<incom> Nicolas Carr: Devices for the Deviceless

[Pat Hall]

I find this an interesting but rather bizarre article, in the Marie- 
Antoinette "Let them eat cake" mould.

Sure, western cybernomads may not want to carry round a laptop, or  
even a memory stick, but logon to the internet wherever they are and  
connect to their own personal individualistic virtual desktop.  But  
personal ownership of laptops is not the issue in Nepal where I am,  
or elsewhere in the under-privileged world that I know of.

What matters is that physical connection to the internet, the  
physical computer and telecoms connections.  You cannot do without  
those, and those are in short supply.  Rural telecenters are giving  
some access to computers, but all too often the connection to the  
internet is missing altogether, or very expensive through dial-up or  
CDMA.  And the telecentre may fail due to lack of a sustainable  
business.

If there is hope then it is through mobile phone PDAs and PCs, with  
delivery of services in speech rather than writing.  We need those  
services aligned to development needs, and I await with interest to  
what comes out of the Google Android challenge.

Pat Hall


On 28-Feb-08, at 8:55 PM, Geert Lovink wrote:

> Devices for the deviceless
> February 28, 2008
> By Nicolas Carr
>
> http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2008/02/devices_for_the.php
>
> There are an estimated half of a billion people in the world who surf
> the Net every day yet don't own a computer. They depend on the public
> PCs available in cybercafes, which in many cities and countries remain
> the centers of personal computing. Cloud computing is ideally  
> suited to
> these so-called cybernomads, as it can provide them with, in  
> essence, a
> computer to call their own - a virtual desktop, or "webtop," that
> exists entirely in an online data center and hence can be accessed  
> from
> any PC. Cybernomads can use their password-protected webtops to run
> applications, store data, and share files with others. Webtops can
> provide an attractive alternative to the cheap laptops, like OLPC's XO
> and Intel's Classmate, in helping close the digital divide. Virtual  
> PCs
> are more energy efficient than real PCs, they don't wear out or  
> require
> physical maintenance, and they can often be provided free, through
> ad-supported or other subsidized programs.
>
> As bandwidth costs fall and web apps proliferate, the webtop model
> becomes more viable in more places. The BBC today reports on a  
> European
> startup, Jooce, that is emerging as a leader in the field. It's
> partnering with governmental agencies, NGOs, and local telephone
> companies and ISPs to provide its "Joocetop" to the deviceless.
> Currently in beta, the free service signed up 60,000 subscribers in  
> its
> first month and it has the financial backing of Mangrove, which also
> backed Skype in its early days.
>
> As the BBC notes, Jooce is far from the only company in this business.
> It's an increasingly crowded field, spanning not only companies  
> serving
> the poor but also companies supplying virtual desktops to  
> businesses to
> reduce PC maintenance costs and hassles. In fact, the people in
> cybercafes tapping into virtual PCs in the cloud may turn out to be  
> the
> "lead users" of what will become, in one form or another, the dominant
> model of personal computing in the future. After all, aren't we all
> becoming cybernomads?
>
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