Click to viewThe government whose Ministry of Education dismissed Nick Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child computer as "pedagogically suspect" in 2006 is now backing a plan to design, build and sell a model priced at 400 rupees, or about ten bucks. The project was discussed at a conference in New Delhi by D.…
MIT Media Lab director Nicholas Negroponte had a vision: Millions of third-world children lacked laptops and therefore the means to learn of his greatness. He founded the One Laptop Per Child Project with a singular vision: He, Nicholas Negroponte, would bring laptops to these children, so that they could know that…
Nicholas Negroponte, the nutty MIT professor who has championed the idea of cheap laptops for Third World children, is feuding with his own programmers. Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child is best known for its distinctive hardware — the candy-colored, devil-horn-antennaed XO notebook computer. But he's turned his…
Nicholas Negroponte has come to his senses and realized that he is not a businessman and has no place running the One Laptop Per Child project. "I am not a CEO. Management, administration, and details are my weaknesses. I'm much better at the vision, big-picture side of the house." Yeah, leave the minutae like making…
Mary Lou Jespen, founding CTO of the One Laptop Per Child project, recently walked off her job at Nicholas Negroponte's charity case. And now she wants to build a $75 version of the laptop that OLPC has struggled to build for $200. But Jespen may be crazy like a fox. She's actually building a business — the insanity!…
"Why would I throw away the six million dollars they were supposed to give us yesterday? Why would I do all of these things unless I was stark raving mad?" — MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte, trying to defend the One Laptop Per Child charity's contentious and short-lived partnership with chip manufacturer Intel.…
Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child project has seemingly listed a job opening for a business-plan writer. It's a bit suspect: The position is listed in Mountain View, but the $100-laptop nonprofit is based in Cambridge, Mass. Even if it's just a clever joke, it does raise a question: Has anyone ever written a…
Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child project may be better named "No Laptop Per Child," at the rate it's going. Back in November, the Wall Street Journal essentially labeled the project a failure. Now, the group is being sued for $20 million by a Nigerian company for patent infringement. Let's hope OLPC doesn't…
"Think of how cool it would be! Think of how many families will get to experience the friendly spam-ridden Information Super Ad-way laced with Nigerian scams, hoaxes, porn, blogs, wikis, spam, urban folklore, misinformation, sites selling junk from China, bomb-making instructions, jihad initiatives, communist…
One Laptop Per Child founder Nicholas Negroponte set himself up for Saturday's takedown by the Wall Street Journal. As my good friend Fake Steve Jobs author Dan Lyons explains in detail, the Journal article is a classic backstab: (1) Negroponte pitches Journal a big story that evil Intel and Microsoft are undermining…
Over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal devoted nearly 3,000 words to the saga of Nicholas Negroponte's plan: "Design a $100 laptop and, within four years, get it into the hands of up to 150 million of the world's poorest schoolchildren." What went wrong? "Mr. Negroponte's ambitious plan has been derailed, in part,…
Gilberto Gil, Brazil's Minister of Culture, is retiring. Medical tests revealed a polyp on his vocal cords which could threaten his musical career. Gil needs to quit giving speeches while the polyp is being treated. Which is unfortunate, because he has quite a bit to say. Gil is the man who turned down Nicholas…
Chinese manufacturing firm Quanta has started to mass produce a
$100
$188 notebook computer for the One Laptop Per Child project. Nicholas Negroponte, the head of OLPC, claims 250,000 machines will be built this year, with 1 million a month being built in 2008. And if you believe that, Negroponte's got a $100 laptop…
Nicholas Negroponte, the MIT Media Lab director turned philanthropist turned businessman, has learned when not to be pedantic. For example, take his shifting stance on open source. He once believed that One Laptop Per Child, would have to run open-source software on its cheap machines for third-world schoolchildren.…
Updated. MIT Media Lab director Nicholas Negroponte has insisted that his One Laptop Per Child program is a charity that will only sell its wares to governments of developing nations. So who convinced him it was okay to sell the device to consumers in the United States and Canada at twice the price? Why, Negroponte…
