Nice concept.

But lets be serious, first of all the laptop needs Internet access to be really useful which is prohibitively expensive in Africa, it doesn't provide the necessary training to the teachers to use cohesively in the classroom, it has been actually sold by kids in Africa to make more money.

To me it seem like another technological pipe dream that would have been better pooled into real training for schools, building up infrastructure, providing water and power supplies.

I really wish I had one of these things. I mean, the simple programs are great, and it seems like it would be useless unless you had others like it in the area (much like those old attempts at portable gaming systems that you could use to challenge people with like models on the street), but I'd love to have one if it has a standard operating system and access to the internet.

Of course, the kiddy design use the removal of the handle and holes. If it were just a solid square, I'd love to get one. A good cheap laptop that you don't have to worry about damaging. You can pick one up when you need it, give it to a friend, make some use out of it if you're on the run, etc.

Plus, the energy efficiency is great. It'd be even better if the sides were made of solar panels, though.

And the point of giving these laptops to third world countries is what? So they can learn how to scam people over the internet? Quite honestly it is a huge marketing ploy by big corporations so they can send their advertising over the internet to these people that would otherwise not be exposed to it.

Why send all these laptops to kids who don't have a large computer workforce in their country...unless companies want to teach these kids to take over the customer service jobs that we are exporting anyway.

I'm being realistic, ask yourself WHY someone (and who) would send these laptops to third world countries.

If you wanted to help everyone, send the third world countries our old computers that are filling the landfills of our country. They get computers that we dont want anyway, they are already made so its free to manufacture, and we don't fill our landfills with toxins.

What about the fact that vulerable kids in poor countries will be walking around with advanced technology? I wonder what percentage of these laptops will be jacked by thieves.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Your comment, grahamslam- shows that you didn't watch the video- or at least weren't paying attention.

The kids that receive these laptops are doing all kinds of legitimate things with them. Not only that, but localized versions of Wikipedia will be pre-installed on many of them: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/One_Laptop_Per_Child_Includes_Wikipedia_on_$100_Laptops.

I'd say the wealth of knowledge availabe just from that would make the laptops worth it.

The reason why sending your old desktop or laptop will not work for these people is because the electricity supply for many of the target countries is unreliable. (hence the handcrank on the OLPC).

Your crappy, jaded hipster attitude does yourself - nor the world, any service grahamslam.

If you think an underpowered system like this can't make real changes for kids growing up - you should read this article about another underpowered system - the ZX Sinclair. A crappy little box that boostrapped many of the great British programmers of today.

These machines are "given away" from the students perspective, but they are bought by departments of education, they are, among other things, a text book substitute. Educational systems in the third world stand to save lots of money just by replacing paper textbooks, and the kids have the option of learning far beyond what a few grammar school text books can teach them.

I am happy to watch this happen, the intent is grass roots empowerment through blanket saturation of the educational system with cost saving, and education enabling technology. there will be glitches, there are always glitches, that does not mean that this is a stupid idea.

As for theft, you have to be an uber-geek to get these things to run any app that anybody but a child would want to use. The only reason to have them on the black market is because they are cool, which is why olpc should sell a modified (clearly not stolen) system to geeks for $300, and use the money to offset the cost to students.

This is such a great project. I'm looking forward to hearing more reports about it after a few more months and years of deployment.

To any naysayers: you probably weren't around/interested when this whole home computer thing was in its infancy. Monochrome screens. Punch cards were not unheard of. 300 baud modems (thats 150 bps, kids....not kbps, not Mbps). 64k of RAM would have been more than enough memory for anyone. We had *very* limited systems with little connectivity to each other or anything else. These $100 laptops would have looked incredibly powerful and been fascinating as hell.

Also, I agree with dgandhi and dag: these need to be sold to 1st world countries at inflated costs. This would feed money into the project, and kill off any chance of a black market forming. I'd buy one.

What all is preloaded on the laptops? It can be a great learning tool if there is nice encyclopedia program installed even if there is no local internet access.

It's hard for me to believe that anyone would trashtalk this fantastic project. It has the potential to fundamentally change people's lives. From what I understand, the program includes providing wireless internet access with the laptops, and their mesh network allows them to transfer data via other laptops even if they are out of direct range.

For those who want to have one, or contribute, there is a "Give One, Get One" promotion happening until the end of this month, in which you buy two and donate one or both. All of this is being done not for profit.

The laptop uses a Linux operating system with lots of useful software built in. That's another thing that is great, it's entirely open source, so their development is open-ended and expandable.

And what has been happening so far with these machines, apparently, is that kids with no prior access to computers are taking to them like fish to water within minutes, and suddenly have an entire Internet-full of knowledge at their fingertips. That can completely change their lives -- and imagine what might start happening when these groups of kids start collaborating together.

For those who want to understand the philosophy of the project, I've just submitted a video of Nicholas Negroponte introducing the OLPC project at TED Talks. He is the founder of the project, and former chairman of the MIT Media Lab.

Thanks for the info on G1G1 arvana, many of us have been vocally asking for that for a couple of years, and Nicholas kept saying "no, only for kids".

I just ordered one, $400 is not cheap (I could buy a super low end lappy for that), but to play with all the interesting features, as well as help the project, it's worth it.

