PCs for the 3rd world - The saga continues

So intel jumps onboard. The tech review article here. A older post on Negroponte's plan.

"On Wednesday, Intel unveiled a product it has demonstrated several times in recent months -- the Community PC, which is designed for use in rural India.

That PC reflects design ethnography of the sort Salvador practices. The Community PC is rugged, designed to withstand temperatures of up to 45 degrees Celsius and equipped with a special monitor and filters to deal with dust. It comes with a software-restore key that will rebuild the system's software at a keystroke if the PC fails. Finally, it can use a car battery as a backup power source, which is useful in areas where power failures are a daily fact of life. The PC will switch automatically between AC and DC power." - The technology review

This is not a $100 dream. Its more than twice the price, but a more realistic plan. Because selling a computer is not the ultimate goal. To service it, maintain it and build infrastructure for all this costs $$ too.