Well now, this is certainly great news! Thanks to some innovators from MIT and Linux, $100 notebooks can become a reality for school kids.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is developing a laptop computer that it plans to sell for $100 each to government agencies that will distribute them to schoolchildren.

Nicholas Negroponte, chairman and co-founder of the MIT Media Lab, says many countries lack the means to offer children enough education to realize their full potential. However, as Negroponte envisions it, the combination of providing laptops to all children, broadband connections for the towns and villages those children live in, and a school syllabus for the use of digital materials will improve not only the education the children receive but also their future prospects.

Discussions with various governments for pilot projects are under way, Negroponte says. MIT has asked China to order 3 million machines, and Brazil to order 1 million laptops. He hopes to have working units available for demonstration this November, in time for the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis. [Read the rest]