MIT's Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of the One Laptop Per Child nonprofit association, gave a speech at LinuxWorld in Boston where he complained that Linux had become bloated -- which is true if you take a popular business distro, and OLPC was supposed to use Red Hat. But someone at LinuxWorld may well have pointed him to a few of the more suitable versions.
More interesting is the news that the "$100 laptop" (not a real price) will not have a handle. News.com reports:
As initially envisioned, the laptops sported a hand crank on the side to generate power, but Negroponte has scrapped that idea because the twisting forces that would be bad for the machine. Instead, some form of power generation device, likely a pedal, will be attached to the AC power adapter, he said.
"I was the longest holdout for the crank being on the laptop. I was wrong," he said, adding, "If you're a 10-year-old, maybe you can get your four-year-old to pedal for you."
Comment: And it was going to be on sale this year? From this, I wouldn't even bet on 2007....
