The BBC is reporting that the XO Laptop from the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative is about to start mass producing components for the PC, with the first models targeted to be ready by this October. While it's been dubbed the $100 laptop, the "XO currently costs $176 (£90) although the eventual aim is to sell the machines to governments for $100 (£50)." The BBC has a good overview of the technology that's gone into the laptop, as well as some video highlighting some of its energy saving features.
The TechShout blog, however, notes that despite the grand ideals behind this project (former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan once described the laptop as an "expression of global solidarity"), it seems that human nature always offers a predictable detour:
According to the official News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), instead of surfing and gaining knowledge, Nigerian children have been caught viewing pornographic images.In other OLPC news, Intel recently got on board with the program after previously being at odds with the OLPC mission due to its competing Classmate PC, created for developing nations much like the $100 laptop.Reuters quoted NAN stating, "Efforts to promote learning with laptops in a primary school in Abuja have gone awry as the pupils freely browse adult sites with explicit sexual materials."
[...]
OLPC Nigeria has decided to deal with this problem by installing porn filters in all future XO computers.
--Agen G.N. Schmitz
