$100 laptop now $130
p2p news / p2pnet: The famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab’s $100 Linux laptop is no longer $100. It’s now $130 to $140, shipping extra.
But, "The ruggedized, two pound Linux desktop (Fedora) system" will go on sale to governments from April next year, says ZDNet’s Between the Lines.
Nicholas Negroponte, whose brainchild the computer was, expects to reach the $100 price point by the end of 2008, says the story, going on that according to him, it’ll, "run like a bat out of hell."
With the United Nations behind it, the OLPC Linux-based system will have dual-mode display options - full-color, transmissive DVD mode, and black and white reflective and sunlight-readable at 3× the resolution, says the project site.
It’ll have a 500MHz processor and 128MB of DRAM, with 500MB of Flash memory; but no hard disk.
With four USB ports, the laptops will have wireless broadband that, among other things, allows them to work as a mesh network. Each laptop will be able to talk to its nearest neighbors, "creating an ad hoc, local area network," says the FAQ.
"The laptops will use innovative power (including wind-up) and will be able to do most everything except store huge amounts of data."
The laptops will be sold to governments and issued to children by schools on a basis of one laptop per child.
"Initial discussions have been held with China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria, and Thailand," and, "An additional, modest allocation of machines will be used to seed developer communities in a number of other countries."
A commercial version, "will be explored in parallel".
Digg this story.
Also See:
Between the Lines - Negroponte’s now $130 PC due in April 2007, May 31, 2006
behind it - Gates’ answer to the $100 laptop, January 30, 2006
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