First of the OLPCs Built

eldavojohn writes "An announcement came Sunday that the first ten prototypes of the Linux-powered OLPC XO-1 had been completed in China. From the article, 'Quanta, the Chinese computer maker that won the international bidding for the project earlier this year, will assemble 900 OLPC machines that will be used for destructive testing and distribution to our development partners.' Let's hope that these first prototypes do not warrant any design changes and that the testing goes well so that countries that expressed interest (Brazil, Libya, Nigeria, Argentina, and Thailand) can start distributing them soon."

Comments

It's worth noting...

[Otter]

Not that this project had any lack of vapor already, but it's worth noting that the Thai government that vaguely signed on to this project over the summer was overthrown in a military coup a few weeks later. We'll see how high a priority this is for the new guy.

Those of you who were hailing Khaddafi's deep commitment to freedom when he jumped aboard will be relieved to know that he's not going anywhere anytime soon, though...

Re:Childrens laptop?

[leuk_he]

libya has oil and is not a real poor country.

"These oil revenues and a small population give Libya one of the highest GDPs per person in Africa"

Re:ok, I'm biting... about this illiteracy...

[spisska]

Hear, hear.

Some figures:
Country, literacy rate in percent (world ranking)

Kazakhstan, 99.5 (29)
Ukraine, 99.4 (32)
Tonga, 98.9 (36)
Mongolia, 97.8 (47)
Argentina, 97.2 (53)
United States, 97 (55)
Thailand, 92.6 (72)
Zimbabwe, 90 (85)
Brazil, 88.4 (90)
Namibia, 85 (103)
Libya, 81.7 (111)

Source
Discussion of Source accuracy
UNDP Human Development Index Report, 2005 [pdf]