OLPC to launch mass production for $100 laptops

OLPC to launch mass production for $100 laptops
The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) group has announced that it has given the green signal to hardware suppliers for the launch of mass production of the XO machines, known fondly as the $100 laptops, stating that the first laptops will be available by the end of October this year.

While the group had initially said that it required over 3 million orders to be placed before mass production of the notebooks will be started, the initiative received a huge boost last month when Intel withdrew its opposition to the project and entered a deal which will see both Intel and OLPC exchange each other's technologies.

Intel has for long opposed the project and has come out with its own Classmate PC as a rival for the XO machines. But the recent turnaround meant that the OLPC now has the support of a number of bigwigs in technology world including News Corp, Advanced Micro Devices and Google.

A dream project of Professor Nicholas Negroponte, the laptops have a unique design with energy efficient chargers such as foot-pump, pull-string or solar. Taiwanese company, Quanta has been given the responsibility of producing the laptops.

However the project was hit was a public relations disaster this week when it was reported that the laptops were being used by Nigerian schoolchildren to visit pornographic websites. According to News Agency of Nigeria, children have stored a number of pornographic images on the laptops.

In its report, the News of Nigeria said, "Efforts to promote learning with laptops in a primary school in Abuja have gone awry as the pupils freely browse adult sites with explicit sexual materials". The latest report has now prompted OLPC to announce that the laptops will be fitted with filters.