[PD-ot] $100 laptop premiered at U.N.

Mathieu Bouchard matju at artengine.ca
Sun Nov 20 19:24:20 CET 2005


On Sun, 20 Nov 2005, Chris McCormick wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 19, 2005 at 02:09:58PM -0500, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
> > On Nov 18, 2005, at 7:21 PM, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:
> > >from the article:
> > >    "The technology is in it so that the machine is disabled if not
> > >    connected to the network after a few days."
> > >what???
> > I saw that too.  I really really hope that they didn't put some  
> > DRM-style crap in it.  That would totally kill it in my eyes.
> A couple of lines above that they explain that the network disable is to
> stop people from stealing the laptops from kids. Presumably kids will
> have other kids around them with whom they can form mesh networks, but
> people who steal won't know anyone else who they can network with.

Yes, I've read that, but I'm not really convinced it would work. How does
the networking happen between laptops? Is it automatic or does it require
approval? What's the range of radio emissions? What happens if the thief
lives nearby? If you can't always see who you're networking with, how do
you detect thieves? Is the thing reserved to people who live in cities? If
a kid goes away from the city for a while (e.g. to visit family), does
his/her laptop get disabled?

____________________________________________________________________
Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801 - http://artengine.ca/matju
Freelance Digital Arts Engineer, Montréal QC Canada




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