if connected

Looks like I was on the right lines with my advice for the OLPC project: The XO Giving site will be offering a neat bundle: pay for two, keep one, donate one. Starts November 12th for a short, presumably trial, period.

The BBC has a great article on Nicholas Negroponte’s one laptop per child project, or as he persuasively argues: his “education project” (but then perhaps they should choose a different project name as OLPC rather hurts the message).
Best wishes to the project for trying something so different. I hope the manufacturing and distribution process proceeds smoothly.
The OLPC laptop, the XO, has a tremendous design vision complete with features that could just as easily appeal in Asia or Europe:
- Screen viewable in sunlight (my laptop: nope).
- Rugged, water resistant case, (that could be really handy).
- Very low power consuming: so much so, that solar power or human winding-up is viable (mine – about an hour with WiFi).
- Extreme low cost: $176 (£90) the eventual aim of $100 (£50). By comparison, the cheapest new laptop I’ve seen for sale in the UK is £199 (includes 17.5 percent sales tax) at PC World.
I wonder if one way to ramp production to the millions the project targets to lower per unit costs, and so make the XO attractive to the poorer governments of the world that is the project objective… would be to sell units to developed countries as well? The problem with this idea will be, I’m sure, political. But there would be no higher vote of confidence in the XO than buying them. And, there is nothing to stop the OLPC team from offering the XO at a significantly higher price to rich countries, with the higher margin used to subsidise poorer countries.
Whatever the approach the OLPC team use to hit volume, I hope they succeed.