Dreams grow for high tech in Third World

IHT - NYT: "Nicholas Negroponte, a technology expert from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory, prowled the halls of the World Economic Forum holding the holy grail for crossing the digital divide: a mock-up of a $100 laptop computer. The machine is intriguing because Negroponte has hit upon a remarkably simple solution for cutting the price of the most costly part of a laptop - the display - to $25 or less.

The digital power elite remains visible. Bill Gates of Microsoft, Eric Schmidt of Google and Carly Fiorina of Hewlett-Packard played prominent roles, as usual, at the January forum. But there was a distinct shift away from "geek chic" and toward traditional star power: entertainers like Richard Gere, Sharon Stone, Angelina Jolie and the singer Bono took center stage. The rush to close the digital divide began in earnest at Davos in 1998 during the height of the dot-com era, driven by American executives like John Chambers of Cisco Systems and John Gage of Sun Microsystems.

Gates was a notable skeptic, arguing that it was more important to address basic necessities like health and food before connecting the world's poorest citizens to the Internet. Although he was widely criticized for his remarks then, he now appears to have been vindicated. Gates was in the thick of the discussions at the 2005 Davos forum - considering ways of eliminating poverty and disease that do not encompass information technology.

Negroponte said that he had found initial backing for his laptop plan from Advanced Micro Devices and that he was in discussions with Google, Motorola, News Corp. and Samsung for support."