First, MIT Media Lab, the creator of OLPC, failed to produce the device at $100 as claimed.
OLPC team are scholars and tech inventors from academic cycle.
Then ASUS, Taiwanese PC manufacturer, borrowed the concept of 'small notebook' and launched the legendary Eee PC 701 at affordable price. All popular netbooks sold in the last few years are from established, well-known manufacturers like Acer or Samsung.
Again last year, we heard the hype of CrunchPad, very cheap internet tablet from TechCrunch, a famous tech blog.
TechCrunch successfully convinced me to buy one when the device comes out. However, a news piece from BusinessInsider is questioning the delay/death of CrunchPad due to higher-than-expected costs.
If that's real, we will see yet another failure of prominent gadget from a new player from different industry. If both MIT and TechCrunch fail, does that mean the hardware industry is very tough? How can the new entrance survive?