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Researchers at MIT's Media Lab, in conjunction with high-tech heavyweights such as Google, AMD, and Nortel, recently unveiled a prototype of a $100 laptop intended to grant access to the World Wide Web to children in developing countries. The computer is the size of a textbook, features built-in wireless capability that can connect to the web via WiFi and create local area networks, and - since electricity in large swaths of the developing world is expensive, inconsistent, or non-existent - can be powered by a hand crank. Costs are kept down by reliance on open-source software, a radical redesign that focuses on simplicity and durability, and economies of scale -- governments in Brazil, Thailand, Massachusetts and elsewhere have signaled interest in purchasing the machines en masse. The $100 laptop has enormous disruptive potential: it will compete primarily against non-consumption in places where traditional laptops cannot penetrate due to excessive cost and insufficient power and will appeal to overshot consumers on the basis of price and accessibility by cutting out the pricey proprietary software and advanced applications featured on, say, $1000 laptops. Essentially, this new kind of laptop will meet the needs of a massive and massively underserved market. Furthermore, government agencies and international aid organizations (led by the UN) are expected to foot the bill, meaning that tens-of-millions of the laptops may be shepherded into the developing world as soon as the final (though not insignificant) technological hurdles are overcome. The target date is late 2006, with full rollout in 2007. Like many disruptive innovations before it, the $100 laptop is being derided by industry incumbents as nothing more than a gadget (specifically, "a $100 gadget," in the words of Intel Chairman Craig Barrett, quoted by Reuters, 12/9/05). Will the well-established and thriving laptop computer industry be swept away by a hand-cranked "gadget?" And of infinitely greater significance, can said "gadget" revolutionize the global computing and communications landscape and facilitate the education of millions, hundreds-of-millions, even billions of the world's poor and underserved? Affordable wireless telephony has already begun to reshape the world; cheap and effective wireless computing, run on wireless power, cranks up the disruptive and transformative potential even higher. See: http://laptop.media.mit.edu/ http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002628425_laptop17.html http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/12/intel_chairman.php http://today.reuters.com/News/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=SP263515

As the number of days left for Christmas shopping dwindle, it becomes harder and harder to find one of the most popular gifts this season - the XBox 360. If you can't find one, don't worry - it may turn out that the XBox (and the PS3 for that matter) are missing the boat when it comes to video games.

When you think about the "Jobs to be Done" regarding video games, perhaps the most important job is allowing the game player to escape from reality for a while and become immersed in a new world. Sony and Microsoft have decided that the best way to do this is to make the pictures and graphics on the screen as realistic as possible. Both are moving along the sustaining curve in that the traditional measure of performance for video games has been graphics. Both the XBox 360 and the PS3 have incredibly sophisticated graphics processors and support High-definition outputs. Both produce stunning graphics. And both have hefty price tags.

Nintendo has decided to go a different, and perhaps disruptive, route. No high definition for the new console, the Revolution. And while the graphics processor will be capable, it's not the cell processor that's going into the PS3. The price? Estimated to be half of a fully loaded XBox 360 or PS3. So what's the big deal? The controller.

The wireless controller eschews the typical joystick controllers used by the PS3 and XBox 360 in exchange for motion sensitivity. Imagine your character walking in the forest and encountering a dragon - a quick slash of the controller results in your character making the same slash with his sword. A lunge forward and your character lunges. Don't aim your gun with a joystick, aim it with your hand like a real person would do.

Nintendo is betting that the way to a more immersive experience is not through higher quality graphics. They believe that the graphics capabilities of the new systems are overshoot. Instead, they argue, make the gaming experience more real by having the player get more physically involved.

It's a new approach in an industry that has been focused on graphics for a long time. While it remains to be seen how successful Nintendo will be, they have to be commended on their attempt at disruption.

So if Santa doesn't bring an XBox 360 to your house this Christmas, it may not be the disaster that Microsoft would have you believe.