[Tris]

Gordon Brown has promised free laptops and broadband access to 270,000 low income families

The scheme will be backed by a £300 million investment... 

[slackline]

  Thats £1111.11 per laptop.

Now there's going to be some administration over-heads, but surely they can't be that huge, because said low-income families will already be listed/registered with whatever government body they're already receiving assistance from.


Surely the money would be better invested providing free internet "cafe's" at the already existing libraries where everyone can benefit from them and not just the select few the government see fit.  What about the 270001 family and the 270002 family etc. etc.

They should all get one of these...

[tomtom]

Thats £1111.11 per laptop.

Yup thats a shocker. 100% overhead for administration. I've friends/students who get a free laptop for their dyslexia - and they get a crap machine (RM) that costs £1500 and you could get an equivalent dell for half the shreddies....

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

There's already been a couple of these projects running in Sheffield for a couple of years with varying degrees of success. There's weird issues like the government insisting they can't have access to webmail as that might be used for 'grooming' etc. (WTF?! I know) Also it's surprisingly tricky identifying low income families who genuinely don't have computers and aren't going to have it as a second or third machine or flog it.

[Paul B]

Thats £1111.11 per laptop.

Yup thats a shocker. 100% overhead for administration. I've friends/students who get a free laptop for their dyslexia - and they get a crap machine (RM) that costs £1500 and you could get an equivalent dell for half the shreddies....

a girl got that on my course and spent it on clothes.

[Jim]

and there is the £190 for pregnant women to spend on healthy food.
Can't see much of that going on fruit & veg or food in general tbh.
Some things in life are a fucking joke

[Houdini]

It's a p.orn grant if ever I saw one.

[Tris]

They should all get one of these...

WTF? I had to google OLPC and came across this, feckin hi-tech or what?

[slackline]

They should all get one of these...

WTF? I had to google OLPC and came across this, feckin hi-tech or what?

When you're nearest plug is 4000km away a wind up battery ain't such a bad thing!

I suspect thats an old projected design, the one I posted is what went into production and has been distributed (See the older pictures in their flickr stream).

The plan is now to produce a low cost tablet, and there are some design concepts up on their flickr stream too.

OLPC is a great idea and I've given serious consideration to buying one (well its actually two, but you only get one yourself as the other goes to Kitungu in Timbuktu) but haven't got round to it (and will now probably wait and see how the tablet design comes along).