p2pnet news | Freedom:- In January, “it seemed anyone would be able to buy a One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO laptop, as long as they also bought a unit which would be given to a needy child somewhere in the world,” p2pnet posted.

That wasn’t going to happen, it turned out at the time.

But project organisers have had second thoughts.

“For $399 (£197), customers in the US and Canada will be able to purchase two laptops – one for themselves, the other for a child in a poor country – as part of an initiative called ‘Give One, Get One’,” says Times Online, going on:

The OLPC laptop, whose price recently rose to $188 (£93), has been manufactured to endure difficult conditions in rural villages, and has a screen that can be read outside, as well as a wind-up crank to power it.

It is not immediately clear what wealthy American children, accustomed to the superior processing power of a Dell, HP or Apple, will do with it, and OLPC officials initially feared that recipients might post critical messages about the machine on blogs.

But research with focus groups aged 7 to 11 was positive, with respondents suggesting they liked that the green-and-white laptops were aimed specifically at children and that they could communicate wirelessly with one another.

Click here to go to the OLPC sales site.

Will this encourage Intel to, which has been wriggling this way and that, trying to figure out a way to cash in on the concept, now similarly offer a two-for-one for its Classmate PCs, designed as an “educational tool for children in developing countries”?

Don’t hold your breath

Slashdot it!

Also See:
p2pnet – OLPC reports incorrect, January 14, 2007
Times Online – Cheap laptops: the new ethical gift, September 24, 2007

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