[Olpc-open] Re: [OLPC Security] Application bundles and delegation

[Edward Cherlin]

On 2/13/07, Bipin Gautam <bipin.gautam at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/13/07, John Kintree <jkintree at swbell.net> wrote:
> > On Tuesday 13 February 2007 09:08 am, Bipin Gautam wrote:
> > > Indeed! This could mean a way... even parents will be more intrested
> > > in interacting with the laptop.

Compare the ITC e-choupal project, which gives farmers free access to
agricultural commodity prices on the Chicago Board of Trade. Harvard
Business Review credits it with increasing farm revenues in tens of
thousands of villages in India by several percent. Of course parents
will be interested.

Then there is Overstock.com, founded specifically to permit poor
people (as well as the rich or merely prosperous) to sell on the Web.
It was certified after the war in Afghanistan as the largest employer
in the country (18,000 sellers, at that time, compared with a brick
factory employing 400 hourly workers). And many other such Web
outlets.

Computers provide access to markets, and to market information. These
are two of the five essential conditions for a free and competitive
market place. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition

> > > On top of it we could even add more
> > > localized websites that could mean lots to adults. Maybe websites like
> > > about agriculture ( daily price list, best practices etc) the
> > > possibilities are many. And they could interact with other parents

Now you're talking. The ability to exchange information and to get
together for planning is vital. They could even interact with us.
(Excuse me, I have five hundred million hungry children on the line.
Will you take their call?)

> > Good point.  Parents and neighbors will naturally learn through the exposure
> > they get as the children bring their laptops home.  By 2010, if prices have
> > fallen to $50 per laptop, the goal of One Laptop Per Person might be
> > feasible.  At that price, a quantity of 7 billion laptops would cost $350
> > billion, which is a fraction of global, annual military expenses.
> > John Kintree
> > http://home.swbell.net/jkintree/islt/

Actually, we have to plan for replacements at intervals of three or
four years. So the cost would be something like $90-$120 billion
annually, an even smaller fraction of military budgets. The return on
this investment will be in the tens of trillions of dollars annually.

> I'm afread my frend... if we can DREAM of a 50$ laptop.
> OLPC is again calling for new feature list/suggestions in hardware.
> There will be pressure from more market competation to make more
> hardware improvements. Mabe they might offer in two falvours something
> that costs less with less features or something that costs more with
> more feature.

There will be many more flavors for different countries, different age
groups, and perhaps other distinguishing factors. Count on it.

> It will be a difficult decision to make as say; a child
> 8 right now will drow 14 with the laptop... it would be a difficult
> decision to make if the laptop that looks "somewhat" sufficuent by now
> would be sufficuent to the child in 6 years time. OLPC dont want their
> laptop to be obsolute in that time. Cell phone already have more smart
> features than a P2-P3 computer at a small fraction of price.

Computers are usually replaced after 3 or 4 years. The problem is not
that the computers become less capable, but that software to do more
also requires more hardware in every generation. I was on a panel at a
computer conference in 1981, when someone in the audience asked what
they were going to do with 640K of memory on IBM PCs and the like.
Don't worry. There has never been such a thing as a too fast or too
large computer, and we aren't going to get there any time soon.

> My best prediction is... OLPC will continue to stack up more features
> mantaining the 100$ price. There are still wideeeee rooms for
> improvent even in current hardware design and more improvement would
> mean more cost to balance.

OLPC has announced its intention of producing less-expensive models,
and also more capable models.

> BTY: I STILL DONT SEE ANOUNCEMENT FOR WHAT WILL BE THE WARENTY TIME OF
> THE LAPTOP..... ANY PREDICTIONS? OR ANYTHING MEANINGFUL ON THIS???

Who cares? It has no moving parts other than a hinge, so it should on
average last a decade before either the screen starts to lose pixels
or the flash memory reaches its rewrite limit. Its useful life before
obsolescence is perhaps four years. There will be a huge oversupply of
old units once replacement begins, so you can just swap when one gets
destroyed. You can keep a few extras around as doorstops and bookends.
Don't worry.

> with regards,
> Bipin Gautam, Nepal
> _______________________________________________
> Olpc-open mailing list
> Olpc-open at laptop.org
> http://mailman.laptop.org/mailman/listinfo/olpc-open
>


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Edward Cherlin
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