Cuba Lifts Ban on Home Computers

ianare writes "The first legalized home computers have gone on sale in Cuba, the latest in a series of restrictions on daily life which President Raul Castro has lifted in recent weeks. The desktop computers cost almost $800, in a country where the average wage is under $20 a month, but some Cubans do have access to extra income. Internet access remains restricted to certain workplaces, schools and universities on the island which the government claims is due to low bandwidth availability. Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is laying a new cable under the Caribbean, but it remains unclear whether once the connection is completed, the authorities will allow unrestricted access to the internet."

Re:This is not news...

[Anonymous Coward]

This happened more than a month ago.

I guess they haven't worked out the latency issue yet.

Re:This is not news...

[Dogtanian]

At $800 for a new PC, I think that Cubans are going to resort to doing what they did with cars; taking pre-revolution ones and keeping them going for 40-50 years.

Unfortunately, I think they'll have trouble getting the valves/tubes for those old 1950s models, and they probably won't be of a high enough spec to run the latest malware.

Let's hope . . .

[cashman73]

. . . that they don't follow in Nigeria's footsteps. The last thing we need is for some Cuban to start emailing our grandparents asking for help to get some hidden money off of the island into an American bank!

DEAR AMERICANO - I HAVE BEEN LIVING CUBA SINCE 1951. MY FATHER HAS STASHED AWAY 500 MILLION BILION CUBAN PESSOS IN BASEMENT HERE IN HABANNNNA. HE ALSO HAS LARGE SUPPLY OF CUBBAN CIGARILLOS THAT HE BEEN QUIETLY TAKING ONE PER DAY SINCE 1962 FROM CIGAR FACTORY. HE NEEEDS HELP GETTING THEM OFF OF THE ISLAND INTO AMERIKA. PLEASE SEND YOUR BANK ACCOUNT INFORMATION AND WE SPLIT THIS, GIVE YOU 10% OF PROFITTS. GRACIAS!

American business/citizens to get in trouble?

[sjwest]

I imagine that there will be copies of Microsoft windows on pc's, and the dvd's will have a fee paid to hollywood licensing body at the mpiaa. Will Steve Balmer find himself in American prison for selling to Cuba ? Since no doubt some of this money comes from outside Cuba, are not the citizens of America helping propping up Fidel and his cronies. Will the bank records be used to hunt down these people. The US Treasury should be vigilant and like it did with the cuban inspired domain names enforce the laws to stop trade with Cuba (and covered here on Slashdot). Theres also the patent aspects, somebody in Cuba must be in breach of some us pto patents.

Re:This is not news...

[krakass]

America certainly has no morales anyway, their treatment of Cuba over the past 50 years has been disgusting!! War on terror, what the fuck are they doing in Cuba......Scumbags!! Wake up and stop listening to your bullshit controlled media.

Well the government is working on immigration reform

Re:This is not news...

[jbengt]

America certainly has no morales anyway

What does the president of Bolivia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales/ [wikipedia.org] have to do with computers in Cuba?

They Can Have Vista!

[FurtiveGlancer]

I'd be happy to send them every copy of Vista that I own, but that might scare them back into severe isolation.

Re:Censorship or bandwidth problem?

[0111 1110]

The main problem I see is that they are using mostly unlicensed copy of windows

How is that a problem? I have never used a licensed copy of windows.

Chavez is laying a new cable under the Caribbean

[g0at]

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is laying a new cable under the Caribbean

Mr. Chavez is doing this himself, personally? Wow. That's worthy of international applause. I can't see either of our North American heads of state dirtying their hands to dig cable trench across a local field, let alone beneath an entire sea!

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[account_deleted]

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Re:This is not news...

[Quattro Vezina]

The fact that we don't need to rely on ourselves, the fact that we have other people do our dirty work for us, that makes us Superior.