Thursday, March 20, 2008

Well its beginning to look like I'm going to have a child before I get my olpc. Too bad it sounds like the olpc program is imploding. Of course, its going against a very-much-for-profit that is trying to strangle it in the crib meant the odds were stacked from the very beginning.

Even if we put its open-source, education and development missions aside, I would still be interested in the XO laptop because it's cheap, durable, and green. That's what I want from my technology. For example, right now, I am shopping for a cell phone. I learned from The New Yorker (of all places) that the Motorola Motofone F3 costs $34.99, has "exceptional reception and shockingly long battery life", a display that its readable in both sunlight and candlelight, and has a small set of big buttons (the fact that cell phones that you turn on by holding down the "end" button are still being sold disturbs me greatly). The catch? You can't buy the F3 in Canada or the United States because it was developed for "emerging nations".

Why do I have to poach from the third world in order to get appropriate technology?

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