Computer cost dashing kids' dream

A computer developed for the world's poor children, dubbed "the $100 laptop", has reached an odious milestone: It is now selling for $200.

The One Laptop per Child Foundation, founded by MIT Professor Nicholas Negroponte, has started offering the lime-green-and-white machines in lots of 10,000 or more for $200 apiece on its website (http://laptopfoundation.org/participate/givemany.shtml).

Those laptops are for purchase by donors who designate where they are to be sent through a program recently launched by the foundation to help finance the product's launch.