Only $100 and a crank battery? I'll take 4!

I'm a sucker for things that fold and/or have wheels (and a crank is a folding wheel), so it was easy for me to find a soft spot for the One Laptop Per Child project. And, if I could buy four, I would of course donate 3 to children who need them. However, "Can I buy one" (for myself or to finance a few machines for a developing country) does not seem to be included in their FAQ. (Well, perhaps obliquely. They plan to sell the machines in bulk directly to governments.)

They are hoping to launch the project in the first half of 2007 and have created a specialized OS, "Sugar," that is supposed to be more child oriented than the standard desktop paradigm. Some of it just seems like calling a garbanzo bean a chickpea, but one interesting change is that they will have a journal instead of the usual system of folders and such. I imagine it's sort of like searching though email for the latest version of that god awful huge word document you were working on (not that I would ever do that), but I could be wrong. Those who are interested in trying it out for themselves can download a copy here.

One small irritant for me, though I'm not sure if I'm irritated with myself or Mr. Negroponte, is when he said it was "criminal" that children be trained to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Now, I agree PowerPoint

• rots your brain
• rots your brain
• and rots your brain

and that kids should be kids, but I'm afraid that for a lot of the kids in question, knowing stupid office programs could make a big difference in their lives. But I'm still pretty sure I'm irritated with myself. Pragmatism is so dingy sometimes, and for good reason.

Anyway, here's a big XOXOXO for the XO. And maybe we can donate our used USB keychain drives, even if we can't buy one of the laptops.

Read the BBC's article here