Aiming to help close the so-called digital divide, the Intel Corp plans to announce a design for a sub-US$400 educational laptop and a five-year, US$1 billion program to train teachers and to extend wireless digital Internet access around the world.
The moves are intended to bolster Intel's reach into new markets, but may also have an effect on the US market for computers in education.
The program was to be announced yesterday at the World Congress on Information Technology, a conference in Austin, Texas, where Intel's chief executive, Paul Otellini, will elaborate on it in a speech today.
The initiative, called World Ahead, comes as Intel, the No. 1 chip maker, is embarking on what it says will be a US$1 billion revamping program in the face of declining market share and a lagging share price. It will roughly double what Intel is spending annually on training and technology support in places lagging in digital development, Otellini said in a telephone interview on Monday.
The company plans to support the computer training of 10 million teachers around the world. It has already financed the training of 3 million, he said.
He distinguished Intel's efforts from other campaigns with similar aims by saying Intel would focus on full-featured computer systems with enough power and memory to run Microsoft software.
Intel's rival, Advanced Micro Devices, has backed the concept of reaching half of the world's population with inexpensive personal computers by 2015, and Nicholas Negroponte, a co-founder of the Media Lab at the MIT, has been designing a sub-US$100 notebook computer for educational use in developing nations.
Those machines have been designed to run either open-source software or a subset of the complete version of Microsoft's standard desktop software.
The new Intel design, to be called Eduwise, will include software for the classroom. Makers of the computer are to be named later.
Otellini dismissed the possibility that the emergence of such low-cost computers might cannibalize existing markets, saying that low-end portable computers were already close to these prices in the US.
Negroponte, whose machine will have a handle, a hand crank and an innovative screen, is in discussions with Brazil, China, Egypt, Thailand and South Africa to purchase millions of the notebooks.
He said that the Intel program was a step forward, but that focusing efforts on training teachers had serious drawbacks.
"Anything is better than nothing," he said, "but teacher training is the slowest way to improve global education and reaches very few rural, remote teachers in very poor places."
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique