$100 Laptop – An Overview

The One Laptop Per Child project has released details of their new $100 laptop. This laptop was designed for poorer countries without good network & power infrastructure so it has some fascinating features. Key features that really stood out for me; the low power consumption architecture – designed to work with manual & solar charging methods, the screen that flips between colour / black & white to make it readable in direct sunlight, and most impressive, the rabbit ear wi-fi aerials that flip down when the laptop is closed, but when open allow transmission over up to 2 km. Also, the proprietary version of Linux on the machine is set up to create resource sharing networks, or a ‘mesh’ – meaning that when one laptop is connected to the Internet, then any laptop can connect via the wireless to share the connection. Genius. The BBC has a great overview here.