It’s a follow up on Mike’s and Patrick’s comments on “community making,” but Kamanaka san’s visit, her films and activities have taught me the powerfulness of creating an online community. To me, online communities and activities have been something far from everyday life. My use of computer started only after college, and I’ve thought about the difference between contemporary highschoolers in such a computer(ful) environment and myself…and I thought that those “virtual” communities are more or less “fake”–until Kamanaka san and this class show how effective the PC could be to connect “real” people in this age. (Her story of “dot(s)” becoming a “network” was especially interesting.) In a sense, her visit introduced me to the online world in a new way.
The Internet community is becoming more and more “-less” 
–”borderless,” “ageless” etcetc. Oh but, how do we connect to people who do not have an access to the Internet? I am somewhat worried about the information gap–between those who have a PC and who do not. I think that question is still left unanswered.
That’s a good question. It makes me think about people who don’t understand the protections of the law, or immigrants who don’t speak English, and everyone who has been tricked or deceived, or simply all the downtrodden people who have lost hope. That’s another kind of information gap.
Comment by memorygongs — April 23, 2007 @ 9:51 pm |
Or simply, computer and internet are too costly for many people around the world, don’t you think? I wonder how the ‘$100-laptop for everyone’ project works in countries like Brazil or Nigeria…http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6224183.stm
Comment by norikoy — April 24, 2007 @ 12:27 am |
I’ve heard of that story…
I absolutely think we’ve got to get the next billion people online.
If you’re interested, here are some objections that Bill Gates raises and his idea for an alternative format that uses a TV and cellphone.
(Yes I read BusinessWeek…)
Interview with Bill Gates
BusinessWeek January 30, 2007, 12:01AM EST
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2007/tc20070130_606447_page_2.htm
Microsoft actually worked with the [Bill and Melinda Gates] foundation to get Internet-connected Windows PCs in all the libraries in the country. That was such a success that we went down and did that in Chile. We’re about halfway through doing that in Mexico. It’s gone very well. There are some new countries—Latvia, Estonia, Botswana—where they’re putting the computers in. So that means that any kid who can reach the library is equal to any other kid. Even adults come in and use the PCs to do job searches and things like that. This whole phenomenon of the computer in a library is an amazing thing.
Our India group invented this idea of a PC having multiple mice on the same PC, so kids can collaborate together. It’s called multipoint. We’re figuring out how the cell phone, which is cheap and pervasive, could light up your TV set. You’d use the processor in the phone and have a cheap keyboard. That’s called Phone Plus. It’s in an incubation stage.
You always have to be realistic about these things, though, in that in a lot of developing countries you’re not going to have the electricity, you’re not going to have the teacher training, and the devices can be stolen. Unless you get the teachers and the curriculum involved, and figure out the network connectivity, it won’t all come together. The network connectivity is way more expensive than the hardware. So it’s great for people to try out different things in this area.
I think when you’ve got shared use, where you’ve invested in the training and the network and all that, you should have a fully capable machine. I think for certain things we’ve got to get so you’re just leveraging the cell phone, which somebody is already buying, so they’re not even having to make a PC purchase at all. We’ve got innovations like a PC where you can just pay a monthly fee and use it. So I think that’s part of the mix. Some of these cheap hardware designs will be part of the mix. I don’t think that’s the magic thing that changes everything, because there are so many other elements that any successful project has had to bring together.
Comment by memorygongs — April 24, 2007 @ 11:59 am |