The $100 laptop closer to reality

[jc at trillian.mit.edu (John Chambers)]

Brendan wrote:
| On Thursday 29 September 2005 12:16 pm, Anthony Gabrielson wrote:
| > I read somewhere, don't recall where that majority of the cost built in to
| > a text book is wooing the professor to pick the said book.  That will need
| > to change.  The costs drop for the publishers on this point as well as
| > they don't need to buy, print, and bound paper.  Tree huggers should also
| > love this.
|
| "Tree huggers"? Sensible people who like the environment?
| How about producing all those laptops. You don't think that that might have a
| tiny effect on that thar environment?

Some time back, I read an  interesting  study  of  the  environmental
impact of the computer industry.  The bottom-line conclusion was that
it hadn't much changed over several decades.  While  it's  true  that
electronics manufacturing is really nasty, the growth of the industry
has mostly been close to inverse to the size of the  equipment.   The
effects  of  pollution, mining, waste disposal etc.  turns out to not
have changed much over the years.

Actually, that study was back in the 80's.  I wonder  if  anyone  has
done  a  followup?   It  might be interesting to know if anything has
changed.  This little machine looks like it has potential  to  really
impact the environment.  But this impact might well be tiny.

The real impact might be on Microsoft. Imagine if the next generation
thinks of this gadget as what a "computer" is.

(Hey, someone has to mention them in any thread. ;-)