Barry Lam - Public Computers

Public Computers

Barry Lam considers that one path for the future is the availability of public computers in conjunction with OLPC. He envisages ‘public computers' available in organizations or schools which are accessible to anyone with a PC.

“If users paid fees, the OLPC could become even cheaper. This is because when using your device, you would be actually using the resources of the public computer, so that the OLPC would not have to be equipped with computer functions at all. For instance, sending video and audio files, downloading games – depending on which game I want to play or which TV channel I want to watch – I can get them from a multimedia public computer. It could evolve into only paying for what you use, and not having to pay for what you don't use. The future, I believe, will be the age of OLPCs and public computers.”