Negroponte Hits Back

Nicholas Negroponte, tech visionary, former Director of MITs media lab and founder of the One Laptop Per Child nonprofit association hit back yesterday at the silly negative comments his project has been receiving from the tech elite in the shape of people like Bill Gates and Intel:

"Kicking off the LinuxWorld conference in Boston, Nicholas Negroponte said he was undeterred by skepticism from two of the leading forces in computing, Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp. "When you have both Intel and Microsoft on your case, you know you're doing something right," Negroponte said, prompting applause from the audience of several hundred open-source software devotees."

I'm with Negroponte 100% of the way here (as I've been saying in this post and this one). I think this type of device is what we really need to seriously start levelling that playing field (and, of course, if anyone can come up with something better for the same price, then please feel free to go ahead). I also think Negroponte may be a lot nearer the way mass computing may move than many suspect. Of course there are commercial uses and geeky individuals who will always look for something more sophistocated, but that 'other population' the one which currently prefers the mobile phone to the pc, they are more likely, IMHO, to be won over into the internet by something which is no frills, cheap, and easy to use.