not always mean placing sophisticated solar chips in each device, but this is beyond the scope of and too long to present in this post.]
And, as far as computers devices and internet access are concerned, again, they do not limit themselves to the way Westerners think of computers -- where every device must be "fully loaded".
Just like Google and other technology companies are proposing, many of the softwares or the technologies could be centralized, i.e., via the network. If this approached is adopted, the "terminal" need not be very sophisticated and could be very cheap.
The goal here is not to have a stand-alone computer or internet-capable devices to access the internet. To begin with, it will be very costly to setup the infrastructure to fully wire India or any of the poorer countries. And, even if that were possible, elecrticity also can be an issue, Instead, these computer or internet-capable devices access more powerful computers through community centers, internet cafes and as noted in the article via schools and universities.
Even 7 pound sterling is a fortune to some of the poorest Indians. So, how did Indian technologists addresss this issue? One very enterprising Indian technologies created a very simple computer and internet device that is placed in strategic places (e.g., the community plaza) in very remote and very poor villages in India. The only thing that people (usually children) can access is an interactive touch screen monitor -- no instructions at all, and it is very rugged to widthstand harsh conditions and multitudes of use.
Obviously, it is not "one computer for every child in the world", as naively conceived by Western thinkers. But just imagine how many young people could be introduced to the concept of computing, softwares and internet by one such simple device available to anyone? The awareness alone and what inspiration it can trigger to motivated children who interacted with that one device can make a great difference in the perspective and even future goal of those children.
The problem with some Western thinkers and idealist is that they try to solve problems of poor countries based on technologies and approaches that are more suited for Western countries and cultures. That is why these idealistic goals fail.
The "one computer for every child of the world" for example relies so much on government subsidies or foreign subsidies. The reality is that poor countries have to make choices, some of those priorities are more immediate -- for example paying "billions of dollars owed to the World Bank, dealing with the impact of high costs of fuel (oil), increased cost of food prices because the cost of imported corn and other cereals had increased 100-300%, dealing with increase "insurgency" as a result of poverty, etc., etc.
In fact, if you are really attuned to the plight oi other countries -- you might be able to help much more effectively simply by not driving a car (or minimize doing so), not wasting too much food, conserving electricity, etc.
Moreover, if you wish to help, you can participate in a number of microfinancing loan initiatives -- for as low as US$25 -- to provide loans to individuals in poor countries. This is based on the concept -- "teach a man to fish....". And, the loan idea does not help just one poor individual to start a small business but another individual once the loan is paid for by the first, and then the next, and so on.
If we make these sacrifices and participate simple initiative -- things that you can do on your own -- there may be no need for "half-assed" Western ideas that will be doomed to fail anyway. Honestly, without government subsidy, how many poor people can afford even the initial ideal price $100? And now, the Negroponte computer will also be saddled with dependence to Microsoft technology?
You have to think out of the box. They are not creating technologies for Westerners or for rich Indians. You have to focus on the ultimate goals:
1. universal awareness and introduction to the internet and information technology
2. more widespread access to computing, software and internet technology to Indians who are likely to pursue careers in science and technology
My issue was that something that isn't a laptop was mistakenly represented as a laptop. Whatever it is, it may well be a very innovative idea that fits specific needs for those in the region, but it wasn't a laptop.
My issue was that something that isn't a laptop was mistakenly represented as a laptop. Whatever it is, it may well be a very innovative idea that fits specific needs for those in the region, but it wasn't a laptop.
Just curious Jeff: Exactly how do you define a laptop?
You have to consider that the one quoted was a British paper. I think the flaw (or hype) in the report is the attempt to compare the Indian device with Negroponte's cheap computer. I saw a Demo of Negropontes's computer in one of the PBS programs, and the original was indeed quite good in meeting some of the issues encountered in poor countries. It also had some of the problems mentioned by Ivan Krstic, especially so when it became a Microsoft computer.
I did not have a chance to exhaust a search BBC News as well as PBS programs which do not always go high in a Google search but from what I have followed, the Indian initiatives have not attempted to replicate a laptop computer as we know it here in the US or in Western and more developed countries in the world.
In that sense, you are correct -- you will be disappointed with the Indian laptop initiative. Your supposition: "... it may well be a very innovative idea that fits specific needs for those in the region," is closer to what Indian scientists, technologists and social thinkers has been attempting to achieve, from what I have read or watched (BBC, NPR and PBS, mostly). The goal: Find a way to create a device that will allow as many Indians to become part of a global village and become familiar with modern technology via the internet.
