$100 Laptop Protoypes

There's been a lot of talk over the past year about the One Laptop Per Child project, a non-profit initiative to provide children in developing nations with inexpensive laptop computers in an attempt to ease the digital divide between the industrialized and developing populations. The aim of the project is to develop a laptop that can be produced and distributed to school children at a cost of around $100. Many of the design elements have also focused on powering the laptop through alternative means to increase the availability of use (one method involved a hand-crank powered battery).

Last week, the first prototypes, which will run a stripped down Linux version as an operating system, were unveiled for the first time at the annual Red Hat user summit. Photos of the computer as well as additional information can be found here and here. Full details about the project (along with more information on the facets of mobile technology that are being pared down for inexpensive development and use) can be found at laptop.org.