A Preview of the $100 Laptop running Linux

A few months back, I had written about the $100 laptop that is being brought about by MIT Media Labs. It seems the work is going on in right earnest. And recently a demo of the first prototype of the product was conducted for a select few. Ethan Zuckerman, who was one of the attendees writes:

The mockup I saw was about the size of a large paperback book. There's a stiff rubber gasket around the edge of the machine, which can double as a stand. The keyboard on the mockup was detachable, but will probably fold out on a hinge. The system is designed to work in three modes: laptop mode (screen up, keyboard down, handle behind as a stand); book mode (screen on the front, keyboard on the back, comfortable indentation for holding it in the left hand. Pressing on the keyboard "accordian-stype" - as Negroponte puts it - allows for page scrolling); and game mode (screen in the front, keyboard in the back, held sideways, like an oversized PSP. Two trackballs, surrounded by four way buttons, on each side of the screen act as controls, and function keys on the back act as additional buttons.)

and still further he writes ...

The laptop is not "for sale" - it's going to be available for students only, and will be distributed through the same channels that school books and uniforms are.
...
The idea is to make the laptop required equipment for all school students and price it on a basis where it replaces textbooks. In some of the developing world school systems Negroponte has investigated, textbooks cost $20 per student per year - if the laptop is sold to students (or provided by the national government) with a five-year financing option, it costs the same amount as annual textbook spending. Except that, if schools need to license intellectual property from existing publishers, the cost would certainly increase.

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