We’ve never quite understood Nicholas Negroponte’s position when it comes to the $100 Laptop/OLPC/XO (whatever it’s called these days). While the idea behind creating a super cheap, super durable useful computer for children in developing nations is good, Negroponte has always approached the idea as one where only he should be allowed to see that vision through.
The One Laptop Per Child project, which developed the low-cost XO education laptop for developing countries, has revealed plans for its next-generation mobile computing device. The new system, which will have a clamshell form-factor with two 16:9 touch-screen displays and no hardware keyboard, is expected to sell for $75 per unit and will be available in 2010. That’s the hope, at least. The reality is likely to be quite different, given the project’s troubled history.
You’d think that with a name like “One Laptop Per Child,” NickNeg and company would have stress-tested their laptop with some actual children, but it looks like everyone’s favorite green machine just isn’t up to the toddler challenge–OLPC owners are reporting that the laptop’s rubberized keyboard is easily destroyed by inquisitive kids, who are peeling the keys off like so many scratch’n’sniff stickers.
There are an estimated half of a billion people in the world who surf the Net every day yet don’t own a computer. They depend on the public PCs available in cybercafes, which in many cities and countries remain the centers of personal computing. Cloud computing is ideally suited to these so-called cybernomads, as it can provide them with, in essence, a computer to call their own–a virtual desktop, or “Webtop,” that exists entirely in an online data center and hence can be accessed from any PC. Cybernomads can use their password-protected Webtops to run applications, store data, and share files with others. Webtops can provide an attractive alternative to the cheap laptops, like OLPC’s XO and Intel’s Classmate, in helping close the digital divide. Virtual PCs are more energy efficient than real PCs, they don’t wear out or require physical maintenance, and they can often be provided free, through ad-supported or other subsidized programs.
The way people are dismissing the One Laptop Per Child project this week reminds me of how people were treating Hillary Clinton during the five days between her Iowa defeat and her New Hampshire comeback. To many observers, the inevitable has become the disaster in record time.
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