[Air-l] Fwd: [school-discuss] $100.00 laptop

[Jeremy Hunsinger]

while scam products are a problem, i think that the point is less to  
encourage scam devices as to establish less expensive derivatives.   
it is actually fairly cheap to produce an advanced x86 processor  
these days, under license or not, and if you have compilers the  
processors might become less important in respect to fucntionality.  
no?  anyway, i think knockoff in this case are actually the point of  
the project in political economy terms.  why else would you be moving  
the cost differential to that low of a point?    you can argue that  
it is cost, but cost of production is sort of 'moot' for computers  
like these, markets are what matters, so how do you get past the  
basic idealizes profit motives of producers...?  through knockoff  
producers aiming toward getting cheaper and cheaper instead of  
getting more expensive.
On Sep 28, 2005, at 7:48 PM, Joanne Jacobs wrote:

> I've just discussed this on my blog, and while I'm a fan, I'm  
> concerned
> about the business logistics of releasing the device among nations  
> that will
> incubate a grey market for the product and possibly also develop scam
> imitations of the MIT-developed device.
>
> ____________________________________________
>
> Joanne Jacobs, Project Manager
> Australasian CRC for Interaction Design (ACID)
> A Commonwealth Cooperative Research Centre
> http://www.joannejacobs.net/
>

Jeremy Hunsinger
Center for Digital Discourse and Culture
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