Microprocessor company Intel Corporation has quit the board of directors for the One Laptop Per Child association (OLPC), a non-profit organization that aims to provide children in developing countries with inexpensive laptops. An Intel spokesman cited a “philosophical impasse” as the reason for the split.

Intel joined the OLPC board in July 2007, agreeing to give financial and technological support to the project. Development began on a new laptop using an Intel processor rather than the current processor made by Advanced Micro Devices, a rival of Intel. A prototype of this machine was expected to be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Les Vegas, Nevada, which begins in a few days.

According to Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy, OLPC had repeatedly asked Intel to abandon its support for the Classmate PC, a similar laptop designed for children in developing countries, and focus entirely on the OLPC program. “At the end of the day, we decided we couldn’t accommodate that request,” Mulloy said.

OLPC President Walter Bender said in an interview that Intel’s resignation will have “no impact” on the program. “We never really got much going with Intel to have an impact,” Bender said. He criticized Intel for a “seemingly half-hearted effort” in developing the new laptops and for using the agreement to make “marketing statements”.

Creative Commons Attribution 2.5

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Americans who feel bored and underpaid do work hard — at surfing the Internet and catching up on gossip, according to a survey that found U.S. workers waste about 20 percent of their working day.

An online survey of 2,057 employees by online compensation company Salary.com found about six in every 10 workers admit to wasting time at work with the average employee wasting 1.7 hours of a typical 8.5 hour working day.

Personal Internet use topped the list as the leading time-wasting activity according to 34 percent of respondents, with 20.3 percent then listing socializing with co-workers and 17 percent conducting personal business as taking up time.

The reasons why people wasted time were varied with nearly 18 percent of respondents questioned by e-mail in June and July said boredom and not having enough to do was the main reason.

The second most popular reason for wasting time was having too long hours (13.9 percent), being underpaid (11.8 percent), and a lack of challenging work (11.1 percent).

“While a certain amount of wasted time is built into company salary structures, our research indicates that companies with a challenged and engaged workforce can expect more productivity in return,” said Bill Coleman, chief compensation officer at Salary.com.

While the amount of time wasted at work seems high, Coleman said the numbers have improved, with the amount of time wasted dropping 19 percent since Salary.com conducted its first annual survey on slacking at work in 2005. Then workers reported wasting 2.09 hours of their working day.

“I think (the decline) is really a result of the economy and that there’s more business, more work available and less time to sit around wondering what you are going to do with your day,” Coleman told Reuters.