Jul 16
Should Computers Be Free?
There has been a lot of talk about the $100 laptop and how it is going to change education. I believe that in the next 3-5 years, all laptops and computers will be free*.
Unless you have been living under a rock or are not in the technology field, you would have heard about the 'next big thing' - Cloud Computing. Simply put, it means that none of your data will be stored on your personal computer. Everything will be stored somewhere on someone else's server at someone's cost. All you would need is a web browser to access all this content. Before you get too paranoid and possessive about your content, remember that email works this way today. Almost all our photos are also online. Slowly, all our files, documents, music, movies - everything we own on our computers today will be stored on the 'cloud'. There are certain fears, but largely, this is a good thing. One of the implications of storing data remotely is that you do not need a powerful operating system anymore - any simple version of linux will do, or in the future, a simple browser-based OS will also suffice. Too much disk space is obviously not required, since almost nothing will be stored on your computer (probably only temporary copies of files you are working on, but that doesn't matter). You don't need powerful hardware such as high amount of RAM or powerful microprocessors. Let us speculate. Let's say the computer runs of a free operating system, has about 2GB of storage, about 512MB of RAM and a small processor. The cost of a GB of harddisk space today is about 10 cents, RAM costs about $10 per GB and Intel's atom processors cost about $20. So, the whole computer (including the screen, keyboard, ethernet card, etc) - when mass produced - will not cost more than $30. Another way to think about this - the configurations on modern mobile phones are more than sufficient to run this. Now, imagine a scenario where an ISP like Bharati or BSNL decides to tie up with computer manufactures to mass produce these machines. Then, they give away these machines for free. They only charge people for the internet usage; internet usage which uses wifi or GPRS (the ISPs also control the mobile network) according to the available network. In essence, you pay for using the cloud and there is no upfront cost. This will follow models familiar today with mobile phones - prepaid or monthly payments. With computers free, now they can be given away to all educational institutions in the world - and where there is no internet access, they will use the mobile networks. Governments can give these away, and subsidize the internet data costs to poor people, who can use it to network, get information on weather, buying / selling rates of commodities, gain knowledge of the latest techniques in agriculture and so much more. People in remote areas can have accounts and make bank transactions even if there are no branches for hundreds of miles. Since everyone has a computer, everything can be computerized - less paper, not only means you save the planet, but also means that everything (in theory, at least) gets done faster. You will friend your maid on facebook and your watchman will follow you on twitter. The more exciting part, of making computer devices free, is that it can take turns we haven't even imagined today. Touch screen displays can be installed in public transport that can play videos from YouTube, children in rural areas can attend classes taught in modern schools 'live', devices installed at periodic intervals on streets can show maps with local data - restaurants, bus stops, movie theaters and more, school textbooks will be electronic devices that extract the latest data from open source collaborative reading material and all public phones will be free as they would make calls over IP. With an ubiquitous internet device, the opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship are endless. Imagine a world where everyone - and i mean every single person - is connected and is online. The $0 computer will, truly, change the world. * - you might still have to pay some shipping fee or tax, but i'll leave that out for now.