Day Three

Keynote Speaker – Prof. Nicholas Negroponte. This man has a vision to bring laptops to the children of the world. He wanted to get them created for $100.00 each. Quite a dream – but he’s pushing forward with it.

Slimmed down Linux OS, instant on, mesh WiFi. Older processor, but since the OS is slimmer, he promises it to be rocket fast. Initial actual cost will be about $140.00 at the outset, but getting less over time. Servers available for the system. Projectors for $50? How did he do that?

Capable of being charge via human power, so they run at 2 watts. In contrast, he is doubtful that he will be able to sell the units to districts. We are too small a customer at this time. He might sell to states (and about 15 states have shown some level of interest). Its clear that part of his plan to keep costs down is to shift distribution onto the shoulders of others.

Another idea – sell the box in the US for $2000.00, and take the rest of the money to buy 19 other boxes to place in other countries.

Obviously countercultural. Part of me likes it already! Its purportedly been poo-poohed by major providers. Somehow I’m not surprised. It almost seems ironic that the benevolent Foundations of this world don’t seem to be paying much attention either.

On the other side, I had several questions. How hard would it be to plug these things into a parallel processing situation, sharing CPU power ala the SETI project? How easy will it be to hack the WiFi mesh to detrimental ends? Does a slimmed down OS make it easier or harder? Printers also seem to be missing from the mix.

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