But One laptop per child project is about eduction, not about hardware
The One Laptop per Child project hopes to lower the cost of its laptop for developing nations to $50 per unit by 2010, Nicholas Negroponte said in the opening keynote at the LinuxWorld conference in Boston.
The first units are scheduled to ship in December this year or January next year at an estimated cost of $135 per unit. Technological advances are expected to bring down costs to $100 by 2008 and $50 by 2010, Negroponte told delegates.
The project is supported by the United Nations and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Negroponte heads up the Media Lab. It hopes to ship 5 to 10 million units in 2007 to Argentinia, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Nigeria and Thailand.
The One Laptop per Child project was kicked off in January 2005. But although the technology is the most visible, the project isn't about creating low cost hardware, Negroponted said.
"The $100 laptop is an education project, not a laptop project. The motivation is to eliminate poverty."
Scale is key to get to a low cost laptop, he claimed. Not because scale allows the project to negotiate rebates on existing hardware, but because it creates a market for the low end hardware that is needed for the project.
Working with computers and especially programming helps children to structure their thinking, Negroponte argued, because a single programming error can cause an application to fail. Providing each child with a laptop therefore empowers them to take advance their education in addition to investments in schools and teachers.
Investing in more schools and teachers " isn't going to solve it fast enough. You've got have to leverage the children. The children have to be part of their own education much more than they have in those parts of the world."
Negroponte said he is aiming for the device to feature a dual mode display that combines a backlit display used in Western laptops and monochrome LCD display using sunlight such as the ones deployed in pocket calculators. The technology currently doesn't exist, but should be ready by July or August this year, Negroponte predicted.
The laptop will feature a 500 Mhz AMD processor, a 7 inch screen and built in radio Wifi wireless networking. A wind-up crank will provide power. While initial designs had the crank integrated into the laptop, the project has since decided to move it to the power adapter.
Both Microsoft and Intel have publicly criticized the project, claiming that it is wrongly focussing on the cost of the hardware.
Negroponte hit back at the two companies.
"When you have both Intel and Microsoft on your case, you know you're doing something right," he said.
The One Laptop per Child project hopes to lower the cost of its laptop for developing nations to $50 per unit by 2010, Nicholas Negroponte said in the opening keynote at the LinuxWorld conference in Boston.
The first units are scheduled to ship in December this year or January next year at an estimated cost of $135 per unit. Technological advances are expected to bring down costs to $100 by 2008 and $50 by 2010, Negroponte told delegates.
The project is supported by the United Nations and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Negroponte heads up the Media Lab. It hopes to ship 5 to 10 million units in 2007 to Argentinia, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Nigeria and Thailand.
The One Laptop per Child project was kicked off in January 2005. But although the technology is the most visible, the project isn't about creating low cost hardware, Negroponted said.
"The $100 laptop is an education project, not a laptop project. The motivation is to eliminate poverty."
Scale is key to get to a low cost laptop, he claimed. Not because scale allows the project to negotiate rebates on existing hardware, but because it creates a market for the low end hardware that is needed for the project.
Working with computers and especially programming helps children to structure their thinking, Negroponte argued, because a single programming error can cause an application to fail. Providing each child with a laptop therefore empowers them to take advance their education in addition to investments in schools and teachers.
Investing in more schools and teachers " isn't going to solve it fast enough. You've got have to leverage the children. The children have to be part of their own education much more than they have in those parts of the world."
Negroponte said he is aiming for the device to feature a dual mode display that combines a backlit display used in Western laptops and monochrome LCD display using sunlight such as the ones deployed in pocket calculators. The technology currently doesn't exist, but should be ready by July or August this year, Negroponte predicted.
The laptop will feature a 500 Mhz AMD processor, a 7 inch screen and built in radio Wifi wireless networking. A wind-up crank will provide power. While initial designs had the crank integrated into the laptop, the project has since decided to move it to the power adapter.
Both Microsoft and Intel have publicly criticized the project, claiming that it is wrongly focussing on the cost of the hardware.
Negroponte hit back at the two companies.
"When you have both Intel and Microsoft on your case, you know you're doing something right," he said.
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