Intel unveils $400 mini-laptop for 3rd World market
Chin up if you’re in the e-book biz and sales aren’t what they they should be. Almost nine billion people are supposed to by walking Planet Earth by the year 2300. By then maybe Vista will even be done for real.
Meanwhile, for helping to develop readers and countries, there’s a new machine out–beyond the “$100 laptop” from the MIT-based One Laptop Per Child project. It’s the Intel’s $400 Edu-Wise laptop written up in Engadget. As with the MIT machine, the price is a tad theoretical. Some are thinking this might be more like Intel’s $750-plus machine. Yes, the Intel laptop will run Windows, and inside it just could be a cousin of the Origami in many ways. More details here and here from an unveiling in Brazil, home to many a Linux lover, who might have a few words to say on the cost of the Edu-Wise’s OS.
Despite my skepticism about the prices of Third World-targetted laptops, I’m rooting for both the MIT and Intel machines and, yes, the Origami tablet as well. All this competition can only be for the good, especially if the vendors don’t cluelessly diss each other. That goes for you, too, Craig. If people want to knock the competition, at least be more creative than to compare $100-range computers with those at least four times their prices. Actually the competitors aren’t quite competitors after all.
Related: Intel shows pics of Community PC, from Engadget. This one is an overgrown desktop ugly enough to be theft-proof even in the worst Third World slum.
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