HERE’S an update on the ambitious $100 laptop project.
Excerpt:
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The founder of the ambitious “$100 laptop” project, which plans to give inexpensive computers to schoolchildren in developing countries, revealed Thursday that the machine for now costs $175, and it will be able to run Windows in addition to its homegrown, open-source interface.
Nicholas Negroponte, the former director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab who now heads the non-profit One Laptop Per Child project, updated analysts and journalists on where the effort stands, saying “we are perhaps at the most critical stage of OLPC’s life.”
That’s partly because at least seven nations have expressed interest in being in the initial wave to buy the little green-and-white “XO” computers - Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Pakistan, Thailand, Nigeria and Libya - but it remains unclear which ones will be first to pony up the cash. The project needs orders for 3 million machines so its manufacturing and distribution effort can get rolling.
The ever-optimistic Negroponte didn’t sound worried, however: He expects mass production to begin by October, and he said many other countries, including Peru and Russia, have been inquiring about taking part.
May 5th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Janette, is it true that the laptop can perform a daisy-chain-of-sort wireless networking, wherein the laptop nearest a wireless internet gateway can “pass” the connection farther along the line?
April 29th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
100 USD? hmm wonder what apps it could run, or what specs it runs at.
April 29th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
I was able to try the laptop and I think it poses a lot of implementation and support challenges. The countries who may benefit the most from it are not the richest ones that have expenditures and projects needing higher prioritization.
April 28th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
[...] @play : $100 laptop now costs $175 [...]