Yeah, and when it starts, Billy Bob will go "oh, my God' and suddenly a $50 WINDOWS machine will popup!! You think he will go down that easy and NOT fight it?? --- Josef Lowder wrote: > > Abridged excerpts from an article today entitled: > The $100 laptop > > Nicholas Negroponte is the director of MIT's Media > Lab, and he > has now attracted three big-time corporate sponsors: > AMD, RedHat, > and Google to sign on to his grand vision of > providing a sub-$100 > Linux-based laptop to every child, worldwide. > > Negroponte's goal is to put laptops in the hands of > each of the third > world's hundreds of millions of children by > producing a high-tech > laptop that will run at such low power levels as to > make hand-cranking > it for power a viable option. Important if you live > in the jungle and have > no electricity. This project is made feasible > because of Linux. > > A sub-$100 laptop is definitely possible. Today, any > OEM can sell a > $100 PC by using a free Linux operating system with > a full complement > of free "open-source" Linux-based software, > including the complete > OpenOffice Suite that is fully equivalent to MS > Office. > > Mr. Negroponte's goal is to gear up to ship 150 > million of these units > every year by 2007. > > To put this in perspective, it is doubtful that up > to this point any OEM has > ever shipped even 10 million of any single model of > any PC. Shipping this > many Linux laptops in a single year would totally > swamp the market. > > The scale of Mr. Negroponte's vision is so huge that > sponsors are > signing up in the hope of tapping-in to even a tiny > share of this huge > volume. > > Many foreign governments have already signed on to > participate. > Including China with its 220 million school > children. And, realistically, > China surely will not stop with children. > Undoubtedly China and other third > world countries will want to make these low-cost > computers available to > everyone - the 'haves' as well as the 'have-nots'. > When hundreds of > millions of school children all over the world are > brought up on Linux, the > computer landscape of the world will change rapidly > and dramatically. > > As of today, the technical challenges of producing a > fully functional > human-powered wireless laptop computer have already > been met. > > So, Mr. Negroponte's vision very well may be the > inevitable future. > > ------------------------------------------------------- > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - > PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail > settings: > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > Cyclists should expect and demand safe accommodation on our public roads, just as does every other user. Nothing more is expected. Nothing less is acceptable! Long live Knoppix!! __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss