Over the past few years there’ve been a number of attempts to make computers more accessible to people in developing markets. The OLPC project aimed to bring low-cost laptops to the world. Google and Facebook are attempting to make internet access more affordable. And Raspberry Pi‘s $35 computers show that it doesn’t take a lot of money to deliver a (somewhat) functional PC.
Now a startup called Endless has a new approach. The team has developed a reasonably low-cost desktop computer that can sell for as little as $169. But what really makes the Endless Computer unusual is Endless OS operating system which is designed to be simple, powerful, and capable of providing value whether you have an internet connection or not.
The developers are running a Kickstarter campaign for Endless Computers and plan to ship the first systems in June.
Endless has already developed the computers and the operating system (which is based on Fedora Linux and the GNOME desktop environment), and according to an article in VentureBeat the team plans to target Mexico and Gautemala at launch before expanding in Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East. The Kickstarter campaign is mostly designed to raise awareness (and a money for a marketing budget).
The computer itself is a funny looking machine with a red bottom and an eggshell-like plastic dome on top. The PC features an Intel Celeron N2807 Bay Trail dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM, one USB 3.0 port, two USB 2.0 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet jack, HDMI and VGA ports, and a stereo headphone jack.
The $169 model features 32GB of eMMC storage. Add $20 and you can get 802.11b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0.
For $229 you can get a model with WiFi, Bluetooth, and integrated speaker, and a 500GB hard drive.
You can also pledge $224 or more to give a computer to someone in Guatemala through a partnership with Habitat for Humanity. The money pays for a computer, plus a keyboard, mouse, taxes, shipping, and installation.
You’ll need to supply a keyboard, mouse, and display for each model. In other words, while they certainly aren’t expensive, Endless Computers aren’t necessarily the most affordable devices aimed at developing markets. But it does have a few features that could help it succeed in areas where internet access is spotty at best.
First, the OS comes with over apps pre-loaded, including software that does not require an internet connection. While there’s a web browser, there are also games, reference materials with health, recipe, farming, and other info, educational apps, and more.
The user interface is also designed to be phone-like, featuring an app store, a home screen populated by app icons and a search bar. In many markets smartphones are more common than PCs… but there are some things that are easier to do on a desktop computer than a phone, such as editing spreadsheets or composing documents.
Endless says its operating system “is is not meant to be jailbroken and altered,” but the open source components are accessible via Github, but the Endless app store and some other apps are proprietary. There’s also nothing stopping users from removing Endless OS and replacing it with a different operating system (although that would make Endless sad).
Clearly the idea has resonated with some folks: Endless Computers exceeded it $100,000 crowdfunding goal a few days after the campaign launched. Whether the project will actually succeed in bringing affordable computers to more people around the globe remains to be seen.
Um, you can do better than that by going with a windows computer from a major manufacturer.
windows just add cost, and you cannot customized the metro UI
their aim is for “developing markets”, people with very little resources and knowledge about computer, afaik from their website, and most likely has no internet connection.
plus the os itself provide no educational value to those who wish to learn programing.
i cant imagine using Win OS without internet, but i can imagine Linux without it.
software wise, is a good choice, with useful documentation that cant be matched
hardware wise, for the price…………
i can only say there are better choices available
Am from Tanzania, one among poor countries and windows is dominating here. Anything without windows will be failure.
In schools and universities students learn to use Microsoft software’s like word, excel etc.
$169 is not cheap you can get c2d machine with 2gb ram and 320gb for less than $120 in Tanzania
I will support kick start if they will build PC for under $60, which is possible
seems like you are in heavy influence from Bill Gates’s ‘philanthropy’; if you are all in tobacco, Coca-Cola, junk food, GMOs, etc … it’s not a coincidence. Take care!
So you are among the poorest country and use M$ software. Strange . I would’nt be suprised if you told me that you have cars instead of bicycles… It’s so much “modern”. Smartphones too?
Sending this from Fedora Linux and Midori browser.
I have to ask… Why the hell did you just put the word philanthropy in quotations, when referring to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation? As if their foundation is simply a shill to secretly push Windows on some poor unsuspecting 3rd world citizens. Then you somehow try to tie that into GMO’s?
I have no issues with Linux as an OS, but Windows does account for 90 some odd percent of the worlds workforce. Having a developing nations population learning the same tools that the rest of the globe uses is not part of some grand conspiracy, its logic. You know that word right?
“Then you somehow try to tie that into GMO’s?” you didn’t know that B. Gates was one of the great shareholders of … Monsanto? You know, the ones spreading Agent Orange on millions Vietnamese; at the time it was to bring the great values of democracy to these ignorant people; And now trying to force everyone to feed with GMOs. Bill Gates knows a thing or two about building monopolies! He’s an expert. Hence why he’s on Monsanto’s board.
“a shill to secretly push Windows” alas, not only Windows …
Ask the search engine of your choice (mine is DuckDuckGo) … type “Bill Gates Monsanto” .
“push Windows on some poor unsuspecting 3rd world citizens. ” What i appreciate in your post is that, without knowing, you are describing exactly what B. Gates is trying to do!
Your comment I believe requires no retort, as you managed to make my opinion hold more validity simply by virtue of not being full of crazy.
I believe we need an updated version of Godwin’s Law, which would encompass GMOs, or any other conspiracy quackery.
You want a job, you need to know MS OS and product. That’s what 99% of corporate uses all over the world.
“That’s what 99% of corporate uses all over the world.” happily, that’s not the case, at least in the server world where Windows has no more than 35%. So i have choice. That’s great.
Ummm….. Thats the figure for web servers, not servers in general. Office based servers and managed services servers are still mostly Windows Server OS.
That was also a strawman comparison, as windows as a CLIENT does have near 90% market penetration for corporations. Since we are talking about end users here, clients are what we are discussing.
And Joe from accounting is going to user a linux server OS to do his spreadsheet?
Also, nobody actually knows what the real percentage of OS servers are using in general. There’s no real statistics out there for server OS percentage other than web servers since those are public facing. As far as tech job go, good luck finding a job as IT operation/infrastructure if you only know Windows or Linux. You need to know both and some AS400.
Sorry Comrade, but paying premium for a Marxist philosophy is only for first world hipsters, such as yourself.
People in the developing world want jobs and opportunity, not to be a part of your collective that only works because you live in a fast-decaying welfare state that allows you to do nothing that someone would pay you for and still claim to be doing something people want.
would you treat Google as Marxists because, on their almost one million servers, there’s not one running Windows ?
And i expect you to know that Android is based on … Linux. Without knowing, you have maybe Linux in your pocket !
Infrastructure, backend, and mobile are completely different animals, compared to Consumer or clinet OS’s. Im a fan of Linux, hell I have a server and two clients running different flavors at my home. I swear by Android… With that said, there is not a single client or consumer based version of Linux I would suggest my non-tech oriented friends or family use as their desktop OS. The linux world is, as funny as it sounds to say, far TOO open. There are way too many ways which people think are the right way to do things. Linux takes the opposite approach to Apple’s “It just works” (which of course, it doesn’t always), thats too say that Linux has an approach of “Well it works, if you do this, and have this combination of this, this and that. But if you have this over here, then you need to look at… Read more »
clearly you dont know any other software beside those supplied by Microsoft.
alternative exist you know, like libreoffice to MS office.
“In schools and universities students learn to use Microsoft software”
if that is the case, migrating to linux is quite simple IMO, its not rocket science.
it just require little adaptation and a little willingness to change.
Wikipedia “Halloween documents”, and you will understand why you and most of the world consumer think that way.
“without windows will be failure”
many company, schools, uni and government has successfully migrated from their MS computer, despite having no previous exp with linux.
based on the data available, that statement is flawed at best
read these wiki to gain a better understanding
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt
Let see you try to get a job anywhere with libreoffice instead of MS office on your resume.
Actually a potential employee with LibreOffice tells me that candidate has the initiative to save costs and try something different. Linux users go to the top of the heap in the business unit where I work.
That’s one way to look at it, but it can also suggest the employee is untrained and it could cost more to hire that person… It all depends whether the company needs to be consistent with everyone involved… Using the same software helps ensure formatting remains the same, makes switching users and still being able to edit, collaborate, etc. can easily be done, and makes it easier to keep everyone consistently trained on the usage of the software without needing for the company to invest additional time and resources to get them there… Cost of software is only one concern, but IT, cost of training employees, finding tech support options, etc can easily out weigh the cost of the software and make a initial cost saving more costly over time… There’s also whether the software needs to work with other software and whether you need to import/export or whether the… Read more »
Lol. I need my employees to know to do their job and use excel. Ppl who look down on ms office doesn’t know how to use it. I would pay $1000 easily for excel alone because the amount time it saves.
No-one is better placed to know your business and its needs than you. If Excel does everything you want then look no further. I don’t look down on any software, much the same as I don’t look down on hammers and power saws. MS Office is a very powerful suite of tools. As a technical writer, Word was my professional staple for 10+ years and I would stack my knowledge of it against anyone out there. What irks me is when someone makes a blantantly erroneous statement that you need MS Office skills to get a job on the basis of hyperbole. There’s a lot of businesses and governments that have already migrated to LibreOffice, especially in Europe and Microsoft’s recent bickering with the British Government has resulted in MS planning to support Open Document in the next version of Office 365. For the record, I landed my current job… Read more »
i agree with that many people and client open document is certainly growing. Despite some concerns, migration are quite smooth. people preffer to stick with hat they know, and once they know MSoffice and libreoffice, many employee do not care either one as long as it doesnt distrupt their work, but as employer or manager, they prefer libre office as it is cheaper, TCO wise. @CyberGusa as an outside IT consultant & support, it is my job to provide fair trustful (my business require good referral & brand trust to operate) view regarding open source and linux soft against MS products, and provide a solutions, i earn money regarding what they choose. many of the smaller client that is considering upgrading their WIN machine, i need to calculate their TCOs. sooo from XP to windows 8/10 vs linux, even with the cost of training. TCO is cheaper on linux and… Read more »
Cheaper PCs are absolutely a good idea – in this case, if you wanted a low-power Linux box you’d do better to buy a Raspberry Pi 2, it would be adequate for running a browser, etc. and cost less. As for whether or not Linux is a viable choice instead of Windows, I would say that the overall direction for everyone is to use Office 365 or Google Docs / Sheets, which generally work fine in Chrome or Firefox on Linux.
HP Stream 11, $200 on Amazon. More expensive, but it also doesn’t need you to add keyboard, mouse and display; it’s also way more portable and has long battery life. True, you can get cheaper Linux hardware than Windows, but it’s not as big of a difference as it once was with the new low cost licence fees. There is one benefit of Linux – it will work better on a 32GB drive, though an SD card will cheaply take care of that. You can customize Windows – perhaps not as much as Linux, but I don’t see why that’s the most important issue, and it’s also not something that goes well with people who have little knowledge about computers. Windows may not come with a programming language as standard, but neither do Linux distributions such as Ubuntu (I’ve no idea about Endless). I don’t see why Windows is any… Read more »
I think they made a poor choice in terms of hardware. intel computex stick cost ~100USD, many chinese online retail sells 100++usd for a 10inch atom quadcore 32GB SSD, 2GBRAM with wifi&BT, i belive a tablet is a better choice than a nettop. raspberry pi2 is a great alternative too. you can supply 3 rpi+ peripherals for every nettop. so ya it is extremely a bad move objectively and financially. Despite their i doubt they can compete in the market with. one of their goal is education, with windows people tend to learn only how to use software. in linux however, you can learn so much more. RPi set the precedence and their teaching material can be used across many linux distro, witch useful for schools one of the reason why windows wont work without and internet, is security. without an up to date windows + antivirus, sharing files (it… Read more »
choosing linux eliminates that. No, using Linux doesn’t really eliminate issues with malware and infections… A Linux system, even if not infected, can still be a carrier of malware… For example! So you still have to be careful if you ever deal with a Windows PC and vice versa… A Linux system is also not entirely immune to malware, you are just mainly safe from malware installing itself without any permission but most malware is in fact installed by tricking users and that’s something that can be done even on Linux and once the malware has permission then it’s free to do what it wants just as much as on a Windows system… Linux is also not immune to hacking, you’re just far more likely to be hacked if running a Linux server for a major company than a personal user that hackers don’t care about… While you’re also wrong… Read more »
we r talking about using it offline here in a community that has little or no IT background , and IN THIS CASE, just carrying a malware wont alter user experience, and double clicking it wont run/install in unlike windows. you need to be in sudo, you need to mark it as executable before it can do any harm. for windows click it and click ok to the UAC pop up. for the tech illiterate, this will cause their device to slow down and heat up. impacting their experience hacking is an issue to company that dont practise good security, like using short password, restricting ip / no of attempt, etc… It exist in both Windows and Linux. but unlike windows, linux has much less vulnerabilities. also your view about hacking personal computer is wrong. Many hackers do care, it provides them with a miner, spambot, proxy, etc………. In bloatware,… Read more »
You do have a point, but what I’m pointing out is that your point tends to be exaggerated… Like exploits are possible on Linux, as they are on any system… Like, last year a Linux Malware used a Shellshock Flaw to Infiltrate Web Servers, among many other examples I could point to that show sudo isn’t always needed… The malware threat also gets exaggerated with Windows to make it sound like there’s no way you would ever have to worry with Linux… and you always have to worry with Windows… But this ignore other factors like security is only one concern to the end user and the reasons why Windows tends to be more soft on security is because of things like keeping the OS as usable and friendly as possible to end users… A truly secure OS would be one pretty much no one would want to use because… Read more »
from a security stand point i still think linux more secure than windows, despite improvement made by windows, i dont believe im exagerating, like you said. it is all based on life experience dealing with support, i still regularly see a malware deguised as the user .doc file. so i dont think im exaggerating. Risk of getting a malware in and offline can be surmise as such. days since last update * No. PC offline * no.of people using data drive that is used on both offline and network PC * no of times file exchange between offline PC * security permission lvl (1 for any file that is marked executable by default or 0.01 for not executable by default) * no. of user that has elevated privilege the higher the value = higher the risk of infections. as a home user, default in windows is always elevated privilege and… Read more »
Get your data right buddy, google it or here the what i saw on the first page of the search Sorry but my data is correct, you simply don’t see the actual reports on when there have been actual threats and vulnerabilities revealed for Linux… Most companies don’t report the full details of attacks… and unless a lot of systems get compromised or a big company has something happen like lose customer data that hackers can use for identity theft, etc. then it usually doesn’t make more than a hard to find news note… Regardless, the reality is no OS is completely secure and again, most malware doesn’t infect systems by using a vulnerability but rather tricking the user to infect their own system… You’re own examples demonstrated such examples, where a user would click something and install it and only after installation would they come to realize they had… Read more »
i have grown tired of this, as i says A u says B, i say this particular offline situtaion, you recite online situation. we seems to the communication somewhere along the line. so i repeat, in this case, in the hand of it illiterate in and offline community, linux is a better choice than windows security wise. i wont dwell further in to this. p.s some of your statement are wrong are wrong. 1. i know about all off those reports, especially the flawed 2012 zero day report, read further review of that article. and look for the statistical data as to why Windows also has old vulnerabilities that hasn’t been patch in years. 3. server (majority are linux, also im not talking about just web servers) is targeted all the time. window seems targeted more often because there are more tools available that still works, not because for the… Read more »
i know about all off those reports, especially the flawed 2012 zero day report, read further review of that article. and look for the statistical data as to why Windows also has old vulnerabilities that hasn’t been patch in years. Of course, Windows also has some old vulnerabilities… It just helps to have a company to fix the problems full time but if you want length of time I also gave a link that shows a vulnerability that took Linux over six years to patch… Anyway, you forget my primary point isn’t to suggest Windows is better but that there’s no such thing as a completely secure OS and that they all have issues, whether you think one is more vulnerable than another isn’t so simple as just security but also why!? Many of the reasons why for Windows also apply to others because many of the reasons why are… Read more »
Define, customized? Because there are customization options for Metro UI… The options are limited but there’s a difference from can’t be customized from just being limited… While most Linux software lacks documentation! Most developers don’t have time or resources to provide detailed documentation, many projects are done as hobbies and not professionally, and the books either cover only the basics or go too advance and skip over the day to day stuff… Even in the IT market, where Linux is doing far better than on the consumer desktop and even has dominance in areas like servers, many IT have to make up their own documentation and especially as many companies use custom implementations and in-house software that don’t help anyone outside of the company… Not that there’s no documentation, some are better than others, but to say everything is well document is misleading to say the least… I otherwise agree… Read more »
….
So they want to rip off poor ppl in developing country?
ECS Liva is the same spec and little price. And windows
and msi cubi if i am not rong
Subufer http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/jbl-creature/
Be far better off going with an established supported OS rather than rely on some small kickstarter company with proprietary anything.
Any number of popular Linux or other systems would be appropriate.
The idea this was ‘intended for use without internet’ seems completely contrary to the idea they spent time on a ‘proprietary’ app store.
The whole thing seems over priced and sounds hinky.
“As simple as a tablet. As powerful as a PC” – well with those specs, it’s as powerful as a tablet. And I can’t remember the last time I bought anti-virus – oh wait, I never have. Since Windows 8 no need to even have to install it. It’s good to see alternative OSs, but the promotion is all a bit misleading, and I’m not sure this is cheap considering it’s a desktop. You can get more powerful cheap desktops; or consider the Intel Compute Stick where even the Windows version is cheaper. There are also similarly priced but more portable laptops (which don’t need their own keyboard/mouse/display). Or very low cost tablets. So it seems you’re paying a lot just for a bundle of 100 “free” applications. For places where few people own computers because of the cost, this won’t change anything. For places where people own computers but… Read more »
A noble endeavor to be sure but OLPC immediately comes to mind. And I can’t help but wonder what that odd case costs to have made and how practical it is when compared to any number of off the shelf rectangular boxes.
This is not the pain point. The pain point is to have to buy a Iphone, and a laptop, and all the compatible infrastructure software service plans etc etc to keep up with the Obasanjos and Singhs, yet still relieve yourself in bushes and inhale plumes of smoke from firewood stoves.