Well, here's the good news - MIT Media Labs are currently developing a $100 laptop. The bad news is that they're only available to deserving children under the auspices of certain NGOs and charitable organisations.










The current plan is to offer a 500 Mhz processor with a 1 GB Flash drive for storage. It will run a Linux-based OS designed to function minimally. The three amazing things that I found about this were:

1. Integrated Wi-Fi access

2. A colour LCD display which switches to Black & White mode when used outdoors to conserve energy ( That's something larger vendors ought to think about, IMHO )

3. This is what I want on my notebook too - a hand crank to power the machine! They claim 1 minute of cranking will generate enough energy to keep the machine working for 10 mins. Not too shabby - build up your biceps and surf the net at the same time...

A new peer to peer mesh networking system will also allow these machines to interface with each other without the help of any other routers or hubs. Very cool.

I just wish I could get my hands on one even if it were just for testing

Niiiiiiice.

Although I would never buy one (if I could) they seem pretty nifty.

I like the hand crank idea. Kinda makes me wish for an accesory for my notebook that would do that.

It's really great that there's an initiative of this sort to provide children from across the globe - those from the underprivilidged sections of the global society, access to computing and the internet. I read through some of the reports on the pilot projects and found that this could be the next big revolution in human evolution.

Education and more specifically the tools towards self education have been constantly denied to the poorer sections of the global human massess. In India, there are TV and radio programs sponsored by the government that provide education lessons through mass media to inculcate some form of self learnning. But, the efforts to make available a tool like serious computing power, to children 9who automatically have inquisitive minds) looks like the start of a great adventure in a more educated human race.

Really an applaudable undertaking.

I think I am going to build a hand crank thing for my laptop only I am going to make it a big heavy duty one since I have a 2.2GHz with a huge screen and CD burner. That would take a lot of power but I like the idea of being able to crank this box up and plug it in when your battery dies. This way if you are on a road trip and you are using your laptop to let your kids watch movies, you dont have to pull over and plug it in every 5 hours, just give one of the kids a crank and say "you gonna have to work for your entertainment." Another bonus to this is it wears your kids out so they sleep more during the trip and you dont hear "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" LOL

the hand crank power generator reminds me of something that my mother threatened to do once.

she knew that there was a way to hook up a stationary/exercise bicycle so that it would generate energy to power the television set. My brothers would watch TV ALL DAY LONG if they could get away with it especially when we were very young (i.e. grade or middle school). She was dead serious about hooking up the TV set to a bike so that we'd have to pedal our little butts off to generate enough energy to keep the TV on.

Looking back ... I think that she probably should have gone ahead and done it. It wouldn't have affected me personally much (I didn't watch the tube often), but all of my brothers would *still* be in incredible shape from all the pedaling they would have done!


As for the actual laptop: yeah, MIT's got some really smart people in their system. I'm glad that they're using their knowledge (and technology) to help kids who otherwise probably wouldn't have access to computers. From what you describe, it sounds like they've put some serious thought (and good old common sense) into this laptop. Although I have to wonder about the black and white mode: is it possible to turn it to that when you're indoors? If so, that could be convenient. If a user is just, say typing a paper, he doesn't really need full color, so conserving the energy even though he's inside would still be a good idea - especially with that hand crank!

Heard about this a while ago in Popular Mechanics. It's a good idea, but I'd pass it up unless it was the only option for me.

For what that is, you can probably get that sort of stuff for £160-£200 nowadays, which is about $350.

And the reliability of it?

Plus I bet they'll have a catch, where they will have a run up charge and a $99.99 guarentee.

I hate it when you buy something cheap for say £25.00, but you have to buy a £60.00 guarentee for it, when the full price is only about £55 anyway?