February 12th 2008
Those who told Nicholas Negroponte that his plan to create a £50 ($100) computer was crazy will soon have to eat their words.
The former head of MIT's Media Lab for 20 years, Negroponte's goal was to manufacture a computer that poor children all over the world could afford and use. Now, the first 5,000 have been shipped.
The project's origins go back more than four decades to the early days of computing, when most machines were still the size of small dinosaurs, and almost no one dreamed they would ever be suitable for children. But pioneering thinkers like Seymour Papert disagreed sharply and, over time, led the long march from radical theory to reality proving the immense power of the personal computer as a learning tool for children.
Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program (www.laptopgiving.org) is a partnership with Quanta Computer in Taiwan. Their new XO unit comes with a fist-sized generator. A user pulls a cord to make power, like starting an old lawnmower. The XO comes with tiny stereo speakers and three USB slots. A few bars of a U2 song play as the machine starts up.
It can be used as a laptop or, with the screen twisted around, as a book-like tablet. It can be read like paper or be illuminated completely from within. If plans continue as slated, 50 million XOs will ship by the end of 2008. The price for the first units will be closer to $150, but will drop to $100 by the end of 2008.
Orders have been placed for children in Libya, Palestinians on the West Bank, Argentina, Brazil, Nigeria, and Thailand. Each country wants at least a million XOs for their children.
