$10 Laptop is Huge Disappointment ($30 and not a laptop)

Re:$10 Laptop is Huge Disappointment ($30 and not a laptop) by radu_floricica on Wednesday February 04, 2009 @07:59PM (#466864)

Hehehe, I had forgot completely about the Z80 computers. Let's put it this way: _every_ home has a TV. Add mesh networking and you can actually wire-up whole cities with 20 bucks devices. This is soo cool.

Ok, I'm not saying this is what it does. For what we know, it could be completely crap. But, just imagine:

- You have 30 dollar box - so you can put about as much brain-power in it as a router.

- For really poor countries, LCD screens are a waste when you have TV. So, you just throw in a TV-out, which was cheap 20 years ago.

- From my experience in wiring relatively "wild" places, if you have boxes plugged in a power socket, the people will put the actual wire the place themselves. That's if you don't have OLPC's mesh networking.

This stupid-looking white box could do most for developing countries then anything else in the last 10 years. Except of course mobile phones.

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Re:$10 Laptop is Huge Disappointment ($30 and not a laptop) by pavel_lishin on Wednesday February 04, 2009 @08:06PM (#466875)

I wonder how many families in India have a TV.

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Re:$10 Laptop is Huge Disappointment ($30 and not a laptop) by jacquesm on Wednesday February 04, 2009 @08:24PM (#466902)

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/06/02/stories/20050...

It's from 2005, so you'll have to adjust for changes in population.

"The total number of TV sets owned by households in India is around 60 million".

TV ownership is about 3% higher than refrigerator ownership, it's a matter of priorities, information = knowledge = a chance to get ahead in life.

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Re:$10 Laptop is Huge Disappointment ($30 and not a laptop) by selva on Thursday February 05, 2009 @05:56AM (#467551)

There are many reasons, mostly to do with skewed priorities. I'll describe one of ways priorities get skewed. There is a disproportionately large film and TV industry with a lot of political backing which are interested in getting TV into as many homes as possible. In the south Indian state I come from, one of the election promises by the current chief minister (somewhat equivalent to a governor in US) was a free TV for every family. The same minister owns a private TV Network. What best way to get more audience than use government money...

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Re:$10 Laptop is Huge Disappointment ($30 and not a laptop) by ramchip on Wednesday February 04, 2009 @08:25PM (#466907)

I'm in Canada and I don't. I'll admit it's not the majority, though.

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Re:$10 Laptop is Huge Disappointment ($30 and not a laptop) by cstejerean on Thursday February 05, 2009 @09:07AM (#467794)

I bet you have a computer though. I also didn't have a TV for about 6 months, I never bothered to buy a new one after my last one broke. But I would guess that anyone that doesn't have a computer already is VERY likely to own a TV.

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Re:$10 Laptop is Huge Disappointment ($30 and not a laptop) by ensignavenger on Wednesday February 04, 2009 @09:02PM (#466961)

I'm in the USA and I don't. (I did buy a $30 USB DTV tuner so I could watch the Olympics last summer)

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