The focus of my original post was more to emphasize the unfounded generalizations of the post I quoted. I am surprised and disappointed how many so-called intelligent Americans and Westerners are prone to such stereotyping. Armchair experts and journalists are worse. They think because they follow the internet, read papers and watch multimedia they qualify and consider themselves experts of peoples and cultures of the world. The latter contribute to the cycle of misinformation of Americans and Westerners.
Just curious Jeff: Exactly how do you define a laptop?
...
The focus of my original post was more to emphasize the unfounded generalizations of the post I quoted. I am surprised and disappointed how many so-called intelligent Americans and Westerners are prone to such stereotyping. Armchair experts and journalists are worse. They think because they follow the internet, read papers and watch multimedia they qualify and consider themselves experts of peoples and cultures of the world. The latter contribute to the cycle of misinformation of Americans and Westerners.
I really don't know where to begin on this. To start, I don't consider a device without an integrated keyboard to be a laptop. I also think a laptop computer should be able to be used in a self-contained manner, if you have to hook it up to some separate electronic device to be able to get any use significant out of it, I don't think it's a laptop. I really don't see how this is an elitist definition.
I think you may be reading into statements that really weren't there or weren't intended. I am not disparaging the project in question, I question the idea of calling it a laptop when it should be clear to anyone that it's a very different class of device and thus we should not apply words that don't fit the circumstance.
Comments
This is a total win for Apple and more importantly for us Mac OS X users.
I truly await to see what this wiz will deliver.
Is "Ivan Krstic" croatian for "Steve Jobs Jr"?
Not really. Ivan means John and Krstic is literally "Little Cross", so his name means Little Cross John.
It is often said that the flaw that makes trojans possible is users that install software. This is misleading - the flaw that makes trojans dangerous is that OS's allow apps to run with the full permissions of the user, instead of a restricted set of permissions relevant to the app itself.
If Apple get this bit right ( and without getting sucked down the virtualization route, it's just resource permissions that are needed ) then they will have delivered bigger value to their users than anything else I can imagine. Just as MS have finally added some file permissions, Apple would have blasted ahead to the next level.
So your argument is that creating an easy to use, secure, & stable system stifles innovation? I think maybe you might want to re-think that a little.
Thanks for the strawman argument, dude.
"As its fortunes began to wane, the OLPC rolled out plans with Microsoft to deliver new XO machines capable of dual booting Windows XP, shortly after Microsoft and Intel unveiled their own plan to compete against the XO with a low-end netbook offering called Classmate, designed entirely to ensure that third world children wouldn't be exposed to computers running anything other than an Intel CPU and a Microsoft operating system."
Wow. Just.....wow.
ditto
wow
i like this new hire !!!
Have you been to india, it is a society base on the Cast System, simple put it is about the haves and have nots. I not sure how many of the 1.1B people there fit into the haves, however, based on my limited exposure the haves are a very small majority and they spend lots of time and money making sure the have nots stay that way.
A very large % of their population have no idea what technology exist and they live right along side people who do. Those who have the knowledge, power and money do not allow those who are below them in the case system to raise above. As they always say knowledge and information is power and you can be assured they they make sure those below them will never gain this.
How long have you been studying contemporary India and how long have you been to India to become an expert of contemporary India and Indians? Do you even keep up with current events in India?
What you just stated must be the most uninformed, if not bigoted proclamations I ever read. If what you state is true, how could this happen?
India's untouchable icon aims for Delhi
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7239315.stm
and she is not the only one. There are other prominent Indians who come from the lower castes, or who had been poor.
I have never been to India but I have met many Indians who came here to study or work -- they are not all rich, although some of them are indeed very rich.. If you ever stayed long enough in the United Kingdom (UK), you will find an even more diverse ethnic groups of Indians.
When it comes to cheap laptops and internet, there wre actually a number of Indian technologists who developed very cheap computers:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4735927.stm
that was commercially viable even before Negroponte. And has recently developed what is dubbed the cheapest computer:
India to unveil the £7 laptop
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009...puter-cheapest
India happens to be one of the many countries that rely heavily on Open Source technologies, like the use of Linux. The goal is to develop technologies that will reach as many of the poorest Indians.
In fact, if you follow some PBS programs, there is a very successful Indian technologist who developed a unique internet device so that any individual can use it even without any education. He placed them in public places so that anyone can use it.
