'its the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.'
I am just boggled at the hubris of Google and MiT with their Volks'puter. Since the target market people are thought to be too poor for even electric power, this laptop will come with a hand crank to juice it up. What is the point of a laptop when there is possibly no power, very possibly no Internet connection, no hard drive, and a screen so small that it will probably cause the few who use it to go blind from squinting?
Considering how many laptops are just tossed away after awhile that it has popped up on the computer world radar, why bother with this $100 laptop? Dang that AST 486SX laptop sitting in the closet has more horsepower than this Volks'puter and its over 15 years old. Maybe I need to donate it to a Third World country.
Hopefully this brainstorm from the pointy heads at MiT will fizzle out after sucking away some hard cash from Google and cause those MiT people to rethink how smart they are.
4 comments:
We shouldn't deprive the poor of the world of the pleasure of surfing for porn.
Why is it that everyone thinks that the computer is the answer to all of the world's problems, Good Lord, these people need food and clean water and medical care along with meaningful jobs, not Google and Yahoo.
AndyJ
Daaang what a joke!
hmmm a Volksputer sounds brilliant though, Anna. (;
Thus spake Google who proceeded to throw money at an idea that did not answer the question posed.
MiT and Google are failing to ask the underlying question of why these people can not afford a computer, which is what AndyJ hit the Ten Ring on. So their solution is fundamentally flawed and doomed to failure.
Thanks Myrtus, it came to me when I realized what Google and MiT were trying to do was create the computer analog of the original KdF-wagen pushed by Hitler, a people's car hence der Volks'puter. And what made the KdF successful in the end was not Hitler but a German car executive raised on the American auto experience named Heinz Nordoff.
But like the car, computers need a conducive economic climate with some infrastructure to thrive. And where Google is aiming to put these laptops is not a conducive economic environment since the people will want to spend that $100 on acquiring better necesseties that will improve thier life than a hand cranked gizmo that will only produce tiny pretty pictures.
Girl, you ARE brilliant! LOL
And Andy is right on the money. (:
You know? It sounds to me like something that would be better suited as a Sharper Image novelty buy. An expensive unnecessary toy, which would only come in handy for an internet junky stuck on a ski slope somewhere in the Alps, so he could get his computer fix.
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