$100 laptop for poor
A cheap, robust laptop has been developed by MIT Media Lab for only $100 Its main objective is deliviring better education for poor students.
The new laptop Nicknamed the green machine is extremly functional, it has a very low power consumption that it is powered only with a wind-up crank, instead of hard drive it has a 1GB flash memory.
here is it's specs as mentioned on Wikipedia.
Hardware
Its hardware specifications, as of October 2005, are:
- 500 MHz CPU (Processor) by AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) Inc.
- 1 GB of flash memory (no hard drive)
- SVGA 8" diagonal display (dual LCD Colour/Black & White mode for power conservation and outdoor reading); estimated cost $35
- 128 MB of DRAM
- AC Cord that doubles as carrying strap as the power source and a hand-crank (one minute of cranking gives enough power for 10 minutes of operating).
- The cost of materials and assembly for each laptop is estimated to be approximately $100.
Software
All of the software on the $100 Laptop will be open-source. The projected software as of November 2005 is:
- Red Hat Linux variant as operating system
- A web browser
- A word processor
- An email program
- A programming system
The laptops will only be distributed to schools directly through large government initiatives, Brazil, Thailand, Egypt, United States (Massachusetts), Cambodia, Costa Rica and Tunisia already committed in various ways.
Let me add that this step is a huge step in the history of Education, IT and ofcourse the web, every body will be able to browse the net and use Email, Till now only 14% of the world use the net and 64% in the US after this step things will change.
November 17, 2005, 5:09 PM | Events , Technology , Web in the Middle East
Comments
1 | November 18, 2005 9:02 AM, Abdelrahman Osama said:
Wired news chat with Nicholas Negroponte the founding chairman of MIT's Media Laboratory about the future of the green machine.