Steve Jobs: Unseen Hand Behind The OLPC Laptop

You might not expect Steve Jobs to have anything to do with a $100 laptop project, but it turns out nothing could be further from the truth. As a matter of fact, Jobs informally consulted with OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte at several points along the design process.

"I got an email from Steve Jobs (the night the laptop was revealed) he said you can't build it for a hundred dollars, and my answer was oh yes I can," Negroponte said as part of a lecture at the University of Pennsylvania, Thursday night.

"He was actually a very good critic, and each time we got to a point, I did talk to him," Negroponte added. Negroponte also mentioned his displeasure with Microsoft, both in terms of Windows 7 performance, and Microsoft's attempts to thwart the OLPC initiative.

Negroponte was upbeat in his assessment of OLPC deployments so far, and said there's a $75 price target for the next model, described as a single, flexible device comprising both the display and keyboard.

Could this give us some insight to the rumored Apple tablet? Check our next post...