Forget the $100 PC?!?

My three blogs work on my PPC-6700 in both portrait and landscape, but I don't think I had the foresight to check it on my old Nokia PM-6225 before it was deactivated. I'd love it if someone could tell me... or tell me if there's a free emulator I should be grabbing. Heck, I think I'll just Google for one.

Mini: It works pretty well here on my Cingular 2125! Certainly better than a lot of blogs.

I totally agree that mobile is where we are going....long term. The hype and energy I see in the mobile space reminds me of all the hype and energy around portals several years ago. The promise and potential still outstrip the reality of delivery and access by the masses. With portals we now see the technologies starting to catch up to the promise of years past and true growth and activity ramping up rapidly (across all vendor lines). the blogosphere and to the point podcasts and video blogs carry much promise in the worls of mobile information and access but outside of the IT bubble I would think that the technology device side as well delivery side has not reached a point for mass mobile adoption and acceptance. I think it will and that its only a matter of time. However, I think we are still a number of years away, perhaps another 5 or so, until we have reached that point. In the meantime yes I know mobile access on mine is indeed ugly http://www.mikeysgblog.com/m but lowest common denominator access usually is.

You guys have absolutely no clue. A 100 USD PC has a lot of applications (use) in a lot of places. Your thinking is so narrow.

If only phones had good feed readers, or good media players. All the phones I have had so far have shown amazing promise but been really disappointing when it comes to getting feeds :( RSS feed readers make a lot of blogs a lot more readable but the software I have used so far has been far from ideal.

Display is not the problem, audio isn't either. It's really the software that's letting it down.

Cell phones are far too limited.
I mean, look at this thing. It can make a peer-to-peer wifi network, run gnome, read ebooks, and it comes with an IDE. The software is where it's at, and cell phones aren't nearly as flexible on this front.

I mean, a cell phone will always be a cell phone, even if it has a full keyboard and a stripped down web browser. A laptop can be pretty much mimic almost any digital device you want.

As far as I know, OLPC is being designed for children to learn with, not to chat or read blogs. Small screen gadgets may be perfect for business people on the go, but for small children to study, you need something bigger, clunkier. They must be able to point with a finger, etc.

Thanks, Scoble. Wish I could take the credit for it, but it's all on the makers of the aggregators and their templates.

Careful with the generalizations, Dileepa. I happen to believe in the $100 computer. I believe in whatever it takes and whatever people will give time and materials to. You believe what you want, but I owe my job to my playing around on the internet. Hmmm...perhaps I should blog about that!

I haven't seen a kid with a phone, but I've seen 3 yr-olds melding with game consoles, and I'm not so ready to count the little ones out. With that being said, I'd rather they learned to write essays on laptops or PCs.

Hmmm. Can't use NetFront to post comments here :(

My take is that it's all about the children. The $100 PCs are intended as educational devices. Personally, I don't know whether or not PCs are useful for that. I'm of the age that my non-internet-connected Tandy Color Computer was a wonderful way to learn to code (albeit in yet another non-portable version of BASIC). When I was in college, I was able to look through library catalogs and even some dissertations from the comfort of my own home but actual physical libraries were still important. Now I sometimes use things like Wikipedia for general knowledge background searching but still don't trust something like that as a primary source. On the tech front today, I rely heavily on online resources but I'm not sure how useful the net is in other disciplines.

Given the above, I have two questions:
1. Is the internet relevant for non-tech disciplines?
2. If so, is that content available and useful via phones instead of PCs?

And one assertion:
A cell phone isn't going to breed the next generation of developers. Maybe I'm wrong about this and if so, please take me to task, but I haven't seen or heard of any easy entry into coding on phones. Heck, even here in the pretty PC-centric US, we have a dearth of students actually interested in engineering disciplines. I'm not so sure that PCs are the silver bullet, but I still think they're more likely to be better learning tools than cell phones.

Disclaimer:
I'm a geek who's attached to a laptop most of the waking hours of the day, but I have still to this day resisted the urge to buy a cell phone myself because I can't find a compelling reason to buy one.

Maybe I've completely misunderstood the point of the $100 PC. If so, please someone give *me* some schoolin'.

Is there anyway to easily determine what web sites/blogs will look like on cell phones (and other small screen limited capability devices) -- a web based emulator (or downloadable templatable browser perhaps)?

