Hang on, isn't this one of the main points in Andrew Keen's "The Cult of the Amateur" ?

Is it just me, or the portraits all look like the photographer just pressed their faces into a scanner and pressed "Scan" ?

No wonder that literacy levels among children and adults alike is going down the drain...

"Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow." --Oliver Holmes

An infinitely more powerful teaching tool than the OLPC, at a tiny fraction of the cost...

Yes, he uses a computer driven algorithm. Beautiful or not, nearly US$3000 for a print canvas doesn't really make it particularly appealing.

...and we are nearly in November people!

Billions, perhaps trillions, of dollars worth of manufactured goods made in countries other than those you have named all rise up and dispute your claim.

Sure, lots of stuff is built elsewhere - but be in no doubt that the vast majority (vast) of disposable items (from watches, to toys, to cheap keyboards, to electrical items) are built in China, and Asia more generally - just pick a random item around your house and check where it is made. Why would there by any contention around this ?

Or did you mean to say most goods are made in those countries, which has a completely different meaning from what you said? I'd like to gently suggest that you have a problem with communication or understanding rather than others having a problem with "mental structure."

Well, I'm sorry - I simply assumed most people are clever enough to distinguish hyperbole.

Splash@1: Did you even look at the site, or is your knee-jerk reaction faster than your button clicking. Most of the things on the site are frou-frou little finds from Etsy-type places, or "stylish" things from Europe. Prices and availability suggest that they aren't made in Asia.

Are you seriously sugesting that any of the crap on sale today is built anywhere but China, Thailand or Bangladesh ? Look no further than Plan Toys (which builds the Click Clack Tree featured on the site) which makes their toys in Thailand.

And that UBI changing table ? I'll eat my hat if it is built anywhere but China.

Splash, are you still mad because you didn't have it all your own way in the laptop argument, or are you always like this?

I'm always like this - thanks. That laptop argument is a classical example why you can't win an argument against people who lack the mental structure to understand how the world works... have you been to Africa lately ?

Baby gadgets, built by children in Asia... nice...

Clrly wht ths ppl nd r $100 lptps frm th LPC prjct.. myb slght nm chng wll d th trck "LPW" - "n Lptp Pr Wr-trn ndvdl".

It's offshoring gone mad!

People in the west have never had such a surplus of free time, and yet we are "too busy" to need a personal assistant somewhere in India. If people dropped all their techno-geek-junk I bet they would find themselves with a lot of spare time... start with the mobile...

Davex, I am as much of a naysayer as a realist. You don't have to agree with me at all, but you should at least be aware of the opinions of much more qualified people than me or you in the topic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XO-1_(laptop):

At the UN conference in Tunisia, several African officials, most notably Marthe Dansokho of Cameroon and Mohammed Diop of Mali, were suspicious of the motives of the project and claimed that the project was using an overly American mindset that presented solutions not applicable to specifically African problems. Dansokho said the project demonstrated misplaced priorities, stating that clean water and schools were more important for African women, who, he stated, would not have time to use the computers to research new crops to grow. Diop specifically attacked the project as an attempt to exploit the governments of poor nations by making them pay for hundreds of millions of machines.[51] Additionally, the price of $175/unit does not include the cost of setup, maintenance, training of teachers, or Internet access. Countries adopting the XO-1 must budget for these costs as well.
One criticism has been that the money for purchasing laptops could be more favorably spent on libraries and schools. John Wood, founder of Room to Read, emphasizes affordability and scalability over high-tech solutions. While in favor of the One Laptop per Child initiative for providing education to children in the developing world at a cheaper rate, he has pointed out that a $2,000 library can serve 400 children, costing just $5 a child to bring access to a wide range of books in the local languages (such as Khmer or Nepali) and English; also, a $10,000 school can serve 400–500 children ($20–$25 a child). According to Wood, these are more appropriate solutions for education in the dense forests of Vietnam or rural Cambodia.[52]

Cheap, rugged laptops can help people learn how to prevent HIV (the misinformation is ubiquitous in many nations), learn new farming techniques, and form beneficial networks with others.

How exactly ? I agree as well that potentially it could, but so could (much more efficiently) the distribution of informative leaflets and books. And how would this information be disseminated to the laptops ? Would a poor family in Uganda just walk to the nearest Wi-Fi enabled Hilton and pay for the internet access rather than buying crops, a water pump and some malaria tablets ?

Instead of supplanting learning to read, this could fuel literacy considerably.

Can you explain how ? And please give examples.

Despite not being the greatest of examples, people should play this simple game: http://www.arcadetown.com/3rdworldfarmer/gameonline.asp to have a better idea of the kinds of decisions which a poor family faces every day. How would a laptop fit into them exactly ?

Exposure to computers at a young age is often vital to understanding them as an adult - much like exposure to language. I think one of the hopes here is not that these poor children will while away their days playing solitaire and minesweeper, but will gain the cognitive structuring that will enable them to transform and support their national economies as adults. Programs like this could go a long way in giving these kids life-long skills (and perhaps inspiration) that will become more and more necessary in the decades to come.

You must be dreaming - of what use can a laptop be when hundreds of million of children reach adulthoot with nothing more but basic literacy skills, barely being able to read or write ? What cognitive structuring ? Have you ever met a child living on US$1.50 per day ? Do you know what concerns these children and parents ? I assure you, it *is not* any cognitive abilities around using computers, but the ability to survive on a day to day basis.

Do you have any sense of what US$100 can do for a child in Sudan, Ethiopia or Peru ? If you think to use that money in any kind of gizmo is anything but wasteful you must be deluding yourself.

The One Laptop Per Child organization is the perfect example of why the rich west knows f**k-all about the needs of children (and adults) in very poor countries. A 9 year old living in a gheto in Nigeria, or a 11 year old living on a remote village in Peru has absolutely no need for a laptop - any kind of laptop.

The things which will make a difference are access to *real* education resources (books, a teacher, a room) and to daily sources of comfort (food, potable water, medicines). The whole project is flawed and a way for a small number of individuals to make some $$$.

It is contemptuous, stupid and wasteful - you should be ashamed.