Here's what it might look like:
It finally got delievered yesterday. I was hoping for this for Christmas.
It's the XO laptop designed and built by and for the One Laptop Per Child program. www.laptop.org
In order to kick start the prgram they ran a Give One Get One offer in November of last year. Mostly to get the technology into peoples hands and to raise awareness. So, with my donation, one goes to a kid in a developing country and one came to the house.
It's pretty small (I put the CD on the keyboard for reference), but it works.
Wireless is the only connection option built in, but it supports a USB Ethernet NIC as well.
So, you ask, what kid in a developing country has access to Wi-Fi? More and more everyday - if things go as planned. Even better though is that these laptops will automatically mesh up with each other when they are in range. So, if one is in range of an access point, it can work as an access point for devices that aren't. There is also a server that is intended to be placed in schools that would act as the main hub for the mesh network. The idea is that eventually, the school would have some sort of high speed access - relatively speaking - as well as server based apps.
It's LINUX based and has it's own user interface.
Comes loaded with a bunch of apps that are perfect for kids.
There are no moving parts at all. No hard drive. No fan.
It's ruggedized for kid use in naty environments. You can pour a coffee on the keyboard while it's running and nothing will happen to it.
It can be folded down like a tablet PC.
Power for these units is a battery pack and AC adapter, but for untis going overseas, there are other options like solar panels and hand cranked generators...
There's lots more to it. I'm still digging in to it. Chack out the link above if you want details.
Something that I found very interesting was the fact that I saw some commercialized versions of this concept announced just before Christmas - not intended for donating to developing countries - but for small lightweight PCs for road-warrior business folks. Made by Acer I believe. While not as inexpensive as the XO, they were still pretty cheap and came with more features.
It finally got delievered yesterday. I was hoping for this for Christmas.
It's the XO laptop designed and built by and for the One Laptop Per Child program. www.laptop.org
In order to kick start the prgram they ran a Give One Get One offer in November of last year. Mostly to get the technology into peoples hands and to raise awareness. So, with my donation, one goes to a kid in a developing country and one came to the house.
It's pretty small (I put the CD on the keyboard for reference), but it works.
Wireless is the only connection option built in, but it supports a USB Ethernet NIC as well.
So, you ask, what kid in a developing country has access to Wi-Fi? More and more everyday - if things go as planned. Even better though is that these laptops will automatically mesh up with each other when they are in range. So, if one is in range of an access point, it can work as an access point for devices that aren't. There is also a server that is intended to be placed in schools that would act as the main hub for the mesh network. The idea is that eventually, the school would have some sort of high speed access - relatively speaking - as well as server based apps.
It's LINUX based and has it's own user interface.
Comes loaded with a bunch of apps that are perfect for kids.
There are no moving parts at all. No hard drive. No fan.
It's ruggedized for kid use in naty environments. You can pour a coffee on the keyboard while it's running and nothing will happen to it.
It can be folded down like a tablet PC.
Power for these units is a battery pack and AC adapter, but for untis going overseas, there are other options like solar panels and hand cranked generators...
There's lots more to it. I'm still digging in to it. Chack out the link above if you want details.
Something that I found very interesting was the fact that I saw some commercialized versions of this concept announced just before Christmas - not intended for donating to developing countries - but for small lightweight PCs for road-warrior business folks. Made by Acer I believe. While not as inexpensive as the XO, they were still pretty cheap and came with more features.