I know WebTV used to have such a emulation tool.

If the only way to "test" is to actually have one of the devices I can't see there being any traction.

The first consideration should be the software. What type of applications are needed to educate these children? Once you have decided on what are the most productive software tools for this audience, you are then better informed for choosing a device or devices most appropriate to deploy the tools on.

That said, do you see any evidence that the major education publishing companies are interested in updating their production to support this new platform to the extent that you don't require the old platform?

If you were a kid, between five and fifteen, which would you rather use:

a desktop (or even laptop) computer

or

a handheld gizmo that allows you to call your friends, call home, call for pizza, and could also bring your lessons to you wherever you are?

I would so rather have a phone, even if the phone had to have a small projector for some purposes. Actually, that'd be the botb (best of the best), wouldn't it? A flashlight, camera, translator, communicator, etc., etc., ...

You gotta be kidding. Who wants a computer? Yuck.

"-" sabadash

the think I look for when I hit a blog on my cell is order. What I want at the top is the content. Not the ads, the graphics, or the rest. But the content. I HATE it when I have to kill the loading, or wait until it's done to be able to read the content because the eyecandy keeps jerking it up and down on the screen. It's one of the reasons for the load order on my site.

One thing that can help is finding a tool that can emulate a small screen. I know the latest version of GoLive can do this.

$100 laptops with hand cranks are for impovrished children. Not snotty sillicon valley bloggers that can't get work done in first class on their flights to LA.

Good point, but I have to credit Russell Beattie and his late, great blog for getting me thinking about this stuff months ago.
http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/1008780....

Tool to emulate a small screen? Opera.

But to the cell phone vs $100 PC: I have no problem seeing that a cell phone is useful, that you can do shopping and all that stuff mentioned. But how does it replace the PC? How does it help the kids with their education? Will it be possible to use where the PC can be used? What about power and recharging? Will it need some extra equipment for the purpose?

I've seen the claim before, that the cell phone is all that's needed. The reasons given can be summed up like this: "Because I say so." David Beers article doesn't offer much more.

What I want to see is a comparision; what does the cell phone have to offer, compared to the PC? How well does it function, compared to the PC? How does it perform, compared to the PC? I want to know this, because "Because I say so" just isn't enough for me to accept it as a fact.

You can already view webpages in its original format on the next generation cellphones due to its high screen resolution. The web browser on my Nokia N80 is one of them. I think the accomodation should be the other way around. It doesn't make sense for the ones ahead to move backward. Cellphone developers should be finding ways to make their software and hardware more compatible with the internet. The only way the mobile market will reach the next level of useability is if carriers lower price on their high speed networks. Most consumers just aren't going to shell out an extra 50 dollars a month so they can browsed watered down webpages on their tiny screen. With the increase in demand for high speed networks, we should see a decrease in price on phones that will accomodate that next leve of useability. My Nokia N80 retails for more than $600. Lucky I got hooked up for $270. Still expensive considering I signed a contract.

I tend to doubt the target market for the $100 PC can afford to go and commit to a two year $40/month plan to get that $100 price.

The point I was making was that cell phones are already massively deployed in the developing world--moreso even than in the industrialized world--and people already rely on them more heavily than we do for wireless data applications (banking, e-commmerce, primary communication, etc). The $100 laptop is great, but if we're looking at ways to bridge the digital divide, why not start with the devices that people already have access to? Will you really get 97% of Tanzanians access to laptops the way they already have access to mobiles?

Robert, Robert, Robert.

How much time do you spend on your PC on a typical day? How much time do you spend doing the same tasks on your cell phone? How many blog posts do you make from your PC? How many from your cell phone? What's the longest article you've ever written your cell phone, even with T9? Ever put together a spreadsheet? Code a Web site? Write a grant application? Apply for a micro-loan? Learn a new language?

It seems to me that most of the things that you can do on a cell phone are card tricks compared to what you can do on a full-sized computer.

I know that that you're a good guy,and that you sincerely believe what you've written, but I'll believe that "phones with keyboards are already delivering the promise that a $100 PC is making" when you shuck your full-sized PC in favor of your cell phone.

DGF

@Brian Sullivan: Try the Opera browser's small-screen mode. It simulates the Opera browser available for most java running mobile phones.

Are there really $100 phones with keyboards ?

(not ones that are free or price manipulated when they are sold with a plan).

