Clicky Thats a really cool idea, Imagine the millions of extra visitors to bit! Seriously tho, thats really cool, hope they manage to pull it off for the sake of the less-fortunate kids.
Nice one. It is good to see technological skill being applied to creat something genuinely useful rather than a new pointless gadget. It sounds so cool, I might want one (in fact they could sell them here for $200,-- or £114,--, and for every unit sold here a free one would go to a deserving kid in the third world). I notice it is running Linux, not MS Windows...
Well, Linux would reduce the cost dramatically. I wouldn't mind one of those myself, would be great if there was uninterupted wifi accross the country, looks at google wifi access
I like this idea and you have a very kind heart for thinking of it. I'm sure the parts dont cost that much less than 100 bucks too. There should be a wider market for lower/lower end pc's that arnt crap like the things Dell sells.
Absolutely. I believe that function should dictate the shape of the device first and foremost --that is good design. Too often you see PCs at Dixons/PC World, or even Dell (decorative LEDs in a laptop? Please... ) with pointless crap on them. Often the construction is flimsy, unwieldy, and impractical. The best laptops, in my opinion, from a construction point of view are still the Apple iBooks. Tough, lightweight polycarbonate or titanium shells, rounded corners, recessed connectors and access panel under the keyboard. Elegant, simple. We need simpler, cheaper and more thoughtfully designed devices that are easy and transparent to operate (for non-geek users) and do not require an electronics degree to service and maintain. You shouldn't have to think about how to use it, you should just be able to. You shouldn't have to save up for one to buy it. You shouldn't have to learn a new language to understand the specs before you can decide whether a device will be right for you. It should be: "This thing will do your word processing, wireless e-mails and web browsing, and play your music. It has an alarm clock/calendar. It will store about 10.000.000 pages of documents and 1000 MP3 songs. It will run 10 hours before recharging is required. On the lid it will show battery life, e-mails received, song playing, whether it has detected a wifi hotspot, time and appointment reminders. You turn it on and off with the same button here. It will start up exactly where you shut it down. When it detects a wifi hotspot it will appear as an antenna symbol in the "Around Me" window here, showing your laptop symbol at the center. To make a connection, simply draw a line with your cursor between your laptop and the Wifi symbol. It will do the rest for you. If you need to move closer for a better signal, it will tell you how much and in what direction. It also recognises other similar laptops automatically. These appear in the same "Around Me" window. If you want to set up a wireless network between them, you simply click and draw some lines from your laptop to the others. The network is now made. Don't worry about virusses or firewalls; it does that automatically for you. Don't worry about backups either; it's all in Flash. If you do have anything important to back up however, just put a standard flash memory card or USB memory keyfob in any of these slots, and click the button "Backup" on the menu. It will now ask you what you want to back up: your document folder, your e-mail folder, your music, your calendar. Just tick the boxes of those you want to back up, click OK. It will now create copies of these folders on the