OLPC Mass Production Begins 187
chris_mahan writes to tell us that mass production of the $100 laptop is finally being ramped up. "Hardware suppliers have been given the green light to ramp-up production of all of the components needed to build millions of the low-cost machines. Previously, the organization behind the scheme said that it required orders for 3m laptops to make production viable. The first machines should be ready to put into the hands of children in developing countries in October 2007. "There's still some software to write, but this is a big step for us," Walter Bender, head of software development at One Laptop per Child (OLPC), told the BBC News website."
Re:So, can we buy civvie models yet? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:When's the "commercial" version coming? (Score:2, Informative)
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Retail [laptop.org]
Re:Mod parent up (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Blah (Score:4, Informative)
In what is, IIRC, the largest launch country, Brazil, median income for black women (the worst off racial/gender mix) is $156/month. (source [reuters.com])
Heck, even Rwanda (which is one of the poorest nations that may get it early, through Libya purchasing it for them) has an average per capita annual income of $206 (source [state.gov]), over an order of magnitude higher than you suggested for "most" OLPC recipients.
Re:So in a year or so... (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know where you live, but unless you live in _some_ countries in Europe, your country probably falls better under the standard definition of what is a shithole, than my country.
Aside from that, we don't have enough money to give equal education to all our kids.
We have too few teachers for them, and giving the kids access to better forms of communication, and all the reading material they need, I thing we are taking a big step towards making education in Uruguay more fair than it is right now.
Re:So in a year or so... (Score:3, Informative)
Not precisely what you said.