A revolution in a laptop
Monday, August 14, 2006
In an article published on Sunday, Aljazeera discusses Negroponte and his project to produce a $100 laptop for the developing world.
Excerpt: After an inauspicious birth 25 years ago when Ronnie Reagan and Maggie Thatcher were in their prime, the IBM 5150, retailing at $1,565, ushered in the age of the modern PC.
A quarter of a century on the legacy of the PC is ubiquitous.
Chances are one is at work in every facet of your daily life ? chances are, you are using one right now.
While software applications and the companies that develop them have become the main drivers in today?s information society, the CM1, more commonly known as the $100 laptop, could take over where the venerable 5150 left off – becoming one of the enduring pieces of techno hardware in the next 25 years.
The CM1 is the crown jewel of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project, a non-profit venture that aims to do exactly what it says and arm underprivileged children in rural areas in underdeveloped societies with their very own personal computer.
The project is intended to connect them both to the wider world and to their peers, and is the brainchild of technology veteran Nicholas Negroponte, the co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology?s influential Media Lab.
