OLPC

Like a couple of you have stated, OLPC has noble intentions, yet there other greater issues that developing countries are more concerned with than obtaining a slightly shoddy, toy-like laptop. I praise OLPC's efforts towards trying to close the digital divide by distributing technology aimed to make those recieving it feel connected to the rest of the world and equally priviledged. But, if one were to compare the quality of an XO laptop to that of one common in a developed country such as the U.S., you would see many differences and ineqaulities. Some characteristics of an XO laptop are listed below:

1). Instead of a large hard drive the laptop has 1GB of flash memory, similar to that used in some digital cameras.
2). The chip, made by AMD, is much slower than most in today's PCs, operating at a speed of just 433MHz. In comparison , some of today's high performance machines have multiple chips with speeds of up to 3GHz.
3). has no hard drive, CD or DVD drive.
4). can be difficult to physically use; very small keys and screen

Even though OLPC has a lot of work ahead before they can "put a laptop in the hands of every child on the planet," I still give them credit for caring and trying.