Keepod Unite: $7 PC to bridge the digital divide • Hacker News Board

Re: Keepod Unite: $7 PC to bridge the digital divide

#41

Post by gamerdonkey » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 4:41 PM UTC

quackerhacker wrote: post #40

Call me speculative of everything I see on the net, but I see many things in this high production ad that would hold me back from contributing (and I have donated money before). 1. Wouldn't it be more cost effective to run livecd's or even cloud host an os? 2. Refurbished computers are still needed for this campaign, seems expensive. 3. $7 does NOT equal a computer, it's a usb stick which end users will still need to…

I think you're right to be critical. This doesn't seem like a perfect idea. Still, some counters to your points:

1. CD's would probably be more inexpensive to produce, but they are much more vulnerable to damage and destruction. Additionally, with a USB drive, the user can save data that will persist from computer to computer, which makes the idea more tolerant to the use of unreliable recycled computers. Hosting a cloud OS would introduce a pretty major dependency on network connectivity, which I can understand them trying to avoid when their focus seems to be on developing nations.

2. That can be expensive, but you might be surprised how many recycled electronics simply end up in these developing countries. These costs might also be why the price of "just a live USB drive" is as high as $7.

3. Again, the USB drive itself probably won't cost $7, so that supporting infrastructure might be included in that price. Unfortunately, it will be up to those running this campaign to provide full answers on that. I'll admit that I'm just speculating myself.

Re: Keepod Unite: $7 PC to bridge the digital divide

#42

Post by nsxwolf » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 4:57 PM UTC

650REDHAIR wrote: post #34

I'm seeing a $7 bootable USB stick with the potential for religious NGO/NPOs to install religious bloatware and try to indoctrinate entire communities. Maybe I'm just too cynical...

Yes, freedom to spread your ideas sure does suck.

Re: Keepod Unite: $7 PC to bridge the digital divide

#43

Post by whatevsbro » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 5:06 PM UTC

jokoon wrote: post #23

The misleading title will hurt. Oddly I'm sure you can have a cheap computer that would connect to a TV, something like a raspberry pi. What about the internet ? I doubt that project will connect people to the internet. And why are we talking about giving the internet to poor countries, what's the real benefit ? What a stupid charity. Internet infrastructures have a cost, and this project is not about financing that.…

It's misleading because it's a money-grab. They make it seem like they're helping those ever-so-poor Africans by giving them computers, when in reality they're probably not even planning to slap Linux on USB sticks and actually get them to the people their contributors think they're helping.

Re: Keepod Unite: $7 PC to bridge the digital divide

#44

Post by ido » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 5:11 PM UTC

pitchups wrote: post #32

Great idea and mission - kudos to the founders to try to make it a reality. However, there are some challenges : a) Illiteracy and training the users. Although here the unexpected results of the "hole-in-the-wall" experiment of Sugata Mitra - where kids in slums basically taught themselves computers with no supervision [1] may be the model that needs to be followed. b) Access to electricity to run these computers in…

USB 2.0 is from 2000, pretty sure every computer 10 years old or younger would have it. I'll bet most computers that get tossed are less than 10 years old, and that there are plenty of 4 to 10 years old computers around.

Re: Keepod Unite: $7 PC to bridge the digital divide

#45

Post by bifftannen » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 5:22 PM UTC

Teaching people the world over how to spam the F12 key to get to the alternate boot menu.

Re: Keepod Unite: $7 PC to bridge the digital divide

#46

Post by pitchups » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 8:47 PM UTC

jessedhillon wrote: post #39

pitchups wrote: post #36

Also wondering how they plan to address the problem of users losing their USB sticks or mistakenly swapping them with others, and the security of the personal data. Assuming the sticks will use encryption to store personal data. In which case, how do you handle restoring an encrypted partition when users forget their password, etc.

Why would you assume that? These are people who might be using their own computer for the first time ever. Do you really think they are going to jump straight to the point where they are storing valuable, sensitive information on there? Moreover, they appear to be extremely poor, and therefore poor targets for digital thieves. No encryption and the problem is solved.

I agree most of these users would not worry about the security of their personal data. But privacy may be more relevant - for example if they are keeping a private journal . In any case, the software does encrypt and password protect the data: From their FAQ page : ( http://keepod.com/portfolio/unite/ )

The OS pre-boot encrypted and protected by strong password policy.

and

Without the having backed up the data, the consequence is similar to losing a computer. However, the costs resolving of this mishap are much lower. On the bright side, no one else will have access to this data because of the high security standards.