Public can purchase $100 laptop

The backers of the One Laptop Per Child project plan to release the machine on general sale next year. But customers will have to buy two laptops at once - with the second going to the developing world.

This might be a way of making the $100 laptop economically feasible and thus make manufacturing viable. The project has received some flak for concentrating on technology when nations lack basic necessities like clean water and good food. The laptop has been developed to be as low cost, durable and as simple to use as possible. The eventual aim is to sell the machine to developing countries for $100 but the current cost of the machine is about $150. The first countries to sign up to buying the machine, which is officially dubbed XO, include Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Nigeria, Libya, Pakistan and Thailand.