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The $100 Laptop Seen in Different Colors

Available in fetching orange and yellow, or shades of blue and green, here's the $100 laptop, which was unveiled at the Seven Countries Task Force Meeting yesterday. Almost immediately, pictures of the machine hit the net. Still looks a little too cheap for my tastes and why do they always show pictures of minorites on the displays of these laptops? Why not show the OS or an educational application for crying out loud. People aren't going to use these as $100 picture viewers.

Still, OLPC is concentrating minds on supplying ICT needs for poor people in developing countries. Many analysts expect the mobile phone to be the internet access of choice in developing world. They are cheaper than PCs - and there are far more of them. And new PCs prices are coming down all the time - although admittedly, the day when Dell or HP or Lenovo sell a new laptop for $100 is some years away. Microsoft is taking a different tack, by offering cheaper software licences to poor countries, and by offering a different mode of consumption. This week it announced its ideas for a pay-as-you-go PC, specifically for developing countries.

The Register

Posted by | Thu, May 25, 2006 - 05:50 AM