Reports of four million OLPCs greatly exaggerated
By Ryan Block 
posted Aug 3rd 2006 8:52AM
posted Aug 3rd 2006 8:52AM
Ah-ha, so it turns out those four million OLPCs may not actually be bagged after all -- big surprise. Apparently the mixup began when OLPC program director for Middle East and Africa Khaled Hassounah supposedly told DesktopLinux that Nigeria had committed to an order of a million units, and Argentina, Brazil, and Thailand were right behind them with "similar" orders of their own. Except not really. According to ZDNet UK, that information is flat-out "incorrect," according to OLPC, and that despite Hassounah's statements they're not yet prepared to distribute commercialized versions of the device. Taking pre-commercial device orders for something like the OLPC is absolutely nothing out of the realm of the ordinary in our opinion, but it seems like a little PR-spurned informational infighting has turned the project from "pedagogically suspect" to factually suspect overnight. Perhaps we should leave them to their device-making for now, and worry later about who is and isn't placing orders for quantities of computers large enough to make even the thinnest-margin manufacturers sweat and drool. [Thanks, Cyrus and Alexandre]
this is dumbest thing i have ever seen. and who would use these PC/tablet/kiosk/trashbucket....i know its set towards kids, but what parent would buy that for their kid over an xbox or so......like a 10 year lod is dying for this PC toy.....pppfff they look like somthing Nickelodeon made outta floam.
umm, hey Stephen, youre a moron. nickelodeon doesnt make anything 'outta floam' for 10 year 'lods'. second, its not 'set' towards kids, its meant for places where there are very few people with computers due to the specific area's general inability to afford them. this is not for families who can afford an xbox. idiot.
Stephen Almada, if you looked at the goals of the OLPC project you will quite certainly find that this is not a product meant for the sort of kids whose parents buy them xboxes. In fact it is hardly meant to be purchased by any parent, they are to be bought by governments and then handed down to needy children.
On further inspection you will also find that they are not meant for the overfat, overindulged kids of the first world but for those poor souls in the third world who have never had a chance to own ANY digital item for themselves...
This is still a terrible idea, just like Ethanol. If people don't have food, they don't need laptops. So now on the "Save the Children" commericals, the kids will still be playing in rat infested streets and won't have any milk to drink, but they'll have this nifty laptop to play solitare on.
Terrible ideas.
I received an email from a nice man in Nigeria who promised to order 1 million OLPCs. I just need to send him $5000 seed money and then I will receive a return of 100x once the order is place. Supposedly he has special access to matching government funds but needs seed money to get things started. Sending the Western Union transfer shortly...
umm... dc are you serious? lol
Ryan, thank you for avoiding the "$100 Laptop" title in your coverage of the OLPC.
I'm sure "$100 Laptop" is more catchy and eyegrabbing than "MIT's OLPC that Was Originally Promised to be $100 but Will Actually be $135-$140 For At Least The Next Two Years", but that's no excuse for tech news outlets like CNET to keep using it as a title.
Misquoted... it's not "four" million, it's "for" million.
@ Ryan:
If you actually knew what it was, you would know it's not for poor starving third-world kids. Just because it's a third-world country doesn't mean everyone is starving. These are for the kids who have enough to eat and live but want an education.