CES 2007: The $100 Laptop
I have heard only a little bit about the One Laptop per Child initiative. It was started by some folks at MIT. Their goal was to create a laptop computer that could be inexpensive, wind-up powered, and easily useable for third world children. You can learn more about it here:
In the Pepper booth at CES, we actually got to play with a prototype for the $100 Laptop. Sadly, the windup power was not featured in this product. It is run on standard electricity, so for third world countries where electricity is a luxury, not a right, these computers are a lot less useful.
They are computers made for children, so the keyboard is SMALL and almost untypeable for an adult. I was unable to get a full sentence typed without several errors because the keys are so close together. I didn’t have a 75 wpm child-typist around to see if it would work just fine for children, but I suspect that it’s more than adequate.
If you are thinking of buying a $100 Laptop for your children, however, it’s not really an option. They sell the computers in lots of thousands to third world countries. When we asked at the booth, the minimum number that they would sell was so high that it didn’t seem worthwhile in our market. For countries wanting to create a technology aware population, they are perfect.
For more information about this particular unit, here is a link to the wiki: