A $100 Laptop: Really.

While everyone has been going bonkers over the OLPC, it seems some folks in the-place-that-occupies-Tibet have truly made a $100 laptop:

In October, Shenzhen China-based HiVision will ship a MIPs-based Linux mini-notebook for $98. The company is currently offering a similar machine for $120, according to a video blog report from the Internationale Funkausstellunga (IFA) consumer electronics show in Berlin this week.

HiVision's current offering, the "mini-Note," appears to use one of the several MIPS-based processors now available from Chinese semiconductor vendors. It may use a Longsoon-2F chip, or perhaps the Ingenic Jz4740 Multimedia Application Processor, which powers Bestlink's $250 ($180 in volume) Alpha 400 mini-notebook and 3K's $300 RazorBook 400-Mini-Notebook, two other Linux-based models out of China. Both processors use MIPS-like cores...

Here's a link to the product.

Well, there it is - one of my predictions has come true. The OLPC's die-hardest advocates will say that the OLPC has a different mission, and yet that mission hasn't been very well documented and/or supported via infrastructure.

One laptop per child? Sure. Go for it. But the answer has never been in the laptops themselves, has it?