A hand-cranked laptop that will cost roughly $100 is expected to be in the hands of schoolchildren in poorer countries by late 2006.
MIT Media Lab chair Nicholas Negroponte said at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia that his non-profit organisation was negotiating with manufacturers and would have an initial order placed by February or March. Thailand and Brazil are among the six governments that have showed the strongest interest, Negroponte said.
The final design, shown for the first time at the UN Internet conference, incorporates a low-power display designed by project engineer Mary Lou Jepsen that's designed to run for up to 40 minutes in black-and-white mode with 1 minute of cranking.
The case colour is a combination of a lime green and a yellow hue. "It was the hardest decision," said Negroponte, who runs the One Laptop Per Child non-profit group that's organizing the effort. "We wanted to use colour because it's a message of playfulness."
"This is truly a moving experience," said UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, who showed up at the beginning of the event. "It's also a moving expression of global solidarity and corporate citizenship."
In principle, the project seems simple: design a laptop with built-in wireless and minimal power consumption, find manufacturers willing to build it for about $100, convince governments to buy it in quantities of at least a million as an initial order, and give it to schoolchildren to keep as their own property. (The goal is tens of millions produced and distributed within two years.)
But negotiating with governments has proved to be strenuous — Negroponte called it "very hard" — and the price quotes to build the machine remain closer to $110 than $100. "We're not even going to promise they're $100," he said. "They may be $115. What we're promising is that the price will float down."
Another worry is what happens to the laptops after they're handed gratis to students with families that are struggling to survive. The average Nigerian, for instance, makes $1,000 a year — so a family would have a strong incentive to sell the laptop because they need the money.
"One of the things you want to do is make sure there's no secondary market," Negroponte said. He said one solution would be to make sure "the machine will be disabled if it doesn't log in to the network for a few days."
The proposed design of the machines calls for a 500MHz processor, 1GB of memory and a unique dual-mode display that can be used in full-colour mode, or in a black-and-white sunlight-readable mode. It's not clear yet how much cranking will be needed for the higher-power colour mode.
It's expected to run an open source operating system, probably Linux, Negroponte said, rather than a proprietary product from Apple or Microsoft. Companies including Google, AMD, News Corp and Red Hat have donated to the project.
Talkback
Can I buy one?
A ccomment to the talk about parallel market.
If the "$100 laptops" becomes a Government schools only you might not overcome the atitude that it is not as good as the stuff on the common market.
There for I think it should be possible to buy the $100 Laptop in the consumer market so that small enterpricess might use them comersially and there by make the knowledge of the system atractive.
To avoid the sale of the $100 Laptops that are fonded a blocking device chip whit a mac-number that makes the Laptop fixed to a specifik server.
We Indians REALLY need a product like this as our Goverment efforts to bring out a cheap laptop----by private companies---had failed badly and the outcome was a product like a PDA with very limited features and the cost was to high for the people the item was made for so it failed.also electricity is very scarce in most of the schools in the vilages and small towns so a hand cranking poer is best for India.
So a laptop at USD100/=is just perfect with free OS like a Linux distro.This will go a long way to bring down the cost.
So instead of actually helping these poor people by building infrastructure (water, electricity, sewage, ect), or pressuring the governements to allow more economic freedom to allow these people to pick themselves up, we're going to give them a cheap laptop they probably have no use for and tell them not to sell it.
At least the people making and giving out the laptops will feel really good.
Why not sell them in the west as well on a BOGOF offer. You buy one for yourself and the other goes via a charity to a child in the 3rd world.
Laptops???
Why do they need laptops? So corporations can sell them money? Is this a teaching tool? If so then necessary software etc will be supplied free of charge etc? Run windows? Please install update etc etc. The list of problems with this idea is huge. Do the people who are receiving these actually need them? Or are we just trying to bring everyone into line, a common gound ass it were. This is such a bad plan. People need more than just laptops.
Why are these countries poorer? Is it because that we've possibly bled them dry and then left them to their own devices. Has anyone actually asked What do you need?
It sounds like to be richer you need to be technologically literate is this relly the case? Trying to impose our norms on these people is surely just another form of control, it's not aiding them in anyway. Maybe they could forecast the impact of this technology upon themselves. This is not the kind of help they need in my view, and honestly I have a very limited political, economic etc knowledge about these things. Us 'richer', and I use the term loosely, countries seem to be trying to dictate how others should lead their lives. Is this not just a hostile take over hidden within a show of generosity. What will be the longterm implecations of such an act? Will the populace then want further technological advancemets? For what purpose there is so much technology which would be nice to disinvent. The problems these countries are experiencing all seem to spread from the fact that they've been oppressed andtaken advantage of at some time or other through history.
I'm all for helping but we should bear the responsibility ourselves as countries which have allowed these things to happen. i know we shouldn't interfere with the way of life etc, but we have become tied to this due to the actions that we have undertaken in the past, throughout history.
We go on about the losses of way of life. How did people get food etc. Knowledge that we have lost and I think as a whole regret doing so. Mainly due to actions such as these, though obviously not Hi-Tech. WE should share knowledge certainly and help when requested, we have an obligation to do so in my view, but meangful aid, aid thateveryone can use.
Are these being 'sold' to the 'pooroer' countries thus promotin their 'poorness'.
I personally live in a society which is not exemplorary and we in a way are trying to promote this way of life. There are constant battles raging everywhere you look. From what type of music you like to what religion you are, and we try to say that ourt way is the best. What's wrong with facilitating what these countries want to do without the enforcement of our rules and guidelines. I don't want to get into a political debate over what is right and wrong as they'll always be arguments for and agaist anything. The very fact that these are 'wind-up' why not give them solar panels so they can generate electricity and then proceed that way. Laptops are not an essential at the end of the day, if we want to help give help which aids the whole society as apposed to individuals. This will only serve in encouraging a material goods dependent society!
A typically idealistic missed opportunity. Do gooders have missed the point that Steve Jobs got with the Apple II to get started. To get low cost mass production bootstrapped for poorer counbtries requires serious volume creation in rich countries to drive it. $100 is thre months income in many countries. They have economies to match, a computer isn't top of the list of things tpo spend $100 per citzen on. Water aid and Sight savers, AIDs relief and other things lower down Mazlow's hierarchy take precedence.
It would have been better to issue these devices with a plug in PSU as part of a government or state solution in the US with wireless link for homework, tax returns, etc. with a basic set of browser, email and the 5% of Word that most people can nearly use, etc (open Office and Linux is as good). $100 is less than most Americans spend in McDonalds every week. This would give both the acceptance and volumes required, and also create the basis for next generation broadband network computing where most of the applications are used passivly by consumers and are anyway on remote servers on suppliers web sites. Then just plug in th clockwork PSU and your away, Nicholas. Local intelligence/power is for creative power users and gamers only.
This is a fantastic idea. I find it somewhat humorous that the nay-sayers posting comments here are surely all doing so with a computer. So it's useful to you but would not be to a poor kid? Everyone in the world should at least have access to Google, for example. How many times have you been able to find information on a subject, and quickly? I encourage those who think this is a bad idea to read some more on the subject. And another thing- surely your multi-hundred dollar computer has spell-check. Please use it. Not talking to ESL peeps. Native English speakers, though, come on now. I mean really.
Not only will the colour carry a message of playfulness but will hopefully prevent adults from stealing it. What adult wants to netsurf on a yellow and green laptop?
Great. People who can barely live need technology more than food and water. This is the most insane idea I've ever heard. Moreover, the only reason for this, is to accumulate data and statistics on kids. What they like and don't like, etc., as marketing research to make more effective campaigns towards children since in developped countries this is frowned upon and kids are watched more closely by their parents.
Although these laptops can be educationally helpful, a great deal of information or learning will invariably comme from what the kids glean from the Internet (which is not always the best source for accurate information) and not serious educational programs sanctioned by schools and parents.