The Times has an interesting article about a plan to get low-cost laptops to children in the developing world. To keep costs down, the computers will use Linux, an open source operating system, instead of Windows. The article reports that Bill Gates doesn’t think it’s a good idea to use laptops to connect the world’s poor to the web and that cell phones would be better. Is this a surprise?

–Dean Baker

Dean Baker is senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. He is the author of several books, including Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer. Read more about Dean.