Linux

US$100 Laptop Real Costs

Costs exceeded for the XO laptop in the OLPC program

By Roxana Popa, Linux Editor

24th of April 2007, 14:19 GMT

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The OLPC officials have recently revealed the real costs for the 100 US$ laptop. According to them, the laptop exceeds the planned cost nine times. Moreover, OLPC also announced that they will re-Windows the operating system, which implies significant payment. The low-cost computers will have flash memory instead of a hard disk and through Mobile ad-hoc networking they allow Internet access to more machines from one connection.

The XO-1 includes a video camera, a microphone, long-range Wi-Fi, and a hybrid stylus/touch pad. Pricing has been initially expected to start at around US$ 135-140 and the target is to reach US$ 100 by 2008. The first-generation OLPC laptops are expected to be equipped with a low-cost LCD while later generations are expected to use low-cost, low-power and high-resolution electronic paper displays. The laptop is estimated to come with a 500MHz processor and 128MB of DRAM, 500MB of Flash memory and three USB ports and an SD-card slot for expansion. The laptops are designed to be extremely power efficient, enabling the use of innovative power systems, human power being planned allowing it to stay far from commercial sources of power.

About OLPC

The OLPC Association is a U.S. based non-profit organization, set up by the members of MIT Media Lab to provide access for the children in developing countries to XO laptops. Initially, their program concentrated on the governments that made commitments for the funding and program support in order to assure that all their children own and use a laptop. Among the corporate members there are: Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), eBay, Google, Marvell, News Corporation, Red Hat, or SES Astra. Both the project and the organization were announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2005.

TAGS:

OLPC | laptop | children

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