| Toys and Gadgets |
| Hope In a Little Green Box |
| by Davina Blair |
| One inventor's hope that a $100 wind-up laptop will eliminate poverty around the world has people shaking their collective head in disbelief. |
On a hot sunny day in Tunisia, many people crowded into the appropriately named Kram Center to take a look at the saving grace of humanity. Is it a cure for AIDS, cancer, or traffic jams? Not quite, but creator Nicholas Negroponte believes that it would be the start of bridging the "digital divide" between the richest and poorest nations. While the idea of a 1kg laptop that is not the least bit dependent on electricity is a revolutionary one, the trial run suggests that it could use some work. In viewing the demonstration of what could possibly be one of the most important moments of computing history, CNN Reports:
...as he attempted to turn the machine's crank handle, to demonstrate its durability and easy functioning, it came off in his hand. The signal, perhaps, for the more cynical to question whether the green machine is merely a wind up . Our cynical viewers would be right of course. It would take ten minutes of winding in order to use the computer for thirty minutes! We Westerners would probably impatiently tap our fingers, slap the monitor, and turn into angry balls of bad language if our OS took more than 3 minutes to load up. Not to mention it often takes more than thirty minutes to read and respond to e-mail. Imagine the fury young Jabari would feel when the love letter he painstakingly wrote to his beloved Nia gets erased because the thirty minutes are up! Techno-rage would definitely become as common in Africa as it is in America.
While digital skills are definitely becoming more relevant as technology spreads to every corner of the world, this is a very inefficient way of going about it since 1/3 of the time is spent winding up the thing. Maybe a similar design with $.02 batteries would work more efficiently in areas that do not have electricity; but ultimately this begs the question: why do so many people in the world not have electricity, running water, and basic literacy--constructs that have been around several orders of magnitude longer than laptops? Our first world priorities are really screwed up when it comes to determining what those in the third world really need to grow and develop into financially independent powers. |
|
