Little green laptops are Third World-friendly

Nicholas Negroponte, founder of One Laptop Per Child, is on a mission to put open-source computing systems into the hands of Third World Children.

The durable green XO laptop is a low-power, lightweight system able to withstand a number of extremes, including heavy rains, bright sunlight, five-foot falls and small hands. It is typically both electric- and crank-operated and costs approximately $175 per unit to manufacture, according to The Boston Globe.

Negroponte aspires to put one of these in the control of at least 1 billion children between ages 6 and 16 in developing countries. Partners include Advanced Micro Devices, Red Hat and Chi Mei Group.

There are no distribution costs associated with the project and, writes Groundswell, no profits for One Laptop Per Child either. Citibank handles financing and credit information, then distributes money to every member of the supply chain.

This September manufacturers will ramp production up to 400,000 laptops per month, but hundreds have already been distributed for the testing phase in seven launch countries: Argentina, Brazil, Nigeria, Uruguay, Libya, Pakistan and Thailand.

The laptop's functionality includes Windows capabilities (though it presently houses an open source menu), a tablet function and games that range from Tetris-style BlockParty to a virtual orchestra.

The pure open source XO has already caused a competitive stir. Microsoft has lowered its cost to $3 for Windows and applications in developing countries. Intel is also producing its own low-cost unit, the ClassMate.

Designed for social computing, one of the main apps on the laptop tells children who else in the village is online. Other applications are collaboration-based, which means students can work on projects together, and work is auto-saved onto a Google server.

"How big is the horizon for the kids in some of these villages?" asked Josh Bernoff, analyst at Forrester Research. "Now they will have a way to communicate with the rest of the world."