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Nicholas Negroponte, the director and founder of the MIT Media Lab is developing a personal computer that costs $100.

Negroponte is targeting his affordable computer towards developing countries, with China being one of the main goals. Not only has Nicholas made strides toward developing his product, he has also received support from a number of industry titans. These companies include, Google, AMD, Motorola, Samsung, and News Corp.

The Red Herring reports:

"The low-cost computer will have a 14-inch color screen, AMD chips, and will run Linux software, Mr. Negroponte said during an interview Friday with Red Herring at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. AMD is separately working on a cheap desktop computer for emerging markets. It will be sold to governments for wide distribution.

Mr. Negroponte and his supporters are planning to create a company that would manufacture and market the new portable PCs, with MIT as one of the stakeholders. It is unclear precisely what role the other four companies will play, although Mr. Negroponte hopes News Corp. will help with satellite capacity.

An engineering prototype is nearly ready, with alpha units expected by year's end and real production around 18 months from now, he said."

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