back to article Negroponte plans tablet airdrops to teach kids to read

Nicholas Negroponte, the brains behind the One Laptop Per Child initiative, is detailing a new plan to inspire the world’s poorest children to teach themselves to read using tablet computers. The design for the tablet is simple. At its heart is a solar powered battery, built into the back of the tablet which can be charged on …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Mediocrates
    WTF?

    "solar powered battery"???

    I thought batteries *were* power sources...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Headmaster

      that's

      solar-powered battery charger, probbly - but you knew that

      I saw "air-drop" in the title and wondered what being hit by a falling packing case of laptops does to one's reading age - grizzled, bitter, pointless cynic that I am.

      All very worthy though.

  2. ScissorHands
    Facepalm

    Give this man a Nobel!

    Market forces fail those who can't buy stuff?

    Make that an IgNobel!

  3. Jonathan Cohen
    Go

    @ScissorHands

    He means market forces push companies to produce expensive and highly specified devices for the more profitable and rich western markets. Low cost/spec hardware can still be extremely useful and is much better than nothing. It just has to be available, designed for purpose and should not just be useless rubbish marketed as a "budget" option in order to extract a few £ from fools who don't know what they're buying.

    This is how market forces let down the poor in many developing countries.... Give yourself an IgNobel. :-)

    BTW I like the idea of these low cost machines, but I hope they don't drain other funding from teachers or textbooks etc...

    1. ScissorHands
      Stop

      The facepalm was misunderstood

      OF COURSE market forces fail the poor, that's what I meant. Market forces are useless for those who are not IN the market, and that's the danger of leaving everything to "market forces". We live in an economy where steady profits are not good enough, you have to GROW. I find it incomprehensible.

      I am, however, fed up with Negroponte's babble, even since he became Wired's pundit-at-large in the 1990's.

  4. Lars Silver badge
    Go

    The OS

    I wonder what OS is now used to day on those devices. I remember that that part got rather hot and dirty at some point.

  5. Lars Silver badge
    Go

    I wonder what OS is now used on those devices. I remember that the OS part got rather hot and dirty at some point in the beginning.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    great, i too think that education is the only way to really help poor nations/tribes/etc.

  7. M man

    I don't understand why governments fail to understand that education is the two set points

    prevention is better then cure.

    education is the best gform of prevention.

    less crime = more education

    better health = more education

    better economy = more education

  8. Tony Paulazzo

    >America, on the other hand, has both the money and the skill to have a major impact in the area, but was choosing not to, in favor of massive military spending. He pointed out that the war in Afghanistan was costing the government $2bn a week, but the US is spending less than $2m a week on all educational programs within the country.<

    This, so very much this - is why we have the X factor topping the charts.

    >Nicholas Negroponte, the brains behind the One Laptop Per Child initiative, is detailing a new plan to inspire the world’s poorest children to teach themselves to read using tablet computers.<

    Was gonna make a <bad> joke about how if every child already has a laptop doesn't that make tablets superfluous but thought a link to get involved might be a more positive thing to do.

    http://one.laptop.org/about/people/negroponte

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nobel peace prize

    Who would you give a peace prize to if you had a choice again? This man or Barrack Osama.

  10. Toastan Buttar
    WTF?

    Trouble parsing a triple negative.

    “I don’t know of any solutions that aren’t achievable without some form of education."

    Come again?

  11. NOBRE - LUIS
    Thumb Up

    bom... digamos apenas que se a visão do Negroponte fôr realizáve (TABLET alimentado com energia solar a custar menos de USD 50)l, as possibilidades serão estonteantes »»» mais um passo na direcção de um ADMIRÁVEL MUNDO NOVO! :-)

  12. Corp-Rat
    Linux

    Operating system

    Sugar / linux all the way despite the rumours to the contrary...

    see the latest linux journal

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like