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Hardware $100 Notebook Gets New Power Options
Brandon Hill (Blog) - July 26, 2006 12:07 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 14 comment(s) - last by dmcanally.. on Jul 26 at 4:20 PM
The $100 notebook is to get a pull-string external generator and will be produced by Quanta

When we last reported on the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) research initiative’s $100 laptop, the device had lost its hand crank which was to supply the unit with additional power when required. The laptop, looking very much like a production machine, sported USB ports, headphone and microphone jacks and a smallish keyboard.

We've now learned that while the hand crank has been ditched from the laptop's final design, another human-powered mechanism will be in place courtesy of Squid Labs. The pint-sized users will pull a string that will spin a generator separate from the laptop. "With a hand-crank system, if you're gung-ho about it, you can get about five watts out of it. But you get tired after about a minute or so," says Geo Homsy, a designer at Squid Labs. A projected 20 watts will have to be generated to in order to give ten minutes of run time for every one minute of human effort. The generator will also run at low RPMs in an effort to keep noise levels at a minimum. "If you imagine an entire school room full of kids using this thing, it needs to be as quiet as possible. Otherwise it will drive everyone insane," said Homsy.

The pull-string system isn't the only power alternative being looked at for the $100 laptop though. The project leaders are also working with firms to create high-capacity batteries that can be paired with the generator to give children the ability to use the laptop for up to eight hours at a time.

Taiwanese laptop giant Quanta has confirmed that it will begin producing the $100 laptops during the first quarter of 2007. Quanta, which is a part of the Taiwanese “Big Four” is projected to ship between 22 - 23 million laptops during 2006 with that number rising even further for 2007.

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Short
By mendocinosummit on 7/26/2006 1:14:06 AM , Rating: 2
10 minutes goes by very fast.




RE: Short
By mendocinosummit on 7/26/2006 1:14:35 AM , Rating: 2
I think I would get a donkey.


RE: Short
By armagedon on 7/26/2006 8:23:37 AM , Rating: 3
i see the school bullies having a now job for their slaves...


RE: Short
By stmok on 7/26/2006 2:05:40 AM , Rating: 2
I thought they were gonna use a foot-pedal solution?
(So you can stay focused on the display and keyboard while you're providing the power).


RE: Short
By Samus on 7/26/2006 2:15:36 AM , Rating: 2
Wow, foot pedal, thats a great idea. Really.

I'm still at a loss as to what countries don't have power. Everyone has access to the sun, and realistically 20-watts is unbelievably easy to get from a solar panal thats 1 sq ft.


RE: Short
By Thmstec on 7/26/2006 2:29:04 AM , Rating: 2
solar is expensive, and this is the 100$ laptop.


RE: Short
By Martin Blank on 7/26/2006 9:50:55 AM , Rating: 2
A one-square-foot solar panel generating 10W would cost about $50, and is useless at night.


RE: Short
By creathir on 7/26/2006 10:47:44 AM , Rating: 2
I would think the $100,000,000 that is used to purchase 1,000,000 of these things (minimum order) would be better used in installing... POWER GENERATION FACILITIES.

This is one of those aggravating ideas that really shows the ineptness of liberalism.

“Lets make laptops, sell them for $100 (minimum order of 1,000,000 units), and market this as ‘empowering the less fortunate’. We’ll even throw in the ability for human power for those that cannot afford power!”

They can afford the $100 million price tag, but cannot afford power… yeah, this makes sense.

- Creathir


RE: Short
By BladeVenom on 7/26/2006 11:18:27 AM , Rating: 2
"liberalism?" I thought it was capitalism that made things like this affordable.

Besides a paltry $100 million doesn't get you much of a power plant. All the new ones I've heard about in the news recently cost billions.

A million cheap laptops can be spread over a much larger area than a powerplants electrical grid. Besides, what good is a powerplant where people can't afford electrical appliances?


RE: Short
By creathir on 7/26/2006 12:16:47 PM , Rating: 1
At 1,000,000 per MW, you could provide power to 100,000 people. That is a substantial number of people. Cut that by half, that could mean 50,000 new jobs. I think this would serve the people greater than 1,000,000 wind up laptops...

- Creathir


RE: Short
By Ringold on 7/26/2006 2:02:09 PM , Rating: 2
I think I have to agree, though oddly my first impulse was to like the idea..

The model has been followed in some other remote places, so it should be done elsewhere too.

Company/Government sets up infrastructure that allows low end decent paying jobs => adults now have money, some waste it but enough send children to better schools => educated children either stay or leave and send money/business back home, enough to ramp up the process of wealth creation even more.

A $100 laptop has its uses, to be sure, but just given the way job creation works, where 1 high end job can lead to several local low end jobs, how money expands, everything else.. a few thousand jobs would be much more valuable. $100 laptop is just welfare, disregarding the "teach a man to fish" saying.


RE: Short
By Ringold on 7/26/2006 2:07:49 PM , Rating: 2
Darn lack of 'edit'.

Anyway, looking at it more, the welfare thing I said makes even more sense.

A laptop is instant, silly gratification which has a small effect long-term. Bad teachers and hate-and-ignorance-filled pdf's instead of textbooks? Plus a few cool games the kids can play pulling on a string instead of doing some work.

Compare that to generating jobs, which eventually results in kids getting sent to better schools for a fee. That cycle takes decades to truly bear serious fruit, and a whole generation more or less sacrifices themselves upon the alter of hard, industrious work so that their children will have a better life. That's not nearly as easy of a choice than "Hey, lets all buy shiny new American toys for our kids!"

Oh, and it also makes for a positive headline to offset the whole rebels, civil war, ethnic cleansing, mass graves and other types of crap that goes on over there.

And here I was really thinknig it was a good idea until Creathir made me think. Damn my silly liberal side, I thought I'd crushed it back in Econ 101 :D


RE: Short
By creathir on 7/26/2006 3:12:28 PM , Rating: 2
Just supress those liberal instillings, and sleep on it, and all will be good in the morning.

;-D

Seriously, just as it works in America and any other country that continues down the same path we have gone down, hard work will lead to properity, just ask our friends in Japan, Germany, the UK, and now most of Eastern Europe (aka, Poland)

Hard work is the catalist towards success, not free handouts. Sure the handouts are terrific for the NOW effect of feeling good, but 10 years from now, the $100 laptops will be WORTHLESS. Talk about a waste of $100 million.

- Creathir


By dmcanally on 7/26/2006 4:20:49 PM , Rating: 2
While giving developing countries or countries in constant ruin a chance for growth is never unpopular, I completely agree that the $100 laptop is a complete facade. While the actual laptop might be $100 what about a network infrastructure? What about developing lesson plans in said countries language? How do we deliver the media?

This isn’t a pie-in-the-sky idea as some have suggested. This is more of a pie-on-the-table-but-the-table-doesn’t-have-legs-an d-we-have-no-way-to-cook-the-pie idea. Well maybe not, but its still a terrible idea for people who don’t have access to power.

The $100 laptop would be much more practical and effective for very low income families in developed countries such as the US.




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