Unlike the falsity that you were spewing, his goal is to reach the poorest of the poor in India, so that they could improve their life.
He is not the only one. Unlike many other countries, and mainly due to the indelible influence of Mahatma Gandhi, the focus of India is towards self-sufficiency. This is not only a government policy, this idea of self-sufficiency is ingrained in the psyche of the great thinkers in India. There is a very prominent Indian theoretical physicist who decided to focus her efforts in developing what is known as sustainable technologies -- for example the focus in agriculture would be a more holistic approach to raising food that is not dependent on "agribusiness kind of agriculture" practiced in the US and most Western countries -- so that this alternative agriculture technology that will be developed will be affordable to the poorest Indians.
.
While Indian many not be the most prominent exporters, their more than one billion population is a market big enough. From what I have read, they have been so successful, some Indians prefer to go how, even if they studies abroad. Like China, there are in fact a number of Indians who were successful abroad but decided to go home to India because of all the opportunities.
Another area where India has done quite well also is in biotechnology, including drugs. It is one of the major exporters of cheap HIV-AIDS drugs. If only the United States is not so protectionist, India significantly reduced the cost of drugs in the US.
Socio-politically, India and many countries of the world, especially in Asian, are more progressive than the United States and European countries. They have been electing women Presidents and Prime Ministers even before they happened in European countries. The United States has yet to elect one.
I am not Indian, by the way. I do not know where you are coming from but if you can provide proofs of your allegations, I would be interested to know. Otherwise, if you cannot support what comes out of your mind, stick with what you know, and avoid spreading falsehood.
Cornelio
India to unveil the £7 laptop
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009...puter-cheapest
Interesting post overall, but the thing that you linked to turned out to be something else. It wasn't a full computer that I remember, I think it was something of a fancy storage device.
Interesting post overall, but the thing that you linked to turned out to be something else. It wasn't a full computer that I remember, I think it was something of a fancy storage device.
It was definitely not a laptop, then they decided to go with OLPC anyway. Yeah, 250,000 isn't enough laptops for every kid in India. We get it. Got to start somewhere, though.
"Mac OSX :: Because making UNIX user friendly was easier than fixing Windows?
As I understand it MacOSX is BSD based and BSD is a "Unix like" OS not Unix specifically!
I further understand that MacOSX did not offer full Unix compatability until Leopard!
Happy to stand corrected, at 11 years of age I still have lots to learn!
@solipsism
"Mac OSX :: Because making UNIX user friendly was easier than fixing Windows”
As I understand it MacOSX is BSD based and BSD is a "Unix like" OS not Unix specifically!
I further understand that MacOSX did not offer full Unix compatability until Leopard!
Happy to stand corrected, at 11 years of age I still have lots to learn!
I thought the Leopard thing was more of a UNIX certification thing, not necessarily compatibility, I thought it was pretty compatible before that, you could use a lot of the standard UNIX tools and such. As I understand it, certification is very expensive, so you have to be pretty serious about doing it.
As I understand it MacOSX is BSD based and BSD is a "Unix like" OS not Unix specifically!
I further understand that MacOSX did not offer full Unix compatability until Leopard!
Happy to stand corrected, at 11 years of age I still have lots to learn!
All true. The Open Group owns the trademark to UNIX so you can't just call something UNIX unless it has the SUS certification. However, if we don't get too pedantic about it we can say that BSD is UNIX and now that Darwin is SUSv3 compliant we can easily say that it is UNIX, for all intents and purposes.
You write better than many of the posters on this forum, considering your age that is impressive. Welcome to Apple Insider.
Is "Ivan Krstic" croatian for "Steve Jobs Jr"?
maybe. It appears from the article that he's 23. Fact is, no matter how awesome you are, at 23 you're still pretty naive. It will be interesting to see how long the guy stays at Apple. 2 years is my guess.
That depends. There have already been some wins. Last I saw, Apache servers are used a third of the web servers for a decade now and the program included on all Macs too. Firefox is open source and still has a growing share last I've seen. Safari is based on an open source project. Mac platform is built using a lot of open source projects. As I recall, all or almost all Mac software is compiled using open source compiler system that's under the XCode IDE.
And desktop open source operating systems have been a resounding failure despite it being the "Year of the Linux Desktop" for the last decade.
Apache is not rabidly "free" software and is plumbing. Firefox and Firefox are not rabidly "free" software. gcc is crufty old crap and badly needs to be replaced by something not ideologically driven by the FSF. Like LLVM. Which hopefully can dump GPL someday.