My impression was that the real price of many of top end phones of the capability being discussed was many times $100.

ceejayoz wrote: "I tend to doubt the target market for the $100 PC can afford to go and commit to a two year $40/month plan to get that $100 price."

The target market is already penetrated more in the 3rd world than in the industrialized nations. How do Africans afford it? They have a very active bazaar-style market for cell phone minutes.

Daniel wrote: "I’ll believe that “phones with keyboards are already delivering the promise that a $100 PC is making” when you shuck your full-sized PC in favor of your cell phone."

It's not about people with full-sized PCs shucking anything. It's about delivering some of the promise of the PC to people who don't have a prayer of getting their hands even on a $100 laptop. The problems to solve aren't how to code a website or write a grant application. They're more like how to find out if militias are blocking the road I need to use to get my crops to market or how does a doctor tell me how to keep my sick child alive through the night before he arrives. Thinking creatively, mobile phones could be used in teaching literacy in places where it's difficult to get books or teachers.

"Are there really $100 phones with keyboards ?"

Not keyboards. Ordinary keypads like the ones most people use for text messaging. We're not talking smartphones here. $40 Java MIDP phones.

Africa needs both, obviously.

The only people who will profit substantially from cellphone usage will be the telcos, not the people themselves.

Mobile data is all well and good, but try being an Ebay Powerseller or an Adwords power user on a cellphone. You can't. You'll cause yourself serious physical harm trying to do that sort of heavy data shunting on a cellphone.

China and India have already become powerhouses in selling goods online, whether physical or virtual - that's the logical step that African people and businesses will take too. (Check Ted Fishman's excellent China Inc. book for more on China's use of Ebay etc).

Africa will leapfrog other continents with wireless infrastructure because it's quicker to set up state of the art stuff rather than build all the fixed line infrastructure. So cellphone usage will continue to explode, but the business possibilities for entrepeneurs will be severely hampered until people get computers to do the heavy data crunching work and the backup to use them - not only infrastructure (e.g. regular electricity and decent housing that will protect the machines from the heat, theft etc) but also tuition in keyboard skills, literacy, business building etc etc.

It's only when you give individual people the means to start creating their own business out of their own hard work and ideas that you kickstart economies. As far as I understand economics, anyway...

Can you build a new website on a mobile phone? Can you write software? Create content? Right now the anwer is no.

The $100 PC is about empowering the underclass - you don't empower people by enabling their ability to consume. You empower them by enabling their ability to PRODUCE. The former will supplant their culture, the latter will enable them to express it in the way that makes sense to them.

I remain a firm supporter of the $100 PC.

Todd Blanchard wrote:
"The $100 PC is about empowering the underclass - you don’t empower people by enabling their ability to consume. You empower them by enabling their ability to PRODUCE."

When people are threatened by hunger, disease and war, it's about both. I'm not an opponent of the $100 PC, but as a mobile software developer I've seen how even the tiniest, cheapest computers that Africans already have access to can create leverage to help solve the big problems there. My over-dramatized tagline wasn't really meant to criticize Negroponte's plans, just to encourage people not to overlook opportunities that mobile devices offer. Surely, they are complementary technologies.

Thanks for helping get the discussion back on the original topic.

Look, Robert, as usual, I'm lost in the storm of what seem to me to be off-topic commenters 'cause you're on the A-list and you get all the geek cred which means all the comment attention. And I think your original comment skewed things a bit. But isn't this $100 PC about education? Didn't you miss that entirely in your post? Should I stop trying to make sense of things here? So far it seems only one other comment has anything whatsoever to do with education.

???

Drew: I did. But, what kind of education?

Are you expecting someone in Africa to get one of these contraptions and hook it up to Google? Or be able to email me and trade stuff she's making for enough money to bootstrap her family's condition up?

Me? I think there's more economic goodness by getting people into a place where they can communicate with the rest of the world. And that requires infrastructure. I think a cell phone based device is better for a third-world or emerging economy.

But, it'll be interesting to see which theory proves correct.

I have no interest in reading blogs on a tiny cell screen. My iPod holds plenty of content to make it through my 2 hour commute each day. I used to drag my laptop home each evening thinking I needed to be available 24/7. But I've realized over time that I don't need to be, and my relationship with my spouse and kids have improved greatly since I decided to leave my laptop at work. I can get away with that since I'm not a big exec like Scoble. :-)

Brett: I read dozens of blogs every day on my cell phone screen. It actually is quite readable. It makes standing in line waiting for lunch (or airport security lines, etc) much more productive.

