MIT unveils wind-up $100 laptop
Experts at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology are designing a durable laptop computer that will cost about
$100.
Experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are designing a durable laptop computer that will cost about $100.
MIT Media Lab leader Nicholas Negroponte hopes to give the machines, which would be durable, flexible and self-reliant, to needy children around the world.
The machine's A-C adapter would double as a carrying strap, and a hand crank would power them when there's no electricity. They'd be foldable into more positions than traditional notebook PCs, and carried like slim lunchboxes.
For outdoor reading, their display would be able to shift from full color to glare-resistant black and white.
And surrounding it all, the laptops would have a rubber casing that closes tightly, because "they have to be absolutely indestructible," said Negroponte.
While the initial target for these is students in the developing world, schools in the US are natural end-users, as well.
Negroponte hatched the $100 laptop idea after seeing children in a Cambodian village benefit from having notebook computers at school that they could also take home to use on their own.
Those computers had been donated by a foundation run by Negroponte and his wife. He decided that for kids everywhere to benefit from the educational and communications powers of the Internet, someone would have to make laptops inexpensive enough for officials in developing countries to bulk purchase.
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To save on software costs, the laptops would run the freely available Linux operating system instead of Windows.
The computers would be able to connect to Wi-Fi wireless networks and be part of "mesh" networks in which each laptop would relay data to and from other devices, reducing the need for expensive base stations. Plans call for the machines to have four USB ports for multimedia and data storage.
Perhaps the defining difference is the hand crank, though first-generation users would get no more than 10 minutes of juice from one minute of winding.
It’s also designed to look and be utilitarian -- instead of a fashion statement -- which may hinder acceptance here in the States.
Posted: Fri - September 30, 2005 at 06:35 AM