$100 laptop ships

THE ONE Laptop Per Child Project has launched the first 10 $100 laptops it is making for kids in Third World countries.

According to the Mongabay News, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte, showed the first laptops to the US State Department last week.

Currently the book price of the machines is $125, but Negroponte wants to get the price down to $100 by 2008.

The first laptops will be followed by a 900-unit run early next year, many of which will go to programmers to help them write software. Then the machines will be mass produced in their millions.

The project is being bankrolled by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation which is putting in millions into the project for the next four to five years. µ

L'INQ
Mongabay