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Delivering a keynote address at the second Redhat Summit last
week, Prof Nicholas Negroponte announced that the One Laptop Per Child project
has achieved a significant milestone, with the prototype being able to boot into
Fedora Core. This project is aimed at equipping millions of
children in the developing and underdeveloped world with an affordable computer.
India is one of the seven countries worldwide selected for
the launch of the project, scheduled for next year. While $100 is the target
price per laptop, Negroponte said that the initial price would be closer to $135
and that by the year 2010, the project would be able to achieve a price as low
as $50 per unit.
The orange colored prototype features wireless peer-to-peer
mesh networking, USB ports, a 500 MHz AMD processor, 256MB RAM and 512MB flash
memory in place of a hard disk. The hand crank that was a prominent feature of
earlier dummies has now disappeared from the laptop itself and has been moved to
the power adapter.
According to Negroponte, this has been done to achieve better
energy efficiencies while cranking. The notebook display will run in both color
and black and white modes.
Christopher Blizzard of Redhat, who is also working
on the project, said that Fedora Core has been pared down to 235MB and will be
further slimmed down to run the notebook. Participating governments are expected
to buy the laptop in bulk.
KRISHNA KUMAR, NASHVILLE
(The author was hosted by Redhat at the summit)
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