The point isn't that there isn't useful open source software. There is. The point is that the ideology that software MUST be FOSS to be useful is not based on any evidence and IMNHO frankly stupid.
Had OLPC been based on the iPhone OSX and with Apple involvement I believe it would have been far better.
I don't know the specifics on the situation, it's hard to comment on it. I wonder if there's sour grapes though.
Given that OLPC has been a failure in it's stated goals I'd say the business model was borked from the beginning. The only thing they can really claim as a success (and it's a weak case) is that they MAY have jumpstarted the netbook market.
The problem is that some of those that mess with computers as a kid are the ones that eventually make ones that help build towards something that just works. How kids learn technology is by "messing with" it. Giving them a sealed box to learn from might be found to be the equivalent to just giving someone a fish rather than teaching them how to fish.
Bullshit. Messing around with linux, make, gcc and gdb is not a better learning experience than using osx and xcode or windows and visual studio. Learning cocoa, wpf, or xna equally if not much more useful than learning gtk.
In what way is OSX a sealed box?
Frankly, the technology presented in proprietary SDKs and APIs are better documented, more consistent, more programmer friendly and more modern than what you see in the Linux world and far more accessible to tinkering. Because time wasted figuring out why foo v0.3 doesn't want to work with bar v0.9a because of some dumbass undocumented dependency on xyzzy v1.22 isn't time spent learning anything particularly useful other than how NOT to do things.
I think the chances of making quality technology workers are higher for those that were tinkerers as children. If a person didn't have an innate curiosity of how things work, I don't know how they can make things that do work when the time comes.
Yes, because teaching kids excellence of craftmanship at the beginning is a sure path to disaster.
Interesting post overall, but the thing that you linked to turned out to be something else. It wasn't a full computer that I remember, I think it was something of a fancy storage device.
It was definitely not a laptop, then they decided to go with OLPC anyway. Yeah, 250,000 isn't enough laptops for every kid in India. We get it. Got to start somewhere, though.
You have to think out of the box. They are not creating technologies for Westerners or for rich Indians. You have to focus on the ultimate goals:
1. universal awareness and introduction to the internet and information technology
2. more widespread access to computing, software and internet technology to Indians who are likely to pursue careers in science and technology
Obviously, the more well-off Indians can afford any computer and other intenet technologiy device they want.. So, that the technology needs of these well-off Indians are not always the focus of initiatives intented for indigenous computers, softwares and internet technologies.
This is especially true with those undertaken by government sponsored initiatives (e.g., via academic and technology research institutions), and those initiated by the leaders of some very enlightened and successful executives of commercial technology companies who did quite well in computer, software and internet technologies.
The primary goal of the latter initiatives is to increase awareness and introduce the concept of computers, software and internet to the poorest in India. For this purpose, India is experimenting with a lot of formats and possibilities.
For example, since electricity is not widespread, they developed and continue to explore the use of solar powered "computers" and other internet devices. [By the way, the use of solar power is not limited to computers. And, as far as "solar power" is concerned, the solar technology does not always mean placing sophisticated solar chips in each device, but this is beyond the scope of and too long to present in this post.]
And, as far as computers devices and internet access are concerned, again, they do not limit themselves to the way Westerners think of computers -- where every device must be "fully loaded".
Just like Google and other technology companies are proposing, many of the softwares or the technologies could be centralized, i.e., via the network. If this approached is adopted, the "terminal" need not be very sophisticated and could be very cheap.
The goal here is not to have a stand-alone computer or internet-capable devices to access the internet. To begin with, it will be very costly to setup the infrastructure to fully wire India or any of the poorer countries. And, even if that were possible, elecrticity also can be an issue, Instead, these computer or internet-capable devices access more powerful computers through community centers, internet cafes and as noted in the article via schools and universities.
Even 7 pound sterling is a fortune to some of the poorest Indians. So, how did Indian technologists addresss this issue? One very enterprising Indian technologies created a very simple computer and internet device that is placed in strategic places (e.g., the community plaza) in very remote and very poor villages in India. The only thing that people (usually children) can access is an interactive touch screen monitor -- no instructions at all, and it is very rugged to widthstand harsh conditions and multitudes of use.
Obviously, it is not "one computer for every child in the world", as naively conceived by Western thinkers. But just imagine how many young people could be introduced to the concept of computing, softwares and internet by one such simple device available to anyone? The awareness alone and what inspiration it can trigger to motivated children who interacted with that one device can make a great difference in the perspective and even future goal of those children.
