December 2006: I was lucky enough to meet with and attend a presentation by Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder, Professor and Chairman Emeritus of the Media Laboratory at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), founder and chairman of the One Laptop per Child non-profit association and board member of Motorola Inc. He wrote the best selling book, Being Digital in 1995 which has subsequently been translated into 40 different languages and he remains a controversial and maverick figure in the technology space.
Despite using the headline of “The One Dollar Handset” to provoke a reaction from his audience (most of whole work in the mobile communications industry), the topic of his presentation largely focused on his “One Laptop per child” project which appears to be coming to fruition as the first test units come off the production line.
Below is a summary of the comments he made. Below this picture I have pasted the entire text but I have also pasted the relevant text below each slide for reference.
It should be noted that Negroponte made it clear that the views he expressed in this presentation were his own (not those of Motorola where he is a board member). He clearly reveals in given incredibly outspoken views on topics close to his heart.
Slide 1 (The One Dollar Handset)
For his opening slide (which contained the headline “The One Dollar Handset”) Negroponte used a picture taken in 1982 during a visit to Senegal – he stated that it was around this time he was first inspired as to how technology could help the poorest people in the world.
Slide 2 (Looking back)
He then went on to pick on some hot topics related to the mobile communications industry firstly lamenting the way in which the licenses for 3G spectrum were sold in the UK back in year 2000. He alleged that the decision to auction the spectrum resulted in the UK government effectively “screwing the future” for the technology given the ludicrous sums that were raised (£22.6 billion). He proudly told the story of how his comments at the time were picked up by the media and allegedly resulted in the headline “England is screwing it grandchildren” in the FT. The UK auction resulted in similar behaviour taking place across the rest of Europe and meant that the technology was “crippled before it had even started to be deployed”. Describing the “opportunity cost of 3G” as “unreasonable” he stated that it had “created a disaster as the industry has struggled for six years to try and get the technology working.” He instead argues that greater efforts should have been made to make more use of the technology that was already in existence (such as GPRS) allowing nascent services to develop rather than the desperate attempts to get services working on the immature technology that 3G offered at the time. Making an observation on recent events he announced that he thought the Chinese were “really stupid” to have their own 3G standard and described how he had met with a senior party official in the Chinese government’s communications ministry to try and persuade him to “skip” 3G and move straight to 4G. (Notably Negraponte did not define what he thought 4G was although his enthusiasm for WiFi and 802.11 technologies might suggest it would be a variant of that technology similar to WiMax).
Continuing with the theme of the 3G auctions which he regarded as “ludicrous” he went on to contend that there is no such thing as spectrum scarcity – simply a market where spectrum has been regulated into scarcity. He used a wonderful analogy to describe how spectrum had been recklessly distributed in the 1940’s and 1950’s with big wide tracts of spectrum being allocated with enormous buffer zones (guard bands) wide enough for a “drunk driver to safely drive home” down the spectrum highway. Furthermore he said that the decision to sell spectrum like “real estate” meant that the value of spectrum had appreciated dramatically. Therefore any efforts to reallocate spectrum more efficiently result in costly compensation for those who “have used the real estate to build swaths of houses” making it highly problematic to reallocate spectrum as communications technology becomes more efficient (e.g. collaborative radios).
Another area where he passed comment was in the area of subsidies. The slide contained a bullet point saying “subsidy worked” but I wonder whether this was a typo as he stated that “subsidies are truly a mistake and the faster they can be removed the better”. He stated that be did not believe that subsidies would last much longer. He also made the observation that for the traditional telcos and mobile carriers / operators competition is not now from within (other telcos) but it comes in the form of fast moving Internet upstarts such as Google and Yahoo.
Slide 3: (Looking forward)
Turning to the future Negroponte expressed his belief in a number of technologies including software defined radio (SDR) combined with Meta standards. He believes that the future lies in configuring the radio capabilities and settings for a device over the air using technology known as software defined radio in order to make it possible for any device to be used on any spectrum band. Borrowing from the web he stated that some form of Meta tagging could be used to manage this process and the interaction with the network.
