The first OLPC story of 2008 isn’t exactly positive. It seems Intel has left the initiative, claiming the OLPC camp, lead by the cocksure Nicholas Negroponte, wanted it to stop producing chips for its own low cost PC and for other companies’ low cost PCs (like the Eee PC by Asus). Intel wanted none of that so it left.
Exactly how true this is we don’t know just yet, since the OLPC group has yet to refute the claims, but it certainly doesn’t look good. OLPC is already fighting a battle with people who say things like, “you can’t cure hunger with a computer.” It’s amazing that the group that is actually trying to help people is up against such resistance.
Intel leaves the OLPC after dispute [CNET News.com]
Will be interested to see what the background behind Intel’s leaving really is. Seems like a silly move on OLPC (if they did) to push Intel to stop manufacturing chips – the only result could be Intel leaving…Hard to believe.