Professor Negroponte sees “it”

Forbes.com news service describes Professor Nicholas Negroponte as a digital visionary. Fair enough. As founder of MIT’s Media Lab (1983), author of bestselling book Being Digital (1995), and director of the One Laptop Per Child nonprofit (2005), Negroponte also has shaped the computer industry.

In xThink’s opinion, Negroponte’s vision helps us see the iPad from a different perspective. iPad shows all the signs of having “gotten it right.” The size, the speed, the finger-tip based interaction features make iPad a pleasure to use for countless digital tasks. However, from the perspective of Negroponte’s constructionist educational mission, iPad is not enough.

“[The iPad] is lovely, but it’s not a constructionist device,” he says. “Ours will have cameras and a haptic screen [that vibrates in response to touch]. It will be more open, run flash and be more of a computer instead of a peripheral device.” (SOURCE: http://www.forbes.com/2010/05/26/olpc-ipad-apple-technology-negroponte.html?boxes=Homepagechannels)

“Peripheral device.” That hurts. We really do love our iPads at xThink. But Negroponte has a point. This new generation of tablets led by iPad emphasize their entertainment value. Eventually tablets need to appeal to humankind’s age-old hunger to learn and solve problems. There a several ways to go about this:

• Negroponte’s way:
  Create a tablet with price and functionality that exceeds the value proposition of iPad, especially with respect to the need for education in poor communities around the world.
• iPad user community’s way:
  Members of the iPad user community are pushing the envelope of iPad’s “peripheral” functionality in countless ways, making iPad a tool for their work and creative expression and problem solving (beyond socializing and passive consumption). One example is mentioned in another xThink blog: http://wp.me/pRTdf-19
• iPad App developers’ way:
  iPad Application developers are finding ways to adapt iPad. This is not Apple’s responsibility. Tablets are a platform. Many excellent tablet products are in the pipeline, including Negroponte’s upcoming device. What’s missing is the software, for example, software tools that work to inspire students in STEM education (science, technology, engineering, mathematics).

Developers must find the right combination of user interface, content, interactivity, visualization, intelligent search, and so on, to build the tools (portals for exploring what is known and generating new knowledge) in support of the next generation of developers. Negroponte sees this necessity, and adds to “it” his own exceedingly noble crusade to commodify hardware, to get computers into the hands of every child.

[Idea for a future blog entry: "The obligation of software developers to self-replicate."]