More details here.

If you've not heard of OLPC (One Laptop Per Child), you may want to check it out. Here's how they define their goal on their web site:

To provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves

Anyways, to make a long story short, I have been waiting to get my hands on one of these for a long time. So, when I found out that I could actually do that and in the process help a child somewhere get their hands on an amazing educational toy, it was a no-brainer. Note: I should really thank my wife for this, as she was equally passionate about this project and that made the purchase somewhat easier..

The sale ends in two weeks.

The $100 laptop is becoming reality. The Researchers unveiled a prototype of the $100 laptop featuring a hand-cranked generator and wireless connections on Wednesday, reports the Seattle Times. They hope to place them in the hands of millions of schoolchildren around the globe.

The goal is to provide laptops free of charge to children in poor countries who cannot afford computers, said MIT Media Lab chairman Nicholas Negroponte.

The lime-green machines will be able to set up their own wireless networks and operate in areas without a reliable electricity supply, MIT researchers said at a United Nations technology summit.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other groups have been pushing hard to create a low-cost laptop, part of a U.N. effort's aim that "everyone, everywhere should have the opportunity to participate" in the benefits of information technology.

Governments or charitable donors will pay for the laptops but children will own them, he said. "Ownership of the laptops is absolutely critical,"

The display screen has been a challenge. In regular laptops, that alone can be worth much more than $100. For this laptop, the display needed to be much cheaper to produce around $35 and it needed to do more, including switch to read vertically like the page of a book.

The proposed design of the machines calls for a 500MHz processor, 1GB of memory and an innovative dual-mode display that can be used in full-color mode, or in a black-and-white sunlight-readable mode. The display makes the laptop "both an electronic book and a laptop," he said.

Negroponte is in discussions with five countries--Brazil, China, Thailand, Egypt and South Africa--to distribute up to 15 million test systems to children.

Five corporate sponsors, including Google and Advanced Micro Devices, have chipped in $2 million apiece to form a nonprofit group, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), to oversee the project.

DailyWireless.org: $100 Laptop Shown

Hats off to Nicholas Negroponte and folks at MIT working on this initiative. You guys totally rock! Btw, if you have not read Negroponte's book "Being Digital", you may want to get a copy of it from your nearest bookstore/library. It's quite an interesting read.

As Om points out, "..The big issue is the lack of real broadband speeds in US. We are getting our rear-ends spanked by other countries when it comes to total bandwidth being pumped into homes." Btw, if you're interested in keeping up with broadband penetration across the globe, you may want to check out the Broadband Around the Planet Project's wiki site. And while you're at it, feel free to contribute to it as well.

Interesting graph! If you just look at India and China's example (in this graph), it's pretty clear that bandwidth demand has risen quite impressively. Ofcourse, the same cannot be said about the decline in the price of bandwidth, especially in India'a case.

When my wife and I arrived here last fall to teach English, we stepped into perhaps the most Internet-crazed country in the world. What tipped us off? Well, one example is that South Korea has a high school where students train in the game Starcraft like Texas high schoolers practice football...

And if you need ultrafast Internet access, it's available. Shin Cho, an electronics lecturer at WonKwang University, has a 100-mbps network at his home on the outskirts of Seoul that costs about $20 a month for the broadband. "The reason that we can have this system at home is that the cost of PCs and Internet service is pretty affordable for most families in Korea," he says. The Korean government is planning on having this level of broadband available to all of Korea by 2010.

Cho says that the main user of their connection is his aunt, who uses it for shopping and for staying connected to her online community of photographers. "They exchange photos and view each other's work in the community," he says. Online communities such as Cyworld are extremely popular in Korea.

I took an informal survey of one of my classes of adult college students and professionals--80 percent of them had a broadband connection. And even though they're fluent in English, it took a couple minutes to clarify the term "broadband" because that's the only type of Internet connection available. When asked if they had ever used a dial-up connection, In Me So, a computer science major at WonKwang University said, "I remember using a 56K modem once, about eight years ago."

PC World: Greetings From the Most Connected Place on Earth

Until I live in a country that gives me such a connection, 1.5 Mbps sounds just about fine to me

Today, I am starting a new category on my blog - Internet Adoption across the Globe. The goal here is simple:

To capture the current status and progress (or lack thereof) of Internet adoption across the globe.

While we come across interesting stats about Internet penetration every now and then, it's very difficult to find a single comprehensive source of such information. I am sure research firms like Gartner, Forrester, IDC, Pew and Nielsen have done comprehensive studies and have plenty of research papers on this subject. The problem is they're extremely expensive for an individual to lay his/her hands on. Hence this category and my efforts to start capturing this information in one place and make it readily available for free (as in free beer). However, it's not all for social cause. On a more selfish note, I would some day like to pursue a PhD on this. Or not

So, to get things rolling, here's a really useful graph (Source: ITU Internet Reports 2003: Birth of Broadband) showing the top 15 broadband economies of the world:

Click on the image for an enlarged view

A quick glance through my AWStats output shows that, barring Iceland, I have had visitors from the remaining 14 top broadband economies of the world! Nice!

Funny thing is, this site also gets hits from hosts with domain ending in .ip and neither I nor AWStats have a clue what country that refers to. Any ideas?]]>

Today, I am starting a new category on my blog - Internet Adoption across the Globe. The goal here is simple:

To capture the current status and progress (or lack thereof) of Internet adoption across the globe.

While we come across interesting stats about Internet penetration every now and then, it's very difficult to find a single comprehensive source of such information. I am sure research firms like Gartner, Forrester, IDC, Pew and Nielsen have done comprehensive studies and have plenty of research papers on this subject. The problem is they're extremely expensive for an individual to lay his/her hands on. Hence this category and my efforts to start capturing this information in one place and make it readily available for free (as in free beer). However, it's not all for social cause. On a more selfish note, I would some day like to pursue a PhD on this. Or not

So, to get things rolling, here's a really useful graph (Source: ITU Internet Reports 2003: Birth of Broadband) showing the top 15 broadband economies of the world:

Click on the image for an enlarged view

A quick glance through my AWStats output shows that, barring Iceland, I have had visitors from the remaining 14 top broadband economies of the world! Nice!

Funny thing is, this site also gets hits from hosts with domain ending in .ip and neither I nor AWStats have a clue what country that refers to. Any ideas?]]> http://indrayam.com/archives/internet-adoption-across-the-globe/000397.php/feed/