IP Democracy: MIT's $150 Laptop Could Become Top Selling PC

The New York Times’ John Markoff has this upbeat piece today about Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child initiative, a project of MIT”s Media Lab, which aims to provide low-cost (currently $150 per unit, dropping quickly to $100 per unit) laptops to students in developing nations.

Five countries - Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria and Thailand - have already made tentative commitments to buy the devices and Taiwan’s Quanta Computer is gearing up for mass production of millions of the simple machine — the project has commitments for three million units and big-scale production will begin when it hits five million units. Boosting the prospects for broad distribution of the laptops is the November 15 agreement by the Inter-American Development Bank to supply both loans and grants for the machines.

If momentum continues, the stripped-down units, which contain no hard drive, no Windows software and a 7.5 inch screen, could become the top selling PC in the world, albeit one that ordinary consumers can’t buy.

Although there seems to be continued controversy over whether giving kids equipment is better than spending the money on teachers and curriculum development, One Laptop Per Child is clearly going to help some remote, unconnected areas gain access to the Internet. The laptops are designed to stay wirelessly connected to each other within a range of one-third of a mile, delivering a self-assembling mesh network of sorts. Each laptop will functions as a “repeater” of its neighboring machine, extending Internet access throughout the range of laptops.

Update: Dave Weinberger got a close-up look at the new laptop and has posted some interesting photos. Chris Blizzard has a video of himself (?) Dan Williams playing a video game on one of the new laptops.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on November 30, 2006 7:46 AM to IP Democracy