Thursday, March 01, 2007
Disinformation :: The Face Of The $100 Laptop
Disinformation :: The Face Of The $100 Laptop
'The so-called $100 laptop that's being
designed for school children in developing nations is known for its
bright green and white plastic shell, its power-generating hand crank,
and for Nicholas Negroponte, the technology futurist who dreamed it up
and who tirelessly promotes it everywhere from Bangkok to Brasilia.
What has not received much attention is the graphical user
interface—the software that will be the face of the machine for the
millions of children who will own it. In fact, the user interface,
called Sugar, may turn out to be one of the more innovative aspects of
a project that has already made breakthroughs in mesh networking and
battery charging since Negroponte unveiled the concept two years ago.
offers a brand new approach to computing. Ever since the first Apple
Macintosh was launched in 1984, the user interfaces of personal
computers have been designed based on the same visual metaphor: the
desktop. Sugar tosses out all of that like so much tattered baggage.
Instead, an icon representing the individual occupies the center of the
screen; "zoom" out like a telephoto lens and you see the user in
relation to friends, and finally to all of the people in the village
who are also on the network.' (Businessweek). article
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