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Value of the dollar

THE FOUNDER OF the "$100 laptop" project, which will give cheap computers to third world kids, has backtracked on a number of key ideas behind the idea.


The machine will cost $175 and will be able to run Windows along with its open source software.

Nicholas Negroponte said that so far he had managed to flog the idea to Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Pakistan, Thailand, Nigeria and Libya. So far none of them have come up with cash. Libya is probably waiting for the delivery of some ransom money for the Bulgarian nurses it is holding hostage. The project needs orders for three million machines so its manufacturing and distribution effort can get rolling.

However Negroponte expects mass production to begin by October and orders to come from Peru and Russia. He hopes that the costs of the machine could drop by a quarter this year as the project gets bigger.

What is surprising is that after developing some fairly natty software with Red Hat, the OLP will have the option of running Microsoft's $3 XP starter gear which Vole announced for developing nations. Chief Vole Bill Gates once said that the OLP machine was not a "decent computer".

Mind you Negroponte might be right that Vole wouldn't have bothered with its $3 international software package unless it had something to fear from One Laptop Per Child's innovations.
The INQuirer