>Pushing a computer on children who are in many parts of the world learning in a building that is falling apart or has no real educational infrastructure is a waste.

This is one instance of a particular project that didn't pan out well - now we can generalize to all technology ?

Anecdotal evidence - my 16 years younger brother learned to read/type and speak/write broken English (it's not our first language) by the age of 4, simply by playing along with his 14 year old brother - playing GameCube and using the computer with him or on his own. He even learned how to use powerpoint to create "games" ie. slideshow where you click on various things and then it transitions to a different slide to make it appear like it moved. At one point I had to forbid him to use the internet because he figured out how to register and write on forums for some Mario clone development site where he was downloading sprites for his powerpoint games, he was writing them tutorials on how he used their editor - which was both funny, amazing and scary - but it also shows you the his skill level, he was 6 when he did this/not in school. Again - nobody was actively teaching him anything, so unless you're suggesting that my brother is some sort of genius (which he isn't, he is smart but not a miracle child) or that my other brother is some sort of prodigy teacher I would say that acquiring those skills before school age is pretty impressive and largely due to technology.