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By David Rothman

$100 MIT computer“Potential computer users in the developing world will not want a basic $100 hand-cranked laptop due to be rolled out to millions, according to Craig Barrett, ECO of Intel.” – Reuters article in Wired News.

I myself think there’s room for both the MIT-style devices and more powerful machines–just so the Third World gizmos are more muscular than, say, the Simputer. Depends on the user. Luckily, except for the display, e-books in text form don’t require much. We’ll hope that Nicholas Negroponte and friends at the MIT Media Lab can indeed make good on their promise of a $35 display and the rest. For what it’s worth, the MIT machine will apparently use a 500Mhz AMD chip. No partisanship here, though. I myself would love Intel to jump into the fray with a hardware project of its own.

 
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