Nicholas Negroponte’s project to outfit every third world child with his or her very own US $100 laptop moves one step closer to reality with the first 10 laptops shipped at a cost of US $150 each.
Called the ‘One Laptop Per Child’ project, and spearheaded by Nicholas Negroponte, these laptops are designed to be used by children in the tough conditions of third world countries, and are built to suit.
Designed as rugged machines with a handle, they feature Wi-Fi connections, a speaker and microphone, a webcam, a screen that can easily seen in the sun and come with 128MB of memory, 512MB of storage and run on the free Linux OS. A crank that was meant to deliver power has been eliminated from the final design, needing a power infrastructure - a notable omission from the prototype models that might reduce the device's usefulness in Third World countries somewhat.