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$100 laptop now slated at $188

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
What are your veiws on this. $100 laptops to be given away free to poor children in poor countries had price increased. How can you put a price on the happiness of poor, deprived, suffering children who live in cheap houses, worse than any cheap apartment building, worse than the streets of new york city?

Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    If they are given away free, then who pays the $100 or $188?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    dmdsexgod wrote: »
    What are your veiws on this. $100 laptops to be given away free to poor children in poor countries had price increased. How can you put a price on the happiness of poor, deprived, suffering children who live in cheap houses, worse than any cheap apartment building, worse than the streets of new york city?

    Quite easily. The raw materials cost money. It takes work to make the parts. The people doing this work need to feed their families and so need to be paid a wage. You can get rid of all the company's profits from the process (as well as copyrighted material which cost nothing to replicate), but it still costs money.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I read that they were using them to download porn :D (was actually quite a widespread problem reportedly lol)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    ShyBoy wrote: »
    I read that they were using them to download porn :D (was actually quite a widespread problem reportedly lol)

    To be honest they invented cameras and the victorians made porn, they invented sculture and the romans made statues of willies, someone created paint and people drew pictures of people shagging - not a new problem...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    dmdsexgod wrote: »
    What are your veiws on this. $100 laptops to be given away free to poor children in poor countries had price increased. How can you put a price on the happiness of poor, deprived, suffering children who live in cheap houses, worse than any cheap apartment building, worse than the streets of new york city?

    Well, someone has to pay for them else the company will lose alot of money.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    dmdsexgod wrote: »
    What are your veiws on this. $100 laptops to be given away free to poor children in poor countries had price increased.


    And....they're still free to the end user aren't they?

    Maybe there has been a price increase in raw materials and wages, I do remember seeing that story quite a while ago.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Jim V wrote: »
    To be honest they invented cameras and the victorians made porn, they invented sculture and the romans made statues of willies, someone created paint and people drew pictures of people shagging - not a new problem...

    but an amusing one for my underdeveloped mind :)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Jim V wrote: »
    To be honest they invented cameras and the victorians made porn, they invented sculture and the romans made statues of willies, someone created paint and people drew pictures of people shagging - not a new problem...

    Indeed, we seem to attract porn link here too ;)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/21/olpc-brings-porn-to-the-third-world/

    I have to say though, as a teenage porn watcher, although watching some porn if you took it literally (the 'omg that cock is so good im having multiple orgasms every minute') it can give you a skewed view of real sex - if you watch the amatuer stuff it's actually not bad at all. Gives much needed sexual relief, get to see stuff that you're curious about but society has deemed as bad, except for the 5 minute talk inc. diagram of giving birth in sex education - but with porn you can actually see real people having sex. (Or in my case, as I was 'green', real women naked lol - though no doubt people would argue they're not real..)

    I have succesfully thrown this topic off topic though. So I apologise.

    Originally the price was supposed to come down from $100 wasn't it? As volumes increased...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    dmdsexgod wrote: »
    What are your veiws on this. $100 laptops to be given away free to poor children in poor countries had price increased. How can you put a price on the happiness of poor, deprived, suffering children who live in cheap houses, worse than any cheap apartment building, worse than the streets of new york city?

    You should really post a link so we can read back ground info on this

    Also the value of the Dollar has probably gone down loads since the project first started. So the real price increase isn't likely to be 88%
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    DG I did a search on it the price has gone up but they've increased the specs such as including a new webcam etc. - they're also thinking of selling it in the US to subsidise developing markets as Americans are supposedly loaded :p

    It does seem a shame but it follows one of the three rules of new ventures! Sale price (what people are willing to pay I mean) always overestimated, production cost always underestimated, and time to get the money back / from plans to production / sale are always underestimated.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    increased specs ain't always such a bad thing - I've finally moved up spec wise after 4 years - I bought a laptop last year but the specs were very similar to my previous desktop (mainly got the laptop cos of the size and to use whilst traveling but spec wise very similar)

    Now I got my new Mini Desktop I see I'm able to do things much faster then before like resizing my holiday photos, turning them into DVD movie slideshows, etc

    unfortunately no one's posted any decent links for me to comment on ..

    The idea of selling in the west is that you pay double the price of the laptop so you get one and some kid in the 3rd one gets one free... seems alright to me.

    prices will go down in time (unless there's an earthquake in Japan)

    Personally I'm not sure we should be giving every kid in the world a laptop .. what's wrong with paper and a pencil? And even if we are going down that route why produce millions of laptops with a QWERTY keyboard designed from the days of the typewriter to making typing slower and more difficult and more of strain on people's hands?

    I think they should all have internet access in school and see other parts of the world, etc.. but considering people in many countries don't have clean water I think sorting out the basics of life should come first.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    *** starred to attract attention ***

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6994957.stm

    *** link here! ***

    Just up today :)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    go to cnn.com and search for $100 laptop. by the way the governments are paying for the computers and giving them to children for free. also, the laptops have parental controls on them.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Just to be fair and let you know as you might be aware - you'll see in the rules of the politics section that if you start a story you should post a link - so feel free to go to cnn, find a link, and post it yourself.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Jim V wrote: »
    Just to be fair and let you know as you might be aware - you'll see in the rules of the politics section that if you start a story you should post a link - so feel free to go to cnn, find a link, and post it yourself.

    I've erm, posted a link to the beeb! :p
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I think Jim meant people should post links with the original posting - I just came across the BBC link and was about to post but saw SkyBoy found it already - at least the BBC link explains things a bit more clearly.

    So anyone planning to buy one (and of course donate one?)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yeah, just responding to the cnn comment to let dmd know how we normally post for future
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    now if i gave directions how to get there, why would i need to post a link? and some stuff does not require links, like for example: your opinion, experiences, etc...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    dmdsexgod wrote: »
    now if i gave directions how to get there, why would i need to post a link? and some stuff does not require links, like for example: your opinion, experiences, etc...


    Cos I suspect the VAST majority of people wouldn't have a clue what you were on about in the first place. What makes you think everyone knows what the $100 laptop project is about?

    And the laptop was never meant to start at $100 anyway that was the target price once they reached economies of scale... as referred to in the BBC news link.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    ok but if i gave directions and explained it then it doesnt matter.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yes it does, when we say you provide a link to stories if you want to post about them it isn't a suggestion - it's a rule. So yes, it matters, and remember it when posting in the future.
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