Stephen Asunka

World's Poorest Don't Need $100 Laptop?

I bookmarked an article in del.icio.us/tag/ccte titled World's poorest don't want "$100 laptop" -Intel. In the said article, Reuters report that Intel chairman Craig Barrett is claiming that potential computer users in the developing world will not want a basic $100 hand-cranked laptop that is due to be rolled out to millions. The reasons being that "similar schemes in the past elsewhere in the world had failed, and users would not be satisfied with the new machine's limited range of programs."

Barrett continues to say that "what people are looking for is something that has the full functionality of a PC, - reprogrammable to run all the applications of a grown-up PC ... not dependent on servers in the sky to deliver content and capability to them, not dependent for hand cranks for power."

Though I am inclined to believe that Barrett's campaign is motivated more by economics - as his profits will surely be eroded if the $100 laptop is accepted globally, I also feel that he might be right to some extent, especially if I consider Paul Dourish's notion of embodiment as it relates human-computer interaction. Dourish states in his book - Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction - that embodiment is not a property of systems, technologies or artifacts and disembodied cognition, but a property of engaged interaction (p.189). Embodiment involves tangible computing (i.e. creating smart environments and specialized devices that would enhance the work we do), and social computing (i.e. applying social underpinnings to the design and deployment of interactive computer systems). Embodied interaction should thus, in my opinion, be the guiding principle in the design and deployment of human-computer interactive systems.

The $100 laptop whose functionality is predetermined whilst content is developed somewhere else and then delivered to users via the internet will most probably defeat the concept of embodiment. Of what benefit is a computer if it cannot be made to do whatever we wish to do under the circumstances in which we operate?

posted by Steve @ 4:48 PM