RSSLibya to Buy 1.2 Million $100 Laptops
By Ed Oswald | Published October 11, 2006, 5:16 PM
Most people would likely not think of Libya as the beacon of technology in education, but if the government has its way it could soon be. The New York Times said Wednesday that the nation is planning to purchase 1.2 million "$100 laptops" for its school-age children.
The country's government signed a $250 million deal with the One Laptop Per Child project, which would cover the cost of the units plus the necessary servers, training and satellite Internet connections. The rollout should be completed by June 2008.
If the project is successful, the country could become the first to offer the simple laptops to its students. Other agreements are in the works with countries like Argentina, Brazil, Thailand and others; however, nothing has been finalized in those countries as of yet.
Libya's move is only the latest of several aimed at opening up the country after years of isolation, and follows others that are meant to soften the country's public image. Leader Moammar Gadhafi publicly denounced terrorism in 2003 and opened up the country in hopes of bolstering Libya's struggling economy.
Production of the laptops is not expected to begin until the middle of next year, although test units would be shipped next month to participants. While the Linux-powered laptop will initially cost $150, it is expected to eventually drop in price to $100 or perhaps even lower.
Cool.
Score: 0
|What about an Ipod to go with it? Talk about mean.
Score: 0
|China will need a lot more.
They will need around 100 Million Laptop.
but they maybe will not buy it, they will make it by their own :)
Score: 0
|they will make the $100 laptop for $25. Then someone else there will make it for $15. lol.
Score: 0
|What a stark contrast to the guy that 20 years ago was assisting plane hijackers. I'm not saying the guy is perfect, but if there was ever a bigger turnaround by a despot, I don't know it.
Hopefully this does indeed help them become a more stable economy.
Score: 0
|History is repeating itself. Once a cheater, always a cheater. But what would I know, im not part of government :)
Score: 0
|Amazing what a few bombs will do, huh?
Score: 0
|...
You gotta love socialist countries !
Hungry children are given laptop computers.
'Let them eat hard drives' !
In a stark example of "Socialist Realism",
Fidel is giving Cuban children ~pictures~
of computers.
...
The Computer Rodent
...
"Share a file /
Get sent to Libya !"
...
Score: 0
|Go away.
Score: 0
|Since when is Libya a socialist nation? BTW, Cubans are much better off than you've been lead to believe. Also, America is ranked quite low when it comes to educating its children.
Score: 0
|Libya is indeed a socialist country, however, PC_Rat just likes to band the word about like it's some kind of insult. His right-wing views are getting tired and hackneyed, and I don't think many people on here care about them.
Score: 0
|Give food to a starving person, and he will be hungry again tomorow.
Give him knowledge and technology, and he will help himself.
Buffo, Sweden is a socialist country and their level of education is one of the highest in europe.
Score: 0
|"Socialism" IS an insult.
Score: 0
|lol, they spend this on comps yet theres more than 1.2 million children starving
Score: 0
|Nonsense. Libya has one of the lowest poverty levels in all of Africa. And there's only around 5.5m people in the country.
Score: 0
|...
"Libya has one of
the lowest poverty
levels in all of
Africa"
...
That's correct. Children in Libya get
rice meals ~twice~ a day !
...
The Computer Rodent
...
Score: 0
|Rice happens to be the staple diet of most of the worlds population.
Are they 'starving' just because they don't cram Big Macs down their throats like a certain highly-overfed nation?
Score: 0
|Wow. I love it when people who've only seen it on TV make up opinions that sound like fact. Who cares about what they do internally? If they buy them it means economic good news for whoever sells them. Revenue is good. End of story.
Score: 0
|Go away.
Score: 0
|Yeah, its a GREAT place to live!
Go away!
Score: 0
|...
You are the
most annoying
person on Betanews!
...
Yeah
go away!
...
RODENT TRAP
...
Score: 0
|Exactly.
Score: 0
|Hope they wont have Sony batterys, if they decide to pop as it could be a new weapon of mass destruction.
Score: 0
|Give a kid a laptop, and maybe, just maybe he can learn/earn enough to get out of poverty.
Score: 0
|I wondered how long it would be before some anti-Sony zealot would post a predictable comment like that... Well Done..
Score: 0
|I wondered how long it would be before some sony fanboy zealot would post a predictable response like that... Well Done..
Score: 0
|That's the general idea. Some would rather they played on a Playstation instead of actually learning something.....
Score: 0
|LMAO, I couldn't have said it better.
Marky, don't forget the knee pads.
Score: 0
|Exactly, I'm actually surprised some retard hasn't complained about how low the specs are on these laptops.
Score: 0
|I wondered how long it would be before two kids would start bickering...
*Cue patronising put down*
Score: 0
|