Just as another proof that being rich or being a M$ co-founder doesn't make you smart have a look at this http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/busine...ipstart06.html

Looks like the one-laptop-per-child thing (actually worse) just costs as much as 20 of those.

In the making since 2003 - wtf?? - who needs 4 years to come up with THAT????

Of course it'll be also running vista.How thats going to work on that platform is a mystery.

Looking at the whole thing it almost looks to me like it is fake - anybody knows if this is real?

Looks real to me. There's a link to the "Flip Start" (or was it flip off) website. Let's all inundate them with requests for the Flip Start running Linux! Hey, Dell is listening...why not Microsoft's co-founder?

o.o

Why anyone would spend 2,000$ on that is beyond me. I can buy a GREEN (Both eco-friendly and actually green) VIA-based computer, bigger hard drive, and a better OS than that, for around 600$. Sure, it's not as small, but imagine trying to spot stuff on that tiny screen, with those bloated windows menus.

Small screen machines capable of runing general-porpouse OSes are just simply a bad idea. And 2000$? what? for that little thing.

For consumers these are useless - just get a PDA or a smartphone. However, I can see them being used in corporates: I'd imagine they'd be very handy for diagnosing faults on aeroplanes or other large sensitive machinery.

eh...thoshiba has kind of beaten them to it with the libretto u100...

Corporates use toughbooks for heavy-duty stuff - there you get your money's worth.This thing looks like it falls apart if the sun hits it directly

I like "paperback book" form factor. Tablet PCs are too big and handhelds are too small. I also like the idea of built in broadband wireless... no more looking for a WiFi hotspot.

There's no way I'm going to pay two grand though.

And for the record the OLPC project, in true Orwellian doublespeak fashion, will not be giving laptops to any children. All the laptops will be delivered to bureaucrats. It's like the oil for food program all over again. Can't just give hungry people food you know... they need geniuses from MIT to tell them how to eat it.

This is sad but probably true - I live in Brasil and just wait to see those things all over the place except where they are supposed to go.

That is one of the huge flaws in that project - how can you think that in countries where the teacher makes less in a month than one of those things is worth they will stay in the classrooms instead of being resold on the street.

As for safeguards - forget about that.If they got one international top notch professional group here it's soft- and hardware crackers.