Hmmm, I should try that! Except I work with Maryam now.

The problem I have with blogging via cell, and really any net via cell is the fact that I am paying again for a service I have already paid for.

Pay the cell company a monthly fee for minutes and pay again for data transfer? Just doesn't sit well with me.

I just saw this blog on this topic (he tells me off) and thought it added to the conversation here. http://www.teleread.org/blog/?p=5190

Also see my comment there.

I'm a bit late to the party here but:

No, I don't want streaming video on my phone. I don't want to read blogs on my phone. I don't want to surf the web on my phone. I don't want to look silly holding a big ol' brick to my head, and I don't plan on attaching one of these bad star trek nightmare bluetooth headsets to my head and mumble to myself like some psycho.

Anything that I use to browse and watch video should have decent screen real estate. A phone cannot do that without breaking my 'no brick holding' rule.

I want my phone to make and receive calls. I also believe that the more functions you tack onto these phones will reduce the quality; you'll end up with a device that instead of doing one thing well (having a conversation) does a lot of things badly.

I still know people who carry around numeric pagers.
A lot of people actually have to "work" for a living, so I doubt if there will be many iron workers surfing the web on their cell phones while they are constructing the next sky scraper.

A little reality check please.

Sure, cell phones and any extra features are great while you are out on the go, but once you are done with the work day, everyone has a place they call home. While at home, where the highest speed Internet connections are at, are the most capable machines running on some sweet A/C power.

Portable is fine, yes. There will always be the trade-off factor.

Prime example? Portable DVD players - yes, nice distractions while you travel about on an airliner - however, there is zero comparison to watching your favorite DVD at home on an 81" plasma TV with full surround sound all while drinking an ice cold beer and sitting in your favorite leather chair.

SO, to me, taking it with you, or being able to access it from anywhere, isn't really a big deal outside the scope of email or IM's, since once you get it, the device which you got it on is inferior and always will be.

JMTC,

Michael B

Robert: Thanks for the link.

David B: I like your blog (nice WordPress job), but boy did that headline get to me. You're on the mark when you acknowledge the good points of the laptop project. We need BOTH approaches. Meanwhile thanks for acknowledging that the "Forget" headline was "over-dramatized."

Regards,
David Rothman
http://www.teleread.org/blog

Michael, I know a few construction workers and during breaks they DO check their cell phones. What, you think they don't need news, or to check how their stocks are doing, or read a random blog just like you do?

I know my blog works on a mobile phone, because I tested it on a Treo at the Cingular store one day. :-) Unfortunately, I haven't yet figured out how to show my blogroll after the content, instead of before. One of these days I'll clean it up...

I do some moblogging, but other than that...

Cell phone market is huge in Asia.

As I said, Scoble and Co. have no clue. A laptop (or a PC) that costs 100 USD, that can be used by a community (forget about a laptop per child) is a lot different and a lot more useful than a mobile phone which you can use to read/write blogs. Doesn't matter if it's hand-cranked or otherwise.

For a moment, think outside the box (the box being the United States and the other so called "DEVELOPED COUNTRIES").

Internet is not just about blogging/vlogging.

Have a look at this project:
http://www.revdept-01.kar.nic.in/Bhoomi/Home.htm

BTW, Microsoft provided technology support for that project.

Robert,

When I hear the Bill Gates proposal that cell phones are better than a real computer, all I hear is elitist BS. The point is to allow children in less developed and privileged societies access to what we in the US and Europe take for granted.

When you take your son's computers away and make him do his computing with a cell phone with a "keyboard" then I will take this opinion of yours seriously. If your son can't do with just a cell phone, then why should children with less resources be any different?

James: can you please explain how you are gonna teach this woman how to use a computer? http://www.unitus.com/

All she wants is to sell me some baskets without having middlemen involved. She can do that using a cell phone, no computer needed.

This is the problem with this whole initiative. We are looking at it from OUR perspective, but you aren't looking at what someone in an emerging market actually needs.

It's why talking about this just isn't going to result in anything like a decent conversation. You call me elitist and go off feeling good about yourself.

Meantime, did you actually help someone improve their lives?

Tell me again. How is someone who makes maybe $300 a month gonna be able to use a computer in a place that has no infrastructure?

At least with cell phones there's a chance that there'll be infrastructure (when I visited China everyone had cell phones).

By the way, have you visited a modern American high school? Very few kids have computers but a very large percentage of kids have cell phones.

"Michael, I know a few construction workers and during breaks they DO check their cell phones. What, you think they don’t need news, or to check how their stocks are doing, or read a random blog just like you do?"

Well, a couple of things for that.
First, yes, it is a 'few' out of say tens or hundreds of thousands? Very small niche.

No, they don't "need" news - it's nothing but extra, and they probably have access to a radio on the job site. Heck, maybe even a xm satellite radio.

Stocks? I was referring to the guys/gals who are pulling in basic wages and trying to feed a family of four, pay for school clothes for the kids, misc expenses - you know, typical American family stuff.
Not corporate job site execs who are worried about their portfolio's.

Do you not know about that part of America? If it were my money being spent, I'd focus on the $100 laptops and Internet via fiber to everyone's house....ahhhh, but yes, there's the rub - we're not really here to help those people unless we can make a buck or two, are we?

Michael

@ MiniMage, Brian Sullivan...and anyone else wanting to test their site...

ms offers a downloadable windows mobile 5 emulator for free.

you can test ppc, smartphone, & even the new 320x240 display mode showing up on models like the moto q.

[shameless blog plug ahead]
did a series about how to download, install, & use the emulator over at the funcave, including how to get it talking to the web without having a gprs connection at all.

you can find the index to the series here: http://www.chrisrue.com/funcave/2006/06/wm5-dev...

enjoy!

To David Beers: I understand that nobody is asking anyone to shuck their full-sized PCs in favor of cell phones, but this isn't what this post is about. It's about providing the benefits of information processing to people who can not afford it in its current form. A phone is worthless if it's not connected, and being connected has a cost. A PC lets you work whether you're conected or not. Also, a phone is pretty much a consumer gadget. It's a pain to produce anything significant on such a limited piece of hardware. A computer gives you the ability to produce tools and content.

I'm deliberately avoiding the debate about what the target audience *needs*, because neither of us really knows what they need. I don't think that either of us can imagine what they might produce, given the opportunity. Yes, a cell phone is an improvement over what they have, but again, that's not the discussion here. The discussion is which alternative is better for them, a cell phone or the OLPC PC.

This gets back to my point about Robert's comments. I doubt that he would choose the cell phone over the PC, because it is a limited tool, useful mostly for consumption of information. The people for whom the $100 PC is intended deserve nothing less.

Thanks for the comment, though.

DGF

Daniel, I agree that a cell phone in and of itself isn't great for producing "tools" or reams of "content" but to me the discussion isn't about which is a more capable device: it's about which is more likely in practice to change peoples' lives.

I'm more optimistic about improving a successful technology that we know is highly prized and well utilized in the developing world than I am about airlifting in something that we, from our office overlooking the Charles River, imagine will bridge the digital divide.

As someone who makes a living developing software for mobile devices, I'm also pretty optimistic about the possibilities for a mobile phone to become the CPU and storage for a modular, thin client computer with a large screen and keyboard. This would be less costly to repair and upgrade than a monolithic laptop, enable costly screens and keyboards to be shared by multiple personal computing environments, and enable a lot of useful software or eBooks to be used even when the screen and keyboard are not at hand. Not everyone spends as much time at a desk as we do here and considerations of cultural and economic conditions should not be ignored because of a preoccupation with what people "deserve."

This comes off harsh in my attempt to be brief--it's not intended that way. Ultimately, I think the laptop initiative is worth a try if OLPC gets their priorities right: the biggest cost isn't going to be the computers themselves, it's going to be cultivating the local support for them in all the senses that that word implies. Not sure if they realize that but I hope they do.

Here's the longer follow-up to my original post: http://www.pikesoft.com/blog/index.php?itemid=97

Thanks for your thoughts on this topic.

My iPhone does quite a lot, and yep, I can view my blogs on it. I love it. However, for those of us who crave the mobility but prefer a larger screen-size, I'd like to see ultra-mobile PCs become more affordable. I did check out, in the past, the Asus Eee PC, and was pretty psyched about that. I don't think the MacBook Air (just IMHO) has barked up that tree just yet.