On 60 Minutes last night (the news show your grandparents watch) - about the initiative to get laptops to children in poor countries.
Here are some quotes:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/20/60minutes/printable2830058.shtml
Here are some quotes:
Nicholas Negroponte, a professor at MIT, had a dream. In it every child on the planet had his own computer. In that way, he figured, children from the most impoverished places – from deserts and jungles and slums could become educated and part of the modern world. Poor kids would have new possibilities.
But lately One Laptop has had to contend with a new challenge: competition. This lab in Sao Paulo is testing two other laptops the Brazilian government is thinking of buying for school children, including one made in India and Negroponte’s biggest competitor: the Classmate by Intel, the giant chip maker.
Intel gave every student in this class in Mexico a Classmate – which Negroponte believes is part of an effort to kill him off.
At a recent lecture at MIT he accused Intel of dumping, of going to the same governments he’s trying to sell to and offering the Classmate below cost.
"Intel should be ashamed of itself," Negroponte says. "It’s just – it’s just shameless."
"Negroponte believes that you’re trying to drive him out," Stahl told Craig Barrett, Intel’s Chairman of the Board.
... the heart of it is that the One Laptop uses chips made by AMD, Intel’s biggest competitor.
"Intel and AMD fight viciously," Negroponte says." And we’re just sort of caught in the middle."
"Yes, Intel has hurt the mission enormously," Negroponte says.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/20/60minutes/printable2830058.shtml