The $100 Laptop (Video)

The $100 Laptop (Video)

One Laptop per Child is a non-profit organization that develops a $100 laptop, so that every child can have access to education and technology.

The actual specifications aren't very different from what Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of One Laptop per Child, envisioned. "The proposed $100 machine will be a Linux-based, with a dual-mode display—both a full-color, transmissive DVD mode, and a second display option that is black and white reflective and sunlight-readable at 3x the resolution. The laptop will have a 500MHz processor and 128MB of DRAM, with 500MB of Flash memory; it will not have a hard disk, but it will have 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. The laptops will use innovative power (including wind-up) and will be able to do most everything except store huge amounts of data."

The first machines have already been built, as you can see from these pictures. And here's a small demo that shows the user interface. Note that the operating system is emulated using VMware.