The problem with some Western thinkers and idealist is that they try to solve problems of poor countries based on technologies and approaches that are more suited for Western countries and cultures. That is why these idealistic goals fail.
The "one computer for every child of the world" for example relies so much on government subsidies or foreign subsidies. The reality is that poor countries have to make choices, some of those priorities are more immediate -- for example paying "billions of dollars owed to the World Bank, dealing with the impact of high costs of fuel (oil), increased cost of food prices because the cost of imported corn and other cereals had increased 100-300%, dealing with increase "insurgency" as a result of poverty, etc., etc.
In fact, if you are really attuned to the plight oi other countries -- you might be able to help much more effectively simply by not driving a car (or minimize doing so), not wasting too much food, conserving electricity, etc.
Moreover, if you wish to help, you can participate in a number of microfinancing loan initiatives -- for as low as US$25 -- to provide loans to individuals in poor countries. This is based on the concept -- "teach a man to fish....". And, the loan idea does not help just one poor individual to start a small business but another individual once the loan is paid for by the first, and then the next, and so on.
If we make these sacrifices and participate simple initiative -- things that you can do on your own -- there may be no need for "half-assed" Western ideas that will be doomed to fail anyway. Honestly, without government subsidy, how many poor people can afford even the initial ideal price $100? And now, the Negroponte computer will also be saddled with dependence to Microsoft technology?
You have to think out of the box. They are not creating technologies for Westerners or for rich Indians. You have to focus on the ultimate goals:
1. universal awareness and introduction to the internet and information technology
2. more widespread access to computing, software and internet technology to Indians who are likely to pursue careers in science and technology
My issue was that something that isn't a laptop was mistakenly represented as a laptop. Whatever it is, it may well be a very innovative idea that fits specific needs for those in the region, but it wasn't a laptop.
My issue was that something that isn't a laptop was mistakenly represented as a laptop. Whatever it is, it may well be a very innovative idea that fits specific needs for those in the region, but it wasn't a laptop.
Just curious Jeff: Exactly how do you define a laptop?
You have to consider that the one quoted was a British paper. I think the flaw (or hype) in the report is the attempt to compare the Indian device with Negroponte's cheap computer. I saw a Demo of Negropontes's computer in one of the PBS programs, and the original was indeed quite good in meeting some of the issues encountered in poor countries. It also had some of the problems mentioned by Ivan Krstic, especially so when it became a Microsoft computer.
I did not have a chance to exhaust a search BBC News as well as PBS programs which do not always go high in a Google search but from what I have followed, the Indian initiatives have not attempted to replicate a laptop computer as we know it here in the US or in Western and more developed countries in the world.
In that sense, you are correct -- you will be disappointed with the Indian laptop initiative. Your supposition: "... it may well be a very innovative idea that fits specific needs for those in the region," is closer to what Indian scientists, technologists and social thinkers has been attempting to achieve, from what I have read or watched (BBC, NPR and PBS, mostly). The goal: Find a way to create a device that will allow as many Indians to become part of a global village and become familiar with modern technology via the internet.
The focus of my original post was more to emphasize the unfounded generalizations of the post I quoted. I am surprised and disappointed how many so-called intelligent Americans and Westerners are prone to such stereotyping. Armchair experts and journalists are worse. They think because they follow the internet, read papers and watch multimedia they qualify and consider themselves experts of peoples and cultures of the world. The latter contribute to the cycle of misinformation of Americans and Westerners.
Cornelio
Just curious Jeff: Exactly how do you define a laptop?
...
The focus of my original post was more to emphasize the unfounded generalizations of the post I quoted. I am surprised and disappointed how many so-called intelligent Americans and Westerners are prone to such stereotyping. Armchair experts and journalists are worse. They think because they follow the internet, read papers and watch multimedia they qualify and consider themselves experts of peoples and cultures of the world. The latter contribute to the cycle of misinformation of Americans and Westerners.
I really don't know where to begin on this. To start, I don't consider a device without an integrated keyboard to be a laptop. I also think a laptop computer should be able to be used in a self-contained manner, if you have to hook it up to some separate electronic device to be able to get any use significant out of it, I don't think it's a laptop. I really don't see how this is an elitist definition.
I think you may be reading into statements that really weren't there or weren't intended. I am not disparaging the project in question, I question the idea of calling it a laptop when it should be clear to anyone that it's a very different class of device and thus we should not apply words that don't fit the circumstance.