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I would like to buy one too - the crank up idea is nice! I wonder what the software is like. I wonder if it will be able to run Windows 98 instead of (presumably) Linux?

I wouldn't think so, as it would depend on the microprocessor (arm, mips, m68k, or x86) or chipset used. Though x86 chips can technically reach the low power requirements, the cost of them in mass production would be debatably more then an equivalent arm/mips/m68k chip. Especially if the processor and chipset are to be put on the same ic (a la PS2).

Even using an x86 chip windows 98 would have to support the bus and chipset used, which would either be custom or built from very cheap components, made in the last few years. Since windows 98 is EOL and they've already commited to linux, it would be in their best interest to not even consider whether it could run any windows os, and just get something the linux kernel has support for, or they could create support for.

And yet I believe the main researcher met with Bill Gates and announced the machines would be capable of running Windows...

I'm pretty confident Microsoft will regard this as any commercial area and apply strategic moves to gain influence over this project on their own. For instance they can pressure governments to install Windows after the purchase has been made. The least they will do is surely to build a custom made version of Windows that will run on this special piece of hardware. Of course Apple will try to offer their fruits as well.

Microsoft and Apple simply cannot defend the decision not to make this move. Why? Because they cannot afford risking that people will notice Linux's growing market share, even if it is with the poorest children in the poorest countries.

They'll probably just port Windows Mobile to it.

I have heard that that the machine with be running a 500 MHz AMD Geode, a embedded x86 processor.

"I wonder if it will be able to run Windows 98 instead of (presumably) Linux?"

Why would you want to downgrade?

Especially downgrade as far as that.

I wonder if it will be able to run Windows 98 instead of (presumably) Linux

I hope not !

Dood(ettes) unless you are a Linux developer coding software specifically optimized for this laptop, why do you want one?

Because you can get it cheap? Because it's a cool toy?

Hit eBay if you want an older low power laptop, or shell out and buy a bells and whistles PDA.

This laptop is adressing a need in emerging nations, and every time it lands in the hands of one of us, it's taking it out of the hands of a kid who whose life this could revolutionize.

The cheap cell phone and the proliferation of cell phone networks has changed (and saved) lives in the rural 3rd world.

This program will not only bring the information revolution to the 3rd world (and ultimately spur movements for more just and democratic governments) but it's what's going to kick the Linux/OSS movement into high-gear. Not only will the feedback garnered lead to improvements in Linux as a desktop OS, we're planting the seeds of a new generation of coders.

Personally I can't wait until this program gets off the ground so I can donate to it and hopefully change the lives of several children and their families.

This laptop is adressing a need in emerging nations, and every time it lands in the hands of one of us, it's taking it out of the hands of a kid who whose life this could revolutionize.

Every one of these laptops purchased by us means profit for the company and drives manufacturing costs down meaning through massive volume that same $100 laptop could fastly become the $50 laptop for 3rd world kids.

The only problem i have with this guy is that it ignores the poor Kids in America, latin America and other western nations that could benifit from a cheap laptop.

In US and Europe the laptop will be sold for about $200.
The extra $100 will be used to subsidize another laptop for a child

While 200$ can be expensive I could consider it. For 150$ I will find quite fair to give one third of the money to third world nations ( hey, it even sounds like a good slogan ).

But I consider that it can be an important tool for adults. They need to know the who much does the coffee cost in the London market. They need to send emails to Germany and Japan, this way they will benefict from globalization and be able to commit with UE and UUEE coroporations.

Remember the APPLE, Microsoft Lobby is STRONG here in America and surrounding areas! You would never get this into poor schools etc in America because those places are controled by Apple and MS.

And we claim to be "open" in America. Only open if big business can make big money.

Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has expressed interest in purchasing a laptop for every elementary school student in Massachusetts.

Granted, this is Massachusetts, the place whose IT department decided to try to move away from Microsoft...

The only problem i have with this guy is that it ignores the poor Kids in America, latin America and other western nations that could benifit from a cheap laptop.

Agreed. I'd like to see them or something very close to them (no need for a crank) offered to any US school district where 30% of the population meets the criteria for poverty level.

And yes, these little machines would do wonders in Latin, Central, and South America.

Every one of these laptops purchased by us means profit for the company and drives manufacturing costs down meaning through massive volume that same $100 laptop could fastly become the $50 laptop for 3rd world kids.

The only problem i have with this guy is that it ignores the poor Kids in America, latin America and other western nations that could benifit from a cheap laptop.

Well, first of all, I don't think they are trying to do it for profit and, I imagine that, at $100, there's not much profit to be had anyway. You also have to worry about suppliers being able to get them the parts they need. If they start selling them casually, they could create a shortage for kids who could really benefit from it.

Also, these are being purchased for children via charitable donation or by their governments. If America wanted to buy laptops for its children, it would. Of course, someone would, no doubt, label this welfare and open another can of worms.

