Bill Gates mock's MIT's $100 laptop project

[Derek Currie]

<http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&story
id=2006-03-16T011042Z_01_N15248895_RTRUKOC_0_US-MICROSOFT-GATES.xml>

Bill Gates decided to mock what amounts to the best and most viable
project to bring computing to 3rd world children. What does Gates and
his software company offer 3rd world children? The opportunity to buy
and use Windows Starter Edition on a far more expensive piece of
hardware.

Windows Starter Edition will not allow the user to run more than 3 apps
or more than 3 windows. It is an insult to any intelligent human being,
many of whom are stuck living in the 3rd world. It is computer bigotry.
Only the richest man in the world could come up with such a neanderthal
throw back of an OS for the developing world. When he comes up with
something remotely like a kind gesture to disadvantaged computer users
I'll care what he says about those with better intentions. MIT are
making a good effort. It certainly is not an ideal computer, but it will
be a boon for impoverished kids. It will most certainly have a better OS
than Windows Starter Edition. That's what worries Gates.

Below are some excerpts from the Reuters article. Read the entire
article for the gory details.

=================================

Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates on Wednesday mocked a $100
laptop computer for developing countries being developed with the backing of
rival Google Inc. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The $100 laptop project seeks to provide inexpensive computers to people in
developing countries.

. . .

Before his critique, Gates showed off a new "ultra-mobile computer" which
runs Microsoft Windows on a seven-inch (17.78-centimeter) touch screen.
Those machines are expected to sell for between $599 and $999, Microsoft said
at the product launch last week.
"If you are going to go have people share the computer, get a broadband
connection and have somebody there who can help support the user, geez, get a
decent computer where you can actually read the text and you're not sitting
there cranking the thing while you're trying to type," Gates said.
Gates described the computers as being for shared use, but the project goes
under the name "One Laptop per Child." A representative for the project did
not immediately reply to an inquiry seeking comment.

. . .

"The laptops ... will be able to do most everything except store huge amounts
of data," according to the project's Web site.

==================================

A few more comments:

1) How does Gates expect a kid living in poverty to find, let alone pay
for, a broadband connection? This must be how rich people think.

2) '...Have somebody there who can help support the user.' This is a
massive giveaway of Gate's attitude toward operating systems and users.
The ideal operating system is so transparent and easy to use that no
help is required at all in order to be able to use it. Kids in the 3rd
world are not going to have any opportunity or money to be able to
consult with some Microsoft Certified IT expert. Gates is a computer
cave man promoting and selling life in the computer stone age. He's an
anti-progressive. The future of computing will be better off without his
kind.

3) '...Get a decent computer...' With what money? Are you going to give
these children these 'decent' computers Mr. Gates? With something better
than Windows Starter Edition crap?

4) '...where you can actually read the text...' This is a gross
exaggeration meant as an irrational slam, AKA FUD. Typical.

5) '...and you're not sitting there cranking the thing while you're
trying to type." So Mr. Gates, where are these children supposed to get
electricity out in the middle of their impoverished, undeveloped
country? Cranking is an inexpensive alternative. And no, you don't have
to sit there cranking the thing while you're trying to type. You crank
it to a full battery charge, which can be well over HALF AN HOUR'S worth
of power, then go to work. I don't think Mr. Gates knows anything about
crank battery charging. Again, his entire point is to spread FUD, his
specialty.

The MIT $100 laptop project deserves all of our support. I wish it well.
Once these computers reach their goal cost and capability I will be
contributing money to help a disadvantaged kid get one.

Disgusted,

:-Derek

[Derek Currie]

In article

Post by Derek Currie
<http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&story
id=2006-03-16T011042Z_01_N15248895_RTRUKOC_0_US-MICROSOFT-GATES.xml>
Bill Gates decided to mock what amounts to the best and most viable
project to bring computing to 3rd world children.

<http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060316-6394.html>

The website arstechnica has decided to weigh in on the mocking of the
MIT $100 laptop project. Below are some excerpts:

. . .

Post by Derek Currie
Gates' contention is that more powerful hardware can do so much more than the
cheaper machine. This may be true, but people who have never used a computer
don't need to play Halo, they don't need to manage a 40GB music collection,
e-mail, the web, word processing. They also need reliability and a power
source, both of which are provided by the US$100 PC's hand crank and stripped
down feature set (no hard drive, for instance). Many don't have continuous
access to electricity, either, making it hard to keep something like the UMPC
functioning in rural Cambodian villages.
It's hard not to see money and corporate politics at work here. After all,
less than two months ago Microsoft was also trashing the inexpensive MIT
computer‹and suggesting that a cell phone should take its place. Intel has
also been a hater, and in December an executive dismissed the new computer as
a gadget.
The biggest rivals of Microsoft and Intel (AMD, Google, and Red Hat) are all
substantial contributors to the new project, which does not use Intel
hardware or a Microsoft operating system, and doesn't stand to make anyone a
pile of money (though it will be a commerical venture). still, you would hope
that such tech heavyweights as Microsoft and Intel could lend some assistance
(or at least stop the usual FUD) for a project of this magnitude, but that's
apparently too much to ask.

How about Apple contributing to this project? Have they just been
sitting on the side lines hauling in the dough and ignoring the 3rd
world?

No. Apple offered to provide Mac OS X as the operating system for the
MIT $100 laptop for free. And no, not a 'Starter Edition.' The whole
thing.

[Derek Currie]

In article

Post by Derek Currie
<http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&story
id=2006-03-16T011042Z_01_N15248895_RTRUKOC_0_US-MICROSOFT-GATES.xml>

LATE BREAKING NEWS!

<http://apnews.excite.com/article/20060316/D8GCBS4G1.html>

At Microsoft's recent Government Leaders Forum, in front of 300
political, business and academic leaders from Canada, Latin America and
the Untied States, the company announced new strategies in the 3rd world!

Post by Derek Currie
In Mexico, for instance, Microsoft is working with hardware vendors, local
Internet service providers and government agencies help families buy
so-called "smart homes" equipped with computers, said Gerri Elliott,
corporate vice president of Microsoft's Worldwide Public Sector.
She and Gates called such programs critical to bridging the "digital divide"
between developed and less-developed countries.

Wow, not only is little Chonchita going to get my dollar a day from
Christian Children's Fund, but she's going to get a 'smart home' from
Microsoft!!!

Right.

I think a certain money-out-the-ears corporation needs to think a LITTLE
LOWER on the economic scale if they are going to actually solve this
'digital divide' thingy.

Or maybe Microsoft's whole point is to serve the rich and screw the
poor. Thus their ignorance and hatred toward MIT's $100 laptop project.

What is more likely to happen?
Conchita gets a Microsoft 'smart home'?
OR
Conchita gets an MIT laptop?

Don't worry Conchita. I can come up with $100 for ya!

:-D