Cyrus Farivar

Reuters: Potential computer users in the developing world will not want a basic $100 hand-cranked laptop due to be rolled out to millions, according to Craig Barrett, ECO of Intel. Schoolchildren in Brazil, Thailand, Egypt and Nigeria will begin receiving the first few million textbook style computers from the MIT Media Lab run by Nicholas Negroponte from early 2006. “Mr. Negroponte has called it a $100 laptop — I think a more realistic title should be ‘the $100 gadget’,” Barrett,…

Hi, I’m President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. Either I’m trying to get the world really really pissed off at me, or I’m just being an idiotic asshole. You decide. BBC: “If European countries claim that they have killed Jews in World War II… why don’t they provide the Zionist regime with a piece of Europe,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Iranian television. “Germany and Austria can provide the… regime with two or three provinces for this regime to establish itself, and the issue will…

I found this on diggdot.us today, the iTunes Signature Maker, a web program that analyzes your music in your iTunes library and spits out a 15 second “audio signature”, a sort of weird but cool artificial mix of your music. Mine is here. Included in it (in order) are excerpts from these works: The New Pornographers – Miss Teen Wordpower Gustav Mahler – Symphony No. I, Mvt. 1 The New Pornographers – Jackie, Dressed in Cobras Matchbox 20 – 3…

Hi Cyrus, Just wanted to let you know that I enjoy your blog and am going to link it to mine. In particular I thought your Persian Web 2.0 post was very cool. As it happens, I am also a persian involved with Web 2.0! I guess we are really all over that. Anyway, keep up the good work. Have a good one! Cheers, Hooman Radfar Pittsburgh, PA

Yesterday, I was perusing the site of IDG, the parent company of my employer, Macworld and I found this line: From our name to our presence today in 85 countries and on all 7 continents, IDG is truly a global company. 7 continents? Does IDG have an Antarctica bureau that I’m not aware of? I posed the question to my co-workers and Paul Boutin. He and my boss’ boss, Jason Snell, came up with the same answer: ComputerWorld Antarctica Except…

Indian Economist Atanu Dey: I know that one should not ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained as stupidity. Not everyone involved in the “laptop for every child” is motivated by greed; some are motivated by a zeal that comes from an inability to figure out what the problem is and how it can be most effectively solved. The operative word is “effectively.” You can always use a cannon where a fly-swatter is sufficient. But for the cost of…

A thought in response to your Slate article and the more practical Inveneo stuff. The latter relies on 12V DC for the good reasons that it’s been made ubiquitous by the car and truck industry, the gear is simple and tough, and big economies of scale have already been made. Why then does every new DC gadget call for a different voltage and its own transformer? Big purchasers like the Pentagon or the Indian government could push the industry towards…

The New York Times is currently running a great series on the modernization of India, looking particularly at highways and automobiles so far. This section pretty much encapsulates the same dilemma that is going through the rest of the developing world: India’s state-run rail network may have been built by the British, but it came to represent a certain egalitarianism. Powerful and voiceless, rich and poor – all navigated the same chaotic, crowded stations and rode the same jam-packed trains,…

This one came in before the one this morning: Hello, My name is Samir Raiyani and I am a Senior Scientist at SAP Research in Palo Alto. I really liked your article on Slate about Negroponte’s $100 computer idea. I had written exactly along the same lines on my blog – even pointing to the silly Simputer idea. My angle was slightly different and would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks, Samir > Samir, > > Thanks so much for…

A reader named Trent Krupp left this comment on my blog this morning: I read your article on Slate today and felt that it was poorly researched with a fundamental lack of understanding as to what the $100 laptop is meant to do. While there are numerous errors of reasoning, a few that you should personnally look into are the real purposes of the WIFI adapter (hint: Ad-hoc networks are what is envisioned, not infrastructural networks). Also the mention of…