In a BBC interview, Nicholas Negroponte, chairman and founder of MIT's Media Labs, says he is developing a sub-$100 laptop PC that can be used as an education tool in developing countries. Negroponte, who has already set up a couple of schools himself in Cambodia and given the students laptops, plans on distributing the devices, which would run free Linux software rather than the Microsoft Windows operating system, by the end of next year. One huge potential buyer already expressing interest: China. Now while it might be easy to criticize this initiative as focusing on the wrong solution—the Internet rather than inoculations, for instance—giving individuals, families, and villages access to information, such as better agricultural techniques, has tremendous potential economic upside.

# posted by James M. Pethokoukis at 2:00 PM EST
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