"The $75 Tablet Computer — Designer Yves Behar shares images and details from One Laptop Per Child’s flashy PC plans. — Take a look at the designs for what could someday be the world’s cheapest PC, and you may start to wish you were a third-grade child in Burundi."

Techmeme: The $75 Tablet Computer  — Designer Yves Behar shares images … (Andy Greenberg/Forbes)

Here’s the problem, right here. You announce a custom-designed device aimed at children in developing countries, but you hype it to first world gadgetophiles a year in advance. Guess what happens? You don’t meet price targets, because drool demand from well-off consumers will vastly outstrip supply at the exact moment you go to production. Your well-intentioned gadget will cost $200 more than 3rd world governments can afford, even if they forego the bribery & distribution costs that you didn’t factor into your cost structure.

Stop now. If you need the developed-country consumers to fund you, make it a boring device that will only appear glamorous next to developing world technology. If Gizmodo covers it, it’s too cool. Make it completely useless unless you’re a 3rd grader in Afghanistan. Then you have a chance at meeting your price targets.

Or, stop caring about public perception in developed countries. Focus on the customer - the governments and institutional buyers who would still have to pay for this thing, which costs about 2 months of poverty level wages.