The OLPC XO

The One Laptop Per Child project has been getting plenty of press lately.  The initiative purports to be a “charitable” one, and whatever sticky legal status that word defines it as, the project has grown a head of steam large enough to attract some major business interest.  Microsoft can't resist designing a version of XP to market for the sublaptop, although Bill Gates has complained that the screen is too small.  Intel, who was at first a sworn enemy of OLPC, now sits on its board of directors. 

The machine was originally promised at a cool $100, but now that OLPC has revealed its “first sale” of 100,000 machines (never mind the original reports of several million ordered by certain African nations) the price has almost doubled. 

More than one nation has complained that there is no point in providing undernourished children with computers- that what they need is teachers and classrooms, not laptops.  At $100 the “XO” seems like a no-brainer.  But the tune of $188 is a little more difficult tune to whistle.