Hello all,

For those of you interested in the ongoing developments in efforts to make
cheap computers available. Following is an excerpt from a NY Times article
on Microsoft's effort to turn cell phones in to personal home computers
with the purchase (price unknown) of an adapter that would be hooked up to
a television and keyboard. 

Regards,
Mariann

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/technology/30gates.html
Microsoft Would Put Poor Online by Cellphone 
DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 29 — It sounds like a project that just about any
technology-minded executive could get behind: distributing durable, cheap
laptop computers in the developing world to help education. But in the year
since Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology Media Laboratory, unveiled his prototype for a $100 laptop, he
has found himself wrestling with Microsoft and the politics of software. 

Mr. Negroponte has made significant progress, but he has also catalyzed the
debate over the role of computing in poor nations — and ruffled a few
feathers. He failed to reach an agreement with Microsoft on including its
Windows software in the laptop, leading Microsoft executives to start
discussing what they say is a less expensive alternative: turning a
specially configured cellular phone into a computer by connecting it to a
TV and a keyboard.

Bill Gates, Microsoft's co-founder and chairman, demonstrated a mockup of
his proposed cellular PC at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas
earlier this month, and he mentioned it as a cheaper alternative to
traditional PC's and laptops during a public discussion here at the annual
meeting of the World Economic Forum.






Mariann Fedele
Coordinator of Professional Development, 
Literacy Assistance Center
Moderator,
NIFL Technology and Literacy Discussion List
32 Broadway 10th Floor
New York, New York 10004
212-803-3325
mariannf at lacnyc.org
www.lacnyc.org