According to AP (quoted in Technology Review)
Piracy accounts for about 35 percent of all new PC software installations globally, an IDC study estimated last year — costing the industry an average of $40 billion annually.
My guess is that most of that is accounted for by people ripping off Microsoft Windows and Office.
Who’d have thought it? BBC News Online: Iceland comes first in broadband.
According to the [OECD] Iceland has 78,017 broadband subscribers and South Korea 12,190,711.
TOP FIVE BROADBAND OECD COUNTRIES
Iceland: 26.7%
Korea: 25.4%
Netherlands: 25.3%
Denmark: 25%
Switzerland: 23.1%The leading countries in broadband use per capita all had more than 25% of their net users subscribing to such a service. Iceland led the field on 26.7%.
By comparison, the UK was ranked 12th with 15.9%, just behind the US with 16.8%.
ZDNet.com report of remarks made at a Microsoft “Government Leaders Forum” in Washington the other day.
Gates once again let known his feelings of disdain for the $100 laptop, Nicholas Negroponte’s proposed appropriate technology for the developing world. Gates dismissed the proposed machine’s lack of hard disk, tiny screen and hand crank power supply.
“If you are going to go have people share the computer, get a broadband connection and have somebody there who can help support the user, geez, get a decent computer where you can actually read the text and you’re not sitting there cranking the thing while you’re trying to type,” Gates said.
Gates questioned the choice to skip the hard disk, saying that hardware is a small part of the cost. Network connectivity is more expensive, he said.
He did not explain how you get broadband into, say, rural Somalia. But then, he’s a Big Picture man.
My colleague, Seb Wills, has recently returned from Bangladesh, where he set up a multi-screen Ndiyo internet cafe (called a Community Information Centre) using mobile phone technology to provide the internet link. Given that the lack of connectivity is supposed to be a showstopper in developing countries, this is a really significant step forward. More details here.
Informative and interesting essay. Includes thoughts for anyone thinking of developing software to run on the machine.
Andy Carvin has done an interesting — and revealing — interview with the CTO of the One Laptop Per Child project. She’s refreshingly open and honest about the difficulties and possibilities of the project. Confirms my hunch that it will have as much impact on the West as it has on the developing world because it will effectively commoditise computing. And it runs Linux!