Every student in grades one through eight in the Birmingham city school system will receive a laptop computer under a tentative agreement Mayor-elect Larry Langford has reached with a foundation that provides computers in developing countries, an adviser to Langford said Monday.

The city will be deploying 15,000 OLPCs to its school system. The OLPCs will be given to all first- through eighth-graders in the city's school system. Some of the computers are expected to be deployed as early as March, with the rest to follow by the beginning of the 2008-9 school year. The first of these small Linux laptops will be used in pilot programs as teachers get up to speed on these computers.

This weekend, the One Laptop per Child movement in New York City is holding an OLPC "Grassroots Jam" at the Manhattan Neighborhood Network. The Jam is a gathering of volunteer educators, content creators, artists, writers, programmers, engineers, and others who want to help create a central server for NYC schools that already make use of OLPC laptops.

One Laptop Per Child may have pilot projects in many schools worldwide, but the newest program has my rapt attention. Teaching Matters, an educational non-profit, is implementing a OLPC pilot in the Kappa IV school in New York City with a refreshing twist.

Thank you for your interest in One Laptop Per Child. Our mission is to provide a means for learning, self-expression and exploration to the nearly two billion children of the developing world with little or no access to education. While children are by nature eager for knowledge, many countries have little resources to devote to education—sometimes less than $20 a year per child.

Microsoft wants to rule the world, even Third World countries where $100 laptops for children will soon be prevalent. In a move bound to spark controversy, Microsoft announced it wants Windows XP to be installed in the computers for the project One Laptop Per Child (OLPC).

The nonprofit organization One Laptop Per Child is working to develop computers that could be built for just $100 each and distributed to children in developing countries.Still, some of the program's critics, which have included Dell Inc.

SINCE LAST week the coastal city of Rosario, Argentina's second largest city and home of about a million people is among the growing club of World cities with free municipal Wi-Fi access.

"I think this is a question worth asking. Although this links to an article in French, you’ll probably get the idea: Bill Gates is visiting my beautiful city, Paris, just like many other well-known figures the U.S have brought to the world, such as Britney Spears, Georges W. Bush and Mr Potato. The major difference with them is that Bill Gates did not have to avoid mobs of curious people or fans (although I think Mr Potato managed to spend some time pretty much anonymously ).