Today the United Nations announced it will work
with the One Laptop per Child initiative to bring $100
laptops to governments and, eventually, to school children and teachers throughout the world. The parties will sign a
memorandum of understanding this weekend and the project will formally get underway.
The laptops, which were conceived and developed by the MIT Media Lab, feature wireless network access and a hand crank, will run on an open-source OS, most likely Linux. It's expected that a million of these devices will be shipped by the end of the year to countries including Brazil, Thailand, Egypt, and Nigeria.
A while back there was criticism by a number of industry types, most notably from Intel Chairman Craig Barrett,
that the laptops are limited and that people want something with the full functionality of a PC. Obviously, it would be
wonderful to be able to provide devices with all the bells and whistles, but many governments can't afford to purchase
high-priced computers, so this initiative is targeted toward them. At this point, it's better to do
something than it is to sit back and do nothing.
1. Idea is great.......I think it'll take a long time to come in the market.
Posted at 8:38AM on Mar 1st 2006 by emma