The HDL that Negroponte posits would bypass three expensive components of 
conventional laptops - Microsoft Windows, a traditional flat panel screen, 
and a hard drive. Instead it will be loaded with Linux and other open source 
software; its display will use either a rear projection screen or a type of 
electronic ink invented at the MIT Media Lab; and it will store one gigabyte 
of files in flash memory.

Once turned on, HDLs will automatically connect to one another using a 
mesh network initially developed at MIT and the Media Lab a spontaneous, 
carrierless method of broadband access that is also being worked on by 
Microsoft and Intel, both eager to see their core technologies being pushed 
out to the world’s entire population.

In Negroponte’s mesh, each HDL will act as the household email, telephone 
(using Skype or other free software) and internet access device. For 
communities without electricity, HDLs may be powered by either a crank or ‘
parasitic power (typing). He claims that he has been talking to Chinese 
manufacturers that could build the HDL for under $100 providing there were 
committed orders of at least six million in the first year. Chinese 
authorities themselves have said they would be interested in buying two 
million machines and Brazil 1m, said Negroponte.

Negroponte writes: "Education: one laptop per child. Whatever big problem 
you can imagine, from world peace to the environment to hunger to poverty, 
the solution always includes education. We need to depend more on 
peer-to-peer and self-driven learning. The laptop is one important means 
of doing that."