OLPC Laptops Exceeding Costs

The ridiculous One Laptop Per Child program, whose stated goal is to give impoverished children free laptops valued at 100 bucks each, is running into a snag. It seems that the plastic laptops cost 150 bucks to make.

From CNET here:

The One Laptop per Child project on Thursday showed off the latest prototype of what’s widely known as the $100 laptop for school children in developing nations. The only hitch is that the computer costs $150 to make.

Walter Bender, president of software for the Massachusetts-based nonprofit OLPC, said that higher-than-expected costs for the laptop’s display and battery (made of nickel-metal hydride) hiked up the price.

“The goal is to get it to $100 by 2008,” Bender said at the Silicon Valley Challenge Summit, being held at Santa Clara University.

OLPC plans to ship 1.2 million laptops to children and teachers in Libya, and roughly 4 million more to the other countries, Bender said.

The B1 prototype is a lime-green-and-white laptop that’s roughly the size of a schoolbook. It’s made of dirt-resistant materials such as a rubber membrane keyboard. Its features include a built-in video camera, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) capabilities, and a screen that swivels for e-book use. The dual-mode display can also be used in full-color mode, or in a black-and-white sunlight-readable mode.

So the Libyan children will be the first on their block to get laptops. I hope they get an internet connection so they can sell the laptops on Ebay for 50 bucks so they can buy some food. At the current price, 5.2 Million laptops will run about .78 Billion dollars.

And just look at the description of the device. Hmmm….. Tiny screen, voice and camera features, can use it for text reading. Hell, wouldn’t cheap cellphones be better?

Meanwhile, AIDS continues to claim thousands of victims in Africa and there is ethnic cleansing taking place in the Sudan. If only someone could come up with almost a Billion dollars to fight these scourges!