Turning to the current structure for the sale of airtime and subscriptions on GSM networks he launched an attack on mobile operators telling them that they should learn from Swiss watch maker Swatch. Challenging the audience to tell him what the name Swatch is derived from he informed them that rather than being “Swiss Watch” (as many people believe it to be) it was in fact “Second Watch.” The founder of Swatch (Nicolas Hayek) had understood the need to break out of the paradigm of people only having one watch. He urged network operators to offer multiple SIM cards on the same number and bill stating that people should have “10, 15,….20 connected devices.” He also raised a laugh from the audience when he said that moving your number from one device to another should “not be a fingernail breaking experience” – alluding to the difficulty around removing a SIM card from a mobile phone.
He went on to describe how he believes the mobile industry is “at the foothills” of a peer to peer world and that the world will evolve into a place where services are centred around “peer to peer” everything.
Finally he addressed the issue of ever changing form factors for mobile phones. This gave him an opportunity to discuss one of the topics which is clearly very close to his heart (based on this presentations and discussions prior to his speech). He is clearly frustrated by the relentless drive by manufacturers to keep adding features to devices (both phones and laptops) to compensate for the natural tendency for average selling prices (ASPs) to drop. Referring specifically to laptops he described “a natural fattening process” resulting in software getting so fat that its performance is detrimentally affected. He stated that this fattening process meant that “the fat lady can’t sing anymore.” He went on to state that new, high spec laptops (such as the latest dual core models) “are slower than they were three years” citing that you constantly have to struggle to turn them off and turning them on takes so long its painful. His concluding thoughts on this theme were that “technology obesity does not work” and that “adding features is unsustainable.”
Slide 4 (New Forms)
Echoing previous comments Negroponte cited the recently launched Motofone from Motorola. He stated that he had been instrumental in driving Motorola to create this product which is designed specifically for emerging markets with a cost of less that $30 to manufacture. The phone uses pioneering e-ink technology for its display offering a lower cost solution while requiring dramatically less battery power.
Negroponte articulated a vision where all components will be delivered using a “roll to roll printing” process where “cellphone can be manufactured like magazines in three to four years time” obviating the need for multi million dollar semiconductor fabs. (This was greeted with considerable scepticism from the audience).
The next topic was “peripherals” which he believes will become central to all devices. He lamented the term “accessories” which is widely used for mobile phones, iPods etc. stated that this was the wrong term as it gave the expectation of “expensive leather cases from companies like Gucci.” Instead he made it clear that he believed that a family of peripherals was essential for any technology device.
Another area Negroponte focused on was the requirement to deliver devices that are “inexpensive not cheap.” He stated that it is of course possible to “use cheap components and cheap designs with cheap labour to deliver cheap products” but what you end up with is a product that “looks cheap, feels cheap and performs cheap” (i.e. is unreliable).
The philosophy he has used for the $100 laptop is to use high advanced processes (manufacturing, component design etc.), deliver high volumes and high scale integration which in turn should deliver a better product.
The final bullet point gave Negroponte the chance to take a swipe at Microsoft when he discussed the “laptop vs phone” comments that had been made by Bill Gates. He believed the $100 laptop had got a lot of criticism from Microsoft because “it is an open-source Linux box”. He told the audience that Bill Gates had responded to comments about the $100 laptop project by saying “Geez – use a cellphone.” Negroponte challenged this view saying that although he loves mobile phones he does not believe they are suited to educational requirements such as reading a book and that Bill Gate’s idea of “taking the cellphones and connecting them to a TV” was no alternative as it was highly unlikely that those watching a soap on the TV (should they be able to afford a TV) would be happy to stop to let a child do their homework. He also made the observation that in the developing world it is not uncommon for there to be 7 or 8 children in every family and there the model of them all connecting their cellphones to the family TV would not work.
Slide 5:
This slide showed a picture of a group of children holding laptops in the air. The story behind the slide was the fact that the average annual income for people in the village where the picture was taken was $47. In what I believe to be artistic license for the purposes of the presentation Negroponte stated that the first English word these children learnt was “Google” and that they all communicated via Skype as there were no phone lines or power in the village. In what I believe to be an even more extraordinary use of artistic licence he stated that the first time the children had been shown a mobile phone they did not know what it was and asked if it was “a Skype”…..
Slide 6: What is: One Laptop per child?
Negroponte described how he went to a company to try and get support to build a key component for his new laptop and having described what he needed was told that it “did not fit with the strategic direction of the company.” As he went to leave the meeting he mentioned that he was looking to sell 100 to 150 million units per year and that the executive he was meeting changed his tune saying that “perhaps we can change our strategic direction.” The moral of the short anecdote was that “big numbers make it possible to change corporate strategy.” He fully believes the success of the project will be able “scale, scale, scale” and that being global is “crucial.” The organisation plans to launch in 2007 with shipments of 3 to 5 million units in 2007 and with shipments of 150 million units in 2008. He wants the device to be owned by the children so they can take it home and “use it seamlessly.”
Responding to an allegation that had been made by a senior Intel executive about the $100 laptop being “merely a gadget” he stated that he had humbly decided not to comment instead choosing to “let the bloggers eat him up.” That said he did go on to describe his delight at irony of hearing subsequently that Intel was also targeting the low cost laptop market (presumably related to the UMPC developments Intel is undertaking).
Slide 7: Partners
Partners the “One Laptop per child” organisation is working with.
Slide 8:
The original design and much publicised design concept for the $100 laptop. Commenting on this Negroponte stated that “it could never have worked technically” but the resultant publicity was invaluable.
Slide 9:
Specification for the $100 laptop: The key feature that Negroponte highlighted here was the very low power consumption of the screen which requires less than 2 watts of power (compared to 30 to 45 watts on a typical laptop). This means it can be human powered.
The screen is transmissive and reflective making it possible for the device to be used in bright sunlight.
Other key features are the WiFi mesh technology allowing the devices to mesh together to form a network. This uses an 802.11s (WiFi mesh) standard that his team helped define.
Slide 10:
The device in book / gaming mode
Slide 11:
The device in standard laptop mode
I failed to capture any shots of the user interface pictures that Negroponte showed – it was highly innovative and very much orientated around “presence” with icons showing where users were and whether they were on-line etc..
Slide 12:
The device with its “ears” up. Apparently the “ears” deliver a 6db gain when using Wireless LAN (WiFi).
Slide 13:
A picture of the first devices coming off the production line (in China?) – apparently Negaponte had to break the strict rules about taking photographs in a manufacturing facility to get this shot.
Slide 14:
One of the “peripherals” related to the device. This is a “hand charger” to charge the battery.
Slide 15:
Global deployment plan – apparently there are 6 target markets where the $100 laptop will first be deployed. I can’t remember what the colour codes meant but I think red was first trial deployment and yellow / orange was something to do with governmental interest.
Slide 16 (Summary and Side Effects)
The final rant: Negroponte has an irrational dislike of the CAPS LOCK key. He sees no point for it and delighted in telling the audience that he was going to remove it from his device.
Other key conclusions:
– Commitment to Open Source software (Linux)
– Determination not to deliver obese / bloated software – he wants to stop “featuritis”
– Focus on power efficiency
– Belief in peer to peer communications
PS: With thanks to David Wood who reviewed this piece and shared his notes from the speech as well.
If you found this interesting you might also want to look at: www.netevents.org/recent-eventsdetail.php?id=10 which has a transcript of an interview with Nicholas Negroponte at another event he spoke at – it contains similar themes.
