MIT Media Lab chairman Nicholas Negroponte, who unveiled the textbook-sized laptop on Wednesday, said he expects to sell 1 million of them to Brazil, Thailand, Egypt and Nigeria.

 

Negroponte did not say who would build the machine, which will cost $110 to make, but at least five are considering bids to do so. He said a commercial version may be available at a higher price to subsidize machines provided to children.

 

The laptop will run on an open-source operating system, such as Linux, which is generally cheaper than proprietary systems such as Microsoft Corp.?s Windows, said Negroponte.

 

The devices will be lime green in color, with a yellow hand crank, to make them appealing to children and to fend off potential thieves.

Link

That's a really good idea. I'm thinking paper is the next thing to go.

That's an amazingly philanthropic thing to do. Now we just need some self-righteous celebrities and televangelists to use some of their millions to buy tons of them and hand them out to kids in impoverished nations.

That's an amazingly philanthropic thing to do. Now we just need some self-righteous celebrities and televangelists to use some of their millions to buy tons of them and hand them out to kids in impoverished nations.

 

 

True.

 

Then the kids could grow up learning about our trash culture (have Charlie Sheen do it and have the hard drive be full of Two and a Half Men reruns so the kids can learna bout suicide) or get some messed up form of salvation (lame Bible games for everyone). Maybe I'm just in a pessimistic mood...

 

Nah.

 

Someone call Angelina Jolie, she's give some serious dough for these, though.

I don't think paper will disappear for awhile, mostly because right now paper trails are still important when it comes to criminal acts, especially corporate crimes. Most digital evidence can be quickly removed or destroyed.

 

Ever since this country's election systems have switched to electronic ballots, the possibility of corruption increases due to the lack of paper trails that these e-ballots have.