One Cheap Desktop for All
Jun 29th, 2006 | by CousinPaulie | Posted in nerd culture, technology | Comments Off
Imagine a world where the next generation of computers isn’t a hundred times faster and a lot more expensive than the one you just bought. What if they were designed without all the bells and whistles to be just a little more practical at a fraction of the price? A small Chinese firm has made good on the not-so-new idea that the bulk of personal computing can be done for much less money.
YellowSheepRiver Municator is selling a new Linux-based desktop for about $150. Like Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop per Child project, makers of the Municator say they want to banish the digital divide.
“As (the) OLPC project is for children, Municator is for all people with such needs — the scope is a little bit different,” said David Lin, executive director at YellowSheepRiver, in an e-mail. “Although the target end users are different, one point (that) remains the same is that both OLPC and Municator would like to promote computers to people all over the world with a reasonable and affordable price.”
