The $100 Laptop
The BBC has a background piece on the $100 laptop, Factfile: XO laptop, that describes an excellent communications device for disasters. For about twice the price of receive-only crank radio, you could establish a network throughout an area with two-way communications, including visuals.
The “pull-string” power source is certainly interesting to those of us have been in area without power for extended periods.
They should offer to it the public for $200 so that every purchase pays for a free machine for the developing world, like US Indian reservations and our inner cities.
3 comments
I read that it still costs $176 to manufacture at this point, with expected economies of scale coming into play later. At the moment, I’d settle for having an $800 laptop that booted reliably. But yes, I can see many virtues in a $100 laptop. I expect that such a device will reach the U.S. market about the same time we get universal single-payer health care, and for much the same reason.
Regarding hand-rechargeable devices, one of my two inexpensive shaker flashlights (shaker, not Shaker) died not long after I bought it. Too bad: if you didn’t mind the blue LED light, you could read for well over a half hour after about a minute’s shake-charging. These days, reading is the primary activity available to me during an extended storm, though I suppose I get a charge out of shaking the flashlight.
Then again, one could argue that I’m the crank, looking for a radio to charge.
…I would actually love to have one of these for my on-line stuff, were it not for the cruel irony of not having home access to high-speed internet that I could set up with a WiFi router. From a professional standpoint and aside from disaster settings, I could easily envision a ready-made application in wildland fire camps (which are frequently in remote settings without phones or electricity), where the various sections (planning, operations, transportation, purchasing, etc.) could have a linked system without having to jump through the techological hoops they have to now…
Not just economy of scale but licensing some of the technologies that are used should bring the price down, Steve, and the lack of a hard drive pretty much guarantees reliable booting. It isn’t a large screen, so it wouldn’t satisfy hardcore users, but $200 for a reliable power out backup is a good deal when you look at the available options.
Jack, the same kind of thing would work for small police and fire departments when compared to the cost of the current in-car systems. There are ways of getting a satellite link in and all you need is one router connected to the ‘Net and everyone is on-line if it works as advertised.