Bill Gates Critiques One Laptop Per Child

By now most people have heard about MIT’s noble effort to bring technology to third world countries by designing a $100 laptop.  Google’s founder, Larry Page, said that Google would back MIT’s project.  Bill Gates publicly critiqued the $100 laptop, saying, “The last thing you want to do for a shared use computer is have it be something without a disk…and with a tiny little screen.”  Gates went on to say, “If you are going to go have people share the computer, get a broadband connection and have somebody there who can help support the user, geez, get a decent computer where you can actually read the text and you’re not sitting there cranking the thing while you’re trying to type.”  Prior to the critique Gates was promoting Microsoft’s new “ultra-mobile computer” which is expected to cost between $599 and $999.  What is funny is the $100 dollar laptop program is called One Laptop per Child, or OLPC.  These laptops are not being given to American families to close the digital divide here; they are intended to assist children in third world countries that lack the support infrastructures that many of the things Bill Gates is interested in offering require. 

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