Laptop for $100

[~©~]

I wanna see some pics of it or a spec

http://laptop.media.mit.edu/laptop-images.html

[0blivion]

Hey thats not bad at all, dont like the little handle thing on the right though, looks a bit naff.

[Michael]

There's an oldish movie about exactly this, i'll try and find out what... Worth a watch if you're bored.

[Michael]

The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest

http://imdb.com/title/tt0280674/

[nev_payne]

the handle on the right - is that like a kinetic dynamo for charge like those wind up radios?

[eloquence]

The main cost of a laptop like the one being mentioned at the moment would be the screen - since LCD screens are generally pretty expensive still. Apart from that (and possibly the battery), by using flash memory and cheap CPU and graphics components, they should be able to produce these for a very low price.
It's not a new idea - there's now a few companies with the idea of providing a sub-$100 laptop now - the main question will be how long before they start to turn from plans and concepts into reality. Economies of scale could help make it possible, so someone like MIT could be well-placed - they could try to get agreements with educational authorities to get laptops like these into the classrooms to instantly get 1000's of sales.

[FatalSaviour]

On the contrary, I think it'll prove just how cheaply a laptop can be made. 500MHz isn't going to break any speed records, but it's ample for word processing and surfing.

I'm thinking of turning it into a router myself...I need to play around with something, I've run out of stuff to mod...

[eloquence]

If they came out over here, I'd probably want one to play with - not sure it would make an ideal router... and probably won't be that moddable...
Still, at that price, you could easily buy one just to learn more about the stuff you can to with Linux...
If they can manage this, though, then you could imagine a cut-size version as a substitute for a PDA...