Nicolas Negroponte’s brainchild laptop/education project should pick up steam tomorrow. November 12 is the first day of the two week “Buy One Give One” promotion. For $400 you’ll get a laptop to keep or give to a kid and the program will donate a laptop to one of the third world countries they’re working with on this. I’m doing it. I think the idea is monumental – get kids everywhere on computers with access to the internet – and level the playing field around the world.

T-Mobile is donating a year of free wireless hotspot access with ever laptop purchased in the next two weeks. That rocks! The laptops have integrated 802.11b/g (2.4GHz) interface and 802.11s (Mesh) networking is supported, and they have dual adjustable, rotating antennas that will support a broad spectrum of connectivity. I don’t suppose there are a lot of T-Mobile hotspots in the hinterlands of China, but it will give people doing the “Buy One Give One” a nice incentive.

These laptops are human – powered but I’m not sure what that means. The hand crank proved impractical in their beta tests, so they have an ac adapter and something else. Guess I’ll find out pretty soon. Or I could hit the wiki if I weren’t so lazy.