MIT's $100 Laptop Inches Closer to Reality

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news.php?newsId=1972' target='_blank'>http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news.php?newsId=1972</a><br /><br /></div><i>"MIT has unveiled its $100 hand-cranked laptop computer to the United Nations technology summit in Tunisia and said that it hopes to make millions of the devices to give to the poorest people in the world. The lime-green machines, which are about the size of a text book, will offer wireless connectivity via a mesh network of their own creation allowing peer-to-peer communication and operate in areas without a reliable electricity supply...the computers operate at 500 MHz, about half the processor speed of commercial laptops, and will run on Linux rather than Microsoft’s or Apple’s Operating systems as previously hoped by the two companies."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/100-dollar-mit-laptop.jpg" /><br /><br />This is the first time I've seen the device in pictures, and while it's not exactly aesthetically pleasing, the target audience is largely school children, and it's likely going to be built tough enough to take a significant amount of damage. It won't be produced until the end of 2006 or early 2007, so I'm hoping nothing will go wrong with the project. I'd easily pay $100 for one of these. In fact, maybe they should sell them to general consumers for $200 and use the $100 to have one unit bought for a child in an under-privileged country.

[mrozema]

Wow! I'd pay $200 for one of those... Maybe more knowing the extra cash is going to help those who need it.
If they ended up being available in consumer markets, I'm sure they would be as popular in schools as SMART Boards. :lol:

[jeffd]

Id pay $100 to have fun with it.. but I have far better things to spend $200 on. ;)

[jlp]

some remarks:
it's the information summit not the technology summit, difference it's more politically and culturally oriented.
- however this exceptionally low price can only be achieved because it will be produced by the millions, even tens of millions and sold directly to the nation's educational bodies. Further redistribution costs will be on the education bodies'budgets. So you're welcome to place orders if you need them in such huge quantities, but you better be closely involved with a national eduction project with a poor country so you don't deprive them of those :P
- then to achive such a low price again it's not fitted with an HDD but with low storage capacity memory in the 1 GB.
- then it will probably be sold at cost, just enough to recoup R&amp;D, production and operation costs and shipment.
- so to sell it by the unit in your local shop, even on the netit will cost a lot more so 200 would NOT be enough to generate at the same time a $100 margin in favor of a child of a developing country. You better make a donation to your favorite charity organization.
- then if you look closely it's really small, these are kid's hands

[Tom W.M.]

Actually, according to this Wired News article (http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,69615,00.html?tw=rss.TOP), it'll probably cost $225 for us. And apparently the computer is a stealthed open-source infecious agent, too. :wink:

[jlp]

More details on the project page at MIT (http://laptop.media.mit.edu)

[Jason Dunn]

And apparently the computer is a stealthed open-source infecious agent, too. :wink:

Heh. There's nothing stealth about it!