There's a rather cynical article over at Slate regarding Nicholas Negroponte's new $100 laptop. It remains to be seen whether this new endeavor will be more successful from previous attempts. It seems with the fervent pace with which computer technology advances and all of those formerly high end workstations sitting in a trash heap somewhere, that it would be possible to make a decent machine with mid-1990s specs for a reasonable price. There is also a huge untapped market for such a device. So why's it so difficult to fill that niche? And once somebody does, will things ever be the same?
"Negroponte promises that bringing cheap laptops to countries like Brazil, Thailand, and Egypt will help 'children to 'learn learning' through independent interaction and exploration.' That might be true, but this green machine won't be the computer to do it, no matter how much Kofi Annan and the international press fawn over it. The $100 laptop is a huckster's gambit--poorly thought out, overly ambitious, and too sexy to be true."
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