0

By David Rothman

$100 MIT computerThe $100 MIT laptop for the Third World actually may end up a $115 laptop, according to info picked up by a CNET article, but who cares? The price will inevitably come down. Best of all, it looks as if the machine really will end up in the hands of schoolchildren in the Third World by late 2006. From CNET:

The final design, shown for the first time here, incorporates a low-power display designed by project engineer Mary Lou Jepsen that’s designed to run for up to 40 minutes in black-and-white mode with 1 minute of cranking.

The case color is a combination of a lime green and a yellow hue reminiscent of No. 2 pencils. “It was the hardest decision,” said Negroponte, who runs the One Laptop Per Child nonprofit group that’s organizing the effort. “We wanted to use color because it’s a message of playfulness.”

Another perspective: Hundred dollar laptops may make good table lamps, from if:book.

As it turns out, Negroponte wasn’t able to get past the screen lock on the slick lime-green device, so the mob of assembled journalists and technofiles had to accept the 100 dollar gospel on faith, making do with touching anecdotes about destitute families huddled in wonder around their child’s new laptop, the brightest source of light in their tiny hovel. All told, an inauspicious beginning for the One Laptop Per Child intitiative, which aims to put millions of cheap, robust, free-software-chugging computers into the hands of the world’s poorest children.

Sorry to be so snide, but we were watching the live webcast from Tunis yesterday… it’s hard not to laugh at the leaders of the free world bumbling over this day-glo gadget, this glorified Trapper Keeper cum jack-in-the-box (Annan ended up breaking the hand crank), with barely a word devoted to what educational content will actually go inside, or to how teachers plan to construct lessons around these new toys….

Also see a press release and Ed Week. Key info from Reuters article there: “The laptop is not yet in production but one company has offered to build it for $110 and four others are considering bids as well, he [Negroponte] said.

 
0