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Bill Gates sees cellphones, not $100 laptops, as way to help Third World

So I’m sitting with Bill Gates at dinner and he says …

Actually, I’ve often wanted to start a barroom conversation that way but feared sounding like Commander McBragg. "Dear chap, did I ever tell you about the time I used a tablet PC to stop a charging rhino just before it gored Bill Gates and ruined our conversation about global philanthropy?" (More Tech: Kevin Maney’s blog)

Anyway, I really was with Gates at a dinner recently, and I brought up the topic of Nicholas Negroponte’s project — One Laptop Per Child. Negroponte, who founded the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, wants to make $100 laptops for the poor in developing countries. Gates, with as much respect as he ever musters for something he thinks is dumb, said it was a really bad idea. He says it would be more effective to disseminate Internet-enabled cellphones to those regions.

Full Story: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/kevinmaney/2006-01-31-gates_x.htm

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