ClappingTree’s Web 2.0

HAVE BEEN following news on the MIT $100 laptop project with interest over the past few months. Latest news, thanks to ZDNET and John Brecht, who manages the g1to1 list:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates on Wednesday mocked a $100 laptop computer for developing countries being developed with the backing of rival Google Inc. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The $100 laptop project seeks to provide inexpensive computers to people in developing countries. The computers lack many features found on a typical personal computer, such as a hard disk and software.

“The last thing you want to do for a shared use computer is have it be something without a disk … and with a tiny little screen,” Gates said at the Microsoft Government Leaders Forum in suburban Washington.

Reminds me of one of those famous last words (negative predictions on ultimately successful technologies). As one of the list members, Yisahy Mor, put it, “Thinking of technologies Gates went to the trouble of playing down. Some examples that come to mind: Mac, Linux, Internet standards…”