Secret Origin of the OLPC: Genius, Hubris and the Birth of the Netbook From the moment Nicholas Negroponte showed off his $100 laptop concept at the Davos world economic summit in January 2005, it was as if the tech world's supermoguls were glowering down on him in judgment. Over the course of the year, Craig Barrett, Michael Dell, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs weighed in, privately declining support and in some cases publicly disparaging the idea. The naysayers had a point. The mockup Negroponte was toting around that winter was one ugly baby. It aimed to reach the $100 price tag by having a slower processor, a skinnier internal drive, a smaller body and let's not forget that tent-like rear-projection screen that made it look like the conceptual heir to the pop-top VW Vanagon camper. But after three and a half years, Negroponte's crazy idea hasn't only produced the XO, a real laptop co-developed and manufactured by the world's largest notebook maker, it's also become a product most of Negroponte's opponents are now copying. After interviewing Negroponte himself, along with his original CTO Mary Lou Jepsen, designer Yves Behar, advanced technologies VP Michail Bletsas and others, we can explain how this proposed global humanitarian effort may in fact be more successful as a revolution in hardware design, and how OLPC will continue to influence the hardware you buy, even if you never score an actual XO. ... http://gizmodo.com/5041765/secret-origin-of-the-olpc-genius-hubris-and-the-birth-of-the-netbook -- Πριν εκτυπώσετε αυτό το μήνυμα, σκεφθείτε το περιβάλλον! Ένα χαρτί λιγότερο! - http://karounos.gr/blog/