BBC News: Low-cost PC aims at rural China
The rush to grab a share of the huge and potentially lucrative market for PCs and laptops in China continues.
Beijing-based Lenovo, which acquired IBM's PC division in 2005, has announced a low-cost computer aimed at the country's vast rural population.
The $199 (£99) machine will plug into a TV and come with educational software.
PC sales in China grew by 23% in the last quarter, according to researchers at Gartner, and its online population could overtake the US by 2009.
About 60% of China's 1.3bn residents live outside of the main urban areas. According to the World Bank around 150 million people in the country live on less than $1 a day. ...
Wonder if masses of people getting PCs, and become able to get on the Internet, will eventually become too much for the Chinese government censors....
Posted by: Dana Ames | Aug 06, 2007 at 03:32 PM
I was thinking the same thing. One of the things that cracked the Eastern block in the 1980s was people being able to receive broadcasts that showed freedom and prosperity in the West. It does make you wonder what impact this will have on folks who have long been isolated from the outside world.
Posted by: Michael W. Kruse | Aug 06, 2007 at 03:45 PM
Don't be so sure, there are major parts of the internet you don't see/read regularly. For example English is no longer the most popular language on the internet.
If there is that large a world out there that you can't see, perhaps it is possible for the firewall to be effective.
Posted by: Nate Custer | Aug 07, 2007 at 03:02 PM