Why you people sip on your capaccinos and think how great it would be for these poor kids to get a laptop, oh what wonderful things we could accomplish in this world, I am thinking realistically. Maybe its just my corporate business sense kicking in. So chastise me for having an opinion that differs. Farhad seems to be on the right track.

I thought surely someone has more insight than myself into this so I did a quick google search and found this among other things:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2227850,00.asp

"This machine, which is the brainchild of onetime MIT media lab honcho Nick Negroponte, will save the world. His vision is to supply every child with what amounts to an advertising delivery mechanism. Hence the boys at Google are big investors.

Before you cheer for the good guys, ponder a few of these facts taken from a world hunger Web site. In the Asian, African, and Latin American countries, well over 500 million people are living in what the World Bank has called "absolute poverty." Every year, 15 million children die of hunger. For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for five years. Throughout the decade, more than 100 million children will die from illness and starvation. The World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the world is well fed, one-third is underfed, and one-third is starving. Since you've entered this site, at least 200 people have died of starvation. One in 12 people worldwide is malnourished, including 160 million children under the age of 5. Nearly one in four people, or 1.3 billion—a majority of humanity—live on less than $1 per day, while the world's 358 billionaires have assets exceeding the combined annual incomes of countries with 45 percent of the world's people. Let's include Negroponte and the Google billionaires.

So what to do? Let's give these kids these little green computers. That will do it! That will solve the poverty problem and everything else, for that matter. Does anyone but me see this as an insulting "let them eat cake" sort of message to the world's poor?

"Sir, our village has no water!" "Jenkins, get these people some glassware!"

But, wait. Think of how cool it would be! Think of how many families will get to experience the friendly spam-ridden Information Super Ad-way laced with Nigerian scams, hoaxes, porn, blogs, wikis, spam, urban folklore, misinformation, sites selling junk from China, bomb-making instructions, jihad initiatives, communist propaganda, Nazi propaganda, exhortations, movie clips of cats playing the piano, advertising, advertising, and more advertising. Do you now feel better about the world's problems, knowing that some poor tribesman's child has a laptop? What African kid doesn't want access to Slashdot?

Of course, it might be a problem if there is no classroom and he can't read. The literacy rate in Niger is 13 percent, for example. Hey, give them a computer! And even if someone can read, how many Web sites and wikis are written in SiSwati or isiZulu? Feh. These are just details to ignore."

Also dag, you are correct. Most of these people don't even have a reliable electricity delivery system. Why don't we help fix that problem first? Or an even more necessary fresh water delivery system. We are giving them "games" to play. These "laptops" are not much more than a souped up V-tek learning machine. Maybe I'm just more disgusted that people will ignore the root problems in this world because it's not as COOL as a laptop.

They are taking wealth from the middle class in this country and distributing it to the rest of the world all in the name of some cool sounding charity program. Meanwhile large corporations stand to make a profit somewhere in this scheme.

I feel bad for people who buy into hype - hook, line and sinker.

"India has decided against getting involved in Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child scheme - which aims to provide kids in developing countries with a simple $100 machine.

The success of the project depends on support, and big orders, from governments. The loss of such a potentially huge, and relatively technically sophisticated market, will be a serious blow.

The Indian Ministry of Education dismissed the laptop as "pedagogically suspect". Education Secretary Sudeep Banerjee said: "We cannot visualise a situation for decades when we can go beyone the pilot stage. We need classrooms and teachers more urgently than fancy tools."

Banerjee said if money were available it would be better spent on existing education plans."

Arvana - can you seriously think this is all being done "not for profit" ? Maybe not for YOUR profit, but someone stands to make quite a large sum of money on the manufacturing, sales, implementation, etc. Amazing that these billion dollar companies want YOUR money to fund it...lol

advertising... bad if pushing junk of course.. but
laptops for kids even if they haven't got electricity or internet... good
everything starts with education.
and laptops are incredibly versatile. I learnt computing on Commodore PETs and BBC Micros, I remember having a hard drive measured in MB was amazing, i remember when we had ethernet installed and it was the most amazing thing in the world, no internet at all, and it didn't stop my brain from lighting up at being able to create and control and organise things.

Maybe the naysayers are underestimating the imagination of these kids once they get a hold of these things.

Okay, so if it does not solve EVERY problem, then it must be a bad solution for an education problem?

Look, if this does nothing more then save lots of money on textbooks it's still a good program.

These machines are not being bought with food aid money (which does not have a good track record by the way) this is coming out of education funding of local governments with the understanding that it displaces textbooks, which cost more. Stop with the "send them X instead" crap, they are going to spend this money on education, this is a new option, which would not exist without olpc, and which will SAVE them money.

You can take or leave Negroponte's polemic, I don't care, but please explain to me any way that giving children access to more information at a lower cost is detrimental to their education or their country.

All the world saving shit is just icing on the cake, it's worth the investment weather Negroponte is right or not.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Yes, these laptops are definitely in the "teach a man to fish" category. To be honest, I don't believe in most aid programs because they set up a system of dependence. These tools however can give people the expertise to lift themselves up.

GrahamSlam- all you're doing is deriding this as some massive corporate conspiracy.

If you want corporate conspiracy, check into Intel's rival project "Classmate" which has evidenly been trying to poison this non-profit effort for a for-profit alternative. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classmate_PC