Nicholas Negroponte's $100 PC

MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte has a plan to build a $100 PC for the developing world that'll make that new budget Mac mini seem grossly overpriced. Nick says that the PC, which is supposedly going to have a 14-inch color screen and run on Linux (what else?), has the backing of AMD (which is going to provide the chips—note that this is a different machine than the Personal Internet Communicator AMD announced late last year), as well as Google, Motorola, Samsung, and News Corp. Apparently they're all getting mixed up in a joint-venture to produce the PC, which will be sold directly to governments only (minimum order is 1 million units, with the Chinese ministry of education is first on the list). Tempted as we are to buy ten of these and rig 'em together, we can see why they don't want to pitch this as a consumer device. Given how expensive even a $100 PC would be for the poorest two billion people on the planet, we're guessing most people in the developing world, if they had to buy some piece of technology, would rather spend their money on a cellphone.

[Via GigaOm]

[dreampc @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

Oh great... another Virgin Webplayer to hack!

[Thom Brooks @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

Heh, I was actually thinking of my iOpener...

[Jack @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

These things always seem like a good idea in the sales pitch, until you see it in real life and realize how crippled it is. $100 PC? Easy. Go to a thrift store and buy an older machine from 5-6 years ago and you're in business. Or head to a college computer lab and pick off of their old stock their dumping.

As far as people in the "developing world" goes, the biggest problem they face is not lack of PCs, but lack of a usable information infrastructure. The biggest benefit of giving PCs to less tech-savvy nations is as a communications tool. But if the infrastructure is not in place to tap into that, what's the point.

And FWIW, there are places deep in the U.S. that are still crippled as far as high-speed Internet access goes and their existing wire lines are nothing to writ home about.

[Barry Brahier @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

I wouldn't bet against Negroponte and his team. MIT has a track record of giving away massive chunks of intellectual property, including all of their course content and their online learning platform. The international will to do this is very great and it is another example of the world getting flatter. And yes, if this comes to pass there are lots of school districts in the US that would be smart to petition the UN for developing nation status!

[TheLastGypsy @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

This has already been an active project in India for the past few years...Check out http://www.simputer.org/ and http://www.amidasimputer.com/

[Marino Pascal @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

You can buy a brand new one from Fry's for $199.
http://shop2.outpost.com/product/4199563

[Danny Lewis @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

If this venture actually works, I bet Microsoft will be like, "Ohh! Ohh! We want to help too! ...screw it, we'll make a $50 PC and it'll run Windows XP Starter Edition."

[Fred @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

#6, add this, http://store.freytechnologies.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SOS&Product_Code=STVPVR350&Category_Code=SB, to that and you got a Tivo replacement for the Third World.

But seriously, who cares about internet access? How about clean water, a flushing toilet, decent refrigeration, and vaccines? I've been to the Third World and being able to drink water from the tap without getting dysentery would be a plus over getting porn or web shopping done.

[Jack @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

Fred, your point is right on the money. Efforts like these wreak of good inentions gone awry. When you come down to it, computing technology is great, but it's not as urgent a need as other things.

If people are putting easilly accessing an Encarta database on a higher level than clean water and basic health care, then something is seriously awry.

Also, an aside, but the term "eductaion" means different things in different cultures. In the West when one talks about the "importance of an education" it's usually in reference to pursuing a higher education and academia. Sadly, in many developing nations "education" simply means teaching people not to drink from contaminated water and what to do when one get's ill; it's very practical and vocational.

Negroponte has had some good ideas in this past, but this one seems off-target at best and based highly in Western values of what is "needed" in other places.

[kevin @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

we should really stop doing what WE think is best for other countries how can WE know what's best for THEM? (i'm speaking as a US citizen).

[kevin @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

does that guy look like the last james bond? or is it just me?

[Jazzmadrass @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

Re Fred's & Jack's comment:

A rhetorical question for you: Why do you think the US and the rest of the West have toilets, vaccines and refridgerators? Simply told, because we can afford to pay for it.

If the developing nations never can 'get out of the economic ditch' they are in, how can they ever be able to afford the bare necessities.

How to get there:
1. Proper education on terms similar to ours (meaning b-schools, engineering, IT knowledge)
2. Proper governance (meaning getting rid of corruption) & 'restoring' women's rights
3. The Western nations must get rid of the protective measures we employ to keep goods from developing nations out (as in expensive) to protect our own (failing) industries.

Now, Negroponte is on to #1 here, and I certainly can't see anything wrong with that. Look to the Davos meeting - a lot of it had to do with immidiate needs (vaccines), but most of it focused on mid- to longterm efforts to get the developing nations on the right track.

D
Oslo, Norway

[Clark @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

Yes, I agree with some of the points. Let me give my 2 cents, as I'm from a developing country that was in recent memory a 3rd World country.

This cheap PC idea is great on paper because developed countries think the PC is a great enabler.

The PC is only a very small part. You need the human "software" as well - properly developed education and training plans.

Possible uses for these PCs might be

1)as an alternative to TV/VCR type education (programs distributed on CDs - perhaps more interactive)

2)communications - but only if wireless Internet is possible

3) encourage kids to write, or draw digitally

One possible scenario once 3rd world kids get computer literate - chance for.. slave labor! Kids get moved from working in sweat shops to data processing farms where they get paid 5 cents a day for data entry.

[Max Powar @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

AMD's Personal Internet Communicator page lists this article as news that relates to the PIC.

http://www.amdboard.com/pic.html

maybe it's not a difference machine after all.

[Aaron @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

Actually, one of the biggest problems with third world computing is the lack of a recycling/disposal infrastructure to handle heavy-metal laden defunct computers. If we keep dumping second-hand machines and cheapo new ones into countries without the means to handle the waste, it could very easily lead to mercury and lead groundwater contamination.

Anyone want to travel the third world with a soldering iron and a floppy disc to repair these things with me? :)

[JimK @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

Has anyone ever thought that global access to information can in fact help third-world nations solve problems like clean water, etc?

How?

Because they can learn about how to create more sanitary conditons. They can learn WHY THEY SHOULD, which is sometimes more imnportant. They can learn about examples of equality in other parts of the world.

Spreading information is about the only real form of revolution that you can count on, and the only one that cannot be stopped.

[future feeder @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

I agree, education is the key. But education in the form of opening peoples' visions. I'm not sure a cheap computer will do the job, but it might help. I almost feel this is a job for Wal-Mart, since manufacturing cheap in great quantities is not really technologically advanced. It's more like milking the manufacturing chain to produce cheap goods. Will Negroponte�s method succumb to the lure of sweatshop labor?

[meph @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

Better 100$ internet that 100$ PC's :))

[ashmist @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

well, I guess they are really aiming at countries that are on ther way ie. "developing". It specifically mentions China.

I dont think the intended target market is the poorest nations that dont even have basic needs met. Those governments probably don't have a spare $100 mil lying around for neutered PC anyway.

I mean, if it can't run Half-Life what good is it?

[Maniac @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

If they think how to improve poor countries instead cheap PC`s... The problem is not a lack of information but how to get a minimum of that, i mean education. develop that and they will send people to the moon (without any cheap stuff)

[Maniac @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

If they think how to improve poor countries instead cheap PC`s... The problem is not a lack of information but how to get a minimum of that, i mean education. develop that and they will send people to the moon (without any cheap stuff)

[I'm-deleted @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

OK, let's go to the very elemental level. You're in a 3rd world country, in a small village in which the closest hospital is about 25 miles away and the closest thing you have to medical care is a witch doctor. Aspirin is unheard of.

Imagine your child was healthy yesterday but is now deathly sick. What do you do? Let assume three scenarios. In the first scenario your village chief has a $100 PC as envision by Negoponte, but not much else. In the second scenario no one's ever heard of a PC. But perhaps there's a telephone available relatively close by or maybe a dog-eared medical book available except that it's not in a library or perhaps it's not community property. Presumably it's only a year old but it's in medical gooblygook in a language you perhaps don't understand. In the final scenario, your village has a medical clinic, but you'll have to make an appointment 8 hours in advance or kiss up to THE 'person-in-charge'.

In which scenario would you rather be?