The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: $100 laptops aim to bring children the world

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: $100 laptops aim to bring children the world: "TUNIS, Tunisia, Researchers unveiled a prototype of a $100 hand-cranked laptop computer on Wednesday and said they hoped to place them in the hands of millions of schoolchildren around the globe.
About the size of a textbook, the lime-green machines will be able to set up their own wireless networks and operate in areas without a reliable electricity supply, MIT researchers said at a United Nations technology summit.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other groups have been pushing hard to create a low-cost laptop, part of a U.N. effort's aim that 'everyone, everywhere should have the opportunity to participate' in the benefits of information technology.
The goal is to provide laptops free of charge to children in poor countries who cannot afford computers, said MIT Media Lab chairman Nicholas Negroponte.
Governments or charitable donors will pay for the laptops but children will own them, he said.
'Ownership of the laptops is absolutely critical,' he said. 'Have you ever washed a rented car?'"