Speaking of ideas-in-progress, Prof Jonathan Zittrain gave a lecture at the LSE last Friday entitled: “What would you put on the one laptop per child?”. It was basically an introduction for development types to his generativity theory, via the $100 laptop initiative, but he tested a few interesting ideas during the lecture, which are worth repeating.
He seemed to propose the stripped-down laptop as an alternative to the dystopian “information appliance” of his theory. Then he posed the question, should OLPC laptops be identified as such on the network, so they can actively seek each other out to swap code? Or would this be a kind of discrimination, or a violation of privacy that outweighed the benefits of collaboration?
More for the ideas scrapbook…
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[…] It’s not just techies having a go - the development community is questioning “whether it is worth spending $100 on a laptop, when so many schools don’t even have enough books.” I got a preview of some of the stuff they’re going to want to ask at an event at the LSE a couple of weeks ago. I’d worry too if a load of Silicon Valley tech evangelists started saying they could solve the problems you’ve been working on your whole life. We’ll just have to see. […]
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