A $10 Laptop?

« A Brazilian Music Channel Launches on Joost

Was Drunk Hasselhoff Video Just Promotion? »

May 10th, 2007 by James in Childrens Gadgets, Conceptual Gadgets, Miscellaneous Gadgets, PC Gadgets, Tech News

You read right. First came the $100 One Laptop Per Child windup laptop project, now researchers in India believe they can make one even cheaper, try $10!

This is according to a proposal winding it’s way through the Indian government which believes a laptop computer can be made now for as low as $10.

That means that ten times as many computers could conceivably be made available to poor and underprivileged communities in India and other third world nations than the UN approved OLPC Negroponte models.

Providing support for the project, is Semiconductor Complex, a state-sponsored designer and manufacturer of integrated circuits who stand to win any potential contract for the hardware needed to build it.

Officials are considering two different design proposals from an engineering student from the Vellore Institute of Technology and a researcher from the Indian Institute of Science.

Both sides believe that a laptop comparable to the OLPC can now be made for half the cost of the windup model, but have high hopes that with advances in manufacturing and distribution techniques, that ultimately the price can be slashed to the goal of $10.

Much like the OLPC, chances are, it would run on open source software like Linux, otherwise, with Windows running it, the cost would skyrocket to well over three times that of the UN Model.

http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20051007/100-windup-laptops/

http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=40036

Subscribe because know why (via email or RSS)!

10 Comments on “A $10 Laptop?”

fong Says:

May 11th, 2007 at 7:21 am

idian sucks…10 bucks for a laptop? they should say 10 bucks for a car next time

¿Una portátil por USD $10? Says:

May 11th, 2007 at 7:44 am

[...] Leer nota completa en Coolest Gadgets.barata india laptop olpc vellore xo [...]

EEJ Says:

May 11th, 2007 at 8:01 am

A $100 or $10 laptop sounds like a great idea, but who is going to teach all of these underpriviledged school kids how to use them?

Even in the United States, schools that have distributed computers to children are now rethinking the idea, as it hasnt improved any of their overall test scores, mainly because, as some people note, just giving a kid a laptop does not make him a programmer, or give him the ability to properly use the computer for research and learning.

STORM | Home Linux Server » Blog Archive » Researchers in India Say They Can Build a Laptop for $10 Says:

May 11th, 2007 at 3:32 pm

[...] A $10 Laptop? [Coolest Gadgets] (No Ratings Yet) Loading … Comments [...]

Phillip Neho Says:

May 12th, 2007 at 4:29 pm

This is great - Brithday and Christmas presents just got a lot cheaper.

T Says:

May 16th, 2007 at 12:27 am

EEJ, First off, you can’t compare American kids with Indian kids, i.e., an under privileged kid in India will be of the same brain level as an average American kid. So please do the math and see how that turns out!!!

India Try to Make a Laptop? | Daily Cool Gadgets and Gizmos News Says:

July 23rd, 2007 at 1:21 pm

[...] [Via] Related Posts [...]

Blake Allender Says:

September 21st, 2007 at 9:32 pm

why cant they sell theses to american students?

EEJ Says:

September 24th, 2007 at 3:25 pm

Blake,

Actually, the OLPC project is going to be selling the laptops to US families, with a catch, starting November 10, 2007.

By the way, as an update, the current cost of the “$100″ laptop is around $188.

Anyways, as of November 10th, 2007, the OLPC project is offering 2 laptops to US buyers for ~$400, the catch being that you keep one, and the other is sent to a needy child in a poor country.

They are essentially attempting to subsidize a laptop for a kid from a poor country, by allowing people in the US to buy one for themselves (or their child).

Some claim that they have been reluctant in the past, for fear that people who used them would complain on the internet about the poor specs (compared to a retail computer), and give them a bad rep, which would turn other people (read: developing country governments) away from wanting to purchase them.