Well, first of all, I don't think they are trying to do it for profit and, I imagine that, at $100, there's not much profit to be had anyway. You also have to worry about suppliers being able to get them the parts they need. If they start selling them casually, they could create a shortage for kids who could really benefit from it.

You totally missed my point. I am not talking about profit i am talking about bringing the manufacturing costs down by selling it in volume. Once that happens they may be able to sell the same laptop for $50 instead of $100. $50 is a huge price difference in alot of countries and would ultimatly put a laptop in more peoples hands at that price.

I believe the people in the project were considering, at least at one point, selling differently-colored models (so as to clearly distinguish them from the childrens' models) of the computer for $300 to interested consumers. The consumer would get a computer, and know that they'd paid for two more machines to be delivered to children.

That is the reply I was going to make. Thanks for putting it so well. If it costs $100 to make, sell me one for $250, give another to someone who really needs it, and invest the other $50 in making the next version even better.

I prefer selling it at the same $100 to everyone to bring the voulme sales up and costs to make them down. I would sooner buy 2 for $200 then one for $250 since i can get a used laptop with about the same specs or better for $250. Most people are motivated by bang for the buck and not some idea that they are helping out their fellow man.

"this may sound cruel but we need to stop saving lives."
Funny how easy that is to say when you and your loved ones arent the ones doing the dying...

Holy crap, these people aren't fish or cattle! How about bring down their war-mongering dictators down? Hmm, no, then the US/Canadian mining companies would go down the drain.

I don't think anyone would suggest that geeks should have access to them at the expense of the target users. But I do think that the device, or something similar, would definitely have appeal to a wider audience as well. I bet university students would snatch them up, as would writers/journalists - I know several print journalists with those little Dana palmOS devices.

They also wanted to make it stand out that this is a student laptop. They are hoping the stigma created by creatign an easily reconizable laptop for schools will cut down on people stealing them.

Also the small 1gb storage limits it to some learning/communicating usage like e-mail, web and ebooks and some educational software. Many end-users will still want the full monty with a big HD to store movies, mp3s or whatever.

Now, having teached to a class full os students who have a laptop in front of them, I can tell you not being able to silently run Doom3 is a plus for learning :-)

steve jobs offerd free os x for these devices...

as for the colors, well it stands out like a kids toy should do

maybe they will make one in a more neutral color that can be sold in richer areas of the world?
oh wait, the page says it will not be for sale, bummer...

Edited 2005-11-17 21:49

steve jobs offerd free os x for these devices...

Which was very generous of him (and Apple) but OS X is a pretty resourse intensive OS and though I've run it on a G3 350 with acceptable performance, I also had a good amount of ram.

and i guess that is one of the reasons it was turned down.

It's not easy being green ...

that is unless your a ninja turtle

that is unless your a ninja turtle

Didn't Seymour Papert have something to do with turtles

The webcast states they will allow companies to sell them for a profit to the general population; however, let will be providing for school kids and teachers lower prices

interesting as the mit page on it:

http://laptop.media.mit.edu/

clearly states that they will not be for sale...

but i guess they are refering to the ones given away to school children, and that they cant be sold of as second hand items...

btw, i see people are commenting those arms. clearly they are the arms of a adult person. therefor the keyboard will be compareable to a laptop keyboard.

only that the touchpad have been increased in size so that it can be used as a handwriting pad...

Edited 2005-11-18 00:11

"steve jobs offerd free os x for these devices..."

all parts offered at under market prices were rejected as that distorts the real price of the machine. $100 is about the real market cost of the machine.
No knocked-down price screws, plastics, or flash memories were used at all. Everything is common market price and thus one company offering a knocked-down part cannot hold the venture to ransom later.


Steve jobs can give away his own laptops at $100 if he so chooses no matter how much they cost to make.

I like that Green colour! Funky!

There is no hard drive. The system uses a 1 gigabyte flash memory chip (for durability. This is supposed to be used by small children)

"There is no hard drive. The system uses a 1 gigabyte flash memory chip (for durability. This is supposed to be used by small children)"

Heh. Apparently somebody has no idea just how clumsy adults can be! I break things all the time *grumble*

Oh i dont know this win98 computer runs just fine,
and there are alot of win98 machines in this part of
the world still, and i have xp machines as well, but
98 is still quite useful, and runs very fast.
winxp can run fast too, but needs more horsepower.

Do you have some confirmed source that it will be x86 AMD cpu? (because AMD has in the ~500MHz "system on a chip" range BOTH x86 and MIPS parts...and using MIPS could make some sense: "OK, we'll sell you component for this laptop 0,1$ above costs if you'll assure us it won't undermine our main profit source - Windows PCs". Also, source for 128MB of ram would be very helpfull to me (I have enough of people who claims that I'm wrong and the laptop will have 1GB of RAM...)

PS. I want one...because it'll be the only laptop I coild afford in predictable time. Also, finally, there's a chance for cheap laptop that allows looong work on battery.

" However, I do not see how having computers will make kids learn any better."

aside from the fact that they will learn to use a comuter which in itself is a valuable/necessary skill in most developed nations.

every computer represents a text book that can be updated for cheap, its a calculator to help do math with big numbers. it allow acces to the internet and constantly updating teaching aids.

> Negroponte has substantially diminished the utility of the laptops
Or maybe he has substantially increased the utility of the laptops. The governments will have the possibility to adopt the programs to their own needs and the children will be able to play with the code as well.

Actually, it was rejected because it doesn't fit what the developers need. The developers need a system that can run fast on a 500 MHz AMD Geode processor with 128 MB of RAM and very little 3D graphics capability, and that doesn't take up much room on the flash drive. Mac OS X, as a complete operating system designed for much more powerful machines, will not be blazing fast on such a machine.

Either way, to achieve a consistent and speedy computer system on those specs requires a lot of tweaking, localization, and careful selection of programs. I doubt Apple would allow the developers to fiddle with Mac OS X internals that much, and I doubt the developers would like waiting for Apple to make such modifications for them.

The hunger gap cannot be filled. Should you send clothing for example, most of it will end up on the gray market and in the process will destroy anyone trying to make the product locally. This is better. Gapping the digital divide with boost economies and in the process solve manifold issues.

As to these laptops being mis-allocated, if you watch the web cast they have a very lengthy discussion on how this will be combated.

How do you grow food if you don't have the skills, equipment or means? How do you make fresh water if you don't know how to make proper wells.

First you need to get countries like the US out of these areas digging for oil and messing up the water! Then you give them something like this laptop and show them how to go on the internet and look up how to make good wells and grow better food. Shoot if a person can look up how to make a bomb I am sure a person can look up how to dig a better well, how to make cleaner water etc!

And that is the key! Knowlege!

The other thing I love about this is that if you were to give them say MAC os, the best you can do is learn to make applications for the Mac and Apple will always control the platform. Don't do what apple likes and they pull the platform from under you. With Linux not only can people learn to make Linux applications but they can make their own platforms that no company like Apple can come along and pull from under you. That is true freedom!

The device will be used as a learning tool.. not a as computing tool. You might use your computer only as a toy, but for many people it's not one.

Outside all the now essential tools like a web-browser and an e-mail client, just by using electronic books you can have:

- up to date books
- instant efficient search
- real time information
- easy, clean, readable, searchable, backupable, shareable annotations

Up to date books seem important to me. The history book we had in school in Switzerland in 1980-1990 did have some evident flaws (eg. plain complacent lies about WW2). Changing it required moving (political) mountains and also a lot of print-industry work. If books were structured like wikipedia and could get updated easily with time I think they would be updated more often and small (as well as big) errors would be fixed ASAP. This would be beneficial not only for third world countries.

When used correctly and with the right software I am pretty certain a computer can be more efficient than 20 kg of plain old books.

As for "the hunger gap" I don't see the relation. Should US and European kids stop learning how to read because others are actually being used as soldiers in other countries? What's the relation really? I am pretty sure we'd have slave robots before children stop being exploited. And well, that might solve the problem in the end.

You are right!

And as the saying goes: Give a man a fish he will eat for a day, teach him how to fish and he will always have food.

All we do is send money and food to places like different countries in Africa, Latin America etc, yet we don't teach anything to anyone! And then we get mad when warlords (Thet we helped arm) take the food and steal the money!

It makes no sence to me! That is why I think this laptop plan (If managed right) can be a BIG boon to poor people!

I don't think they're planning on selling these laptops to children in dirt-poor countries where people can't get food or water and the laptop would more than likely be stolen by maurading warlords or sold by desperate parents within a month.
We're talking about giving an educational leg up in places like Taiwan and India, Germany, and the United States, where there's already a high level of technical sophistication and somewhat better and more secure conditions.

...but become strangely tight-fisted when it's suggested that they do the same through their taxes for children in their own country.

This somewhat reminds me of "To Kill a Mockingbird"... When they are talking about the Mrunas, but not seeing that Black people is suffering right here in Alabama...

(from http://laptop.media.mit.edu/faq.html )
...
Its founding members are AMD, Brightstar, Google, News Corporation, and Red Hat, all of whom have funded both OLPC and the MIT Media Lab.

As soon as Gnome turn usable, it will be a very good option. A new system, easy to use, high performance with low resource. Linux runs very good with 64mb of ram, and Gnome also will!

"hell, some kids in the USA still don't have PCs"

Again, these are being purchased via charitable donation or their governments. If we, as a country, decide that we want to provide computers to poor children, we do it. I don't see why some people have such a problem with making technology available to other parts of the world, especially when it's not costing the complaining party a dime.

Edited 2005-11-18 16:20

That is because you got _used_ to having the ctrl-key in a certain place. Do you remember it used to be below the "Tab" key, where the "Caps Lock" is now mostly? And some people would argue _that_ was the correct place for the Ctrl key.

This will be the first computer for most of the users. They won't have any pre-learned motorics about key placement. Hence, the position of the "Ctrl" key does not matter at all.