Nicholas Negroponte, chairman and founder of MIT's Media Labs, says he is developing a laptop PC that will go on sale for less than $100 (£53). He told the BBC World Service programme Go Digital he hoped it would become an education tool in developing countries. He said one laptop per child could be " very important to the development of not just that child but now the whole family, village and neighbourhood". He said the child could use the laptop like a text book. He described the device as a stripped down laptop, which would run a Linux-based operating system, "We have to get the display down to below $20, to do this we need to rear project the image rather than using an ordinary flat panel. "The second trick is to get rid of the fat , if you can skinny it down you can gain speed and the ability to use smaller processors and slower memory." BBC News
David Weinberger comments:
I think it's a brilliant, world-changing idea, which doesn't mean it's going to be easy. But here's a place where hope needs to lead the business plan. Assume for a moment that it works. Imagine hundreds of millions of kids with networked laptops running linux and using open source applications: The outburst of creativity. The sudden change in social connection. The access via VOIP to the voices around the world. The sudden isolating of Microsoft. And, these puppies don't come with DRM burned into their circuits. Negroponte and his colleagues are moving the world forward. The $100 laptop is a platform for emergence.
