Intel Plans Laptop Donation for Brazil

Intel says it will donate more than 700 of its new low-cost laptop computers to Brazil next year as part of an experiment to give students in poor neighborhoods access to computers, reports the Associated Press.

The laptops will be tested alongside a cheaper alternative from One Laptop Per Child, a Massachusetts nonprofit group that gives computers to poor children in developing countries.

Walter Bender, a top official with One Laptop Per Child, said he welcomes the competition from a for-profit giant such as Intel. “The only way the price is going to continue to go down is competition in the marketplace,” he told the news wire. “One of our goals was to get industry to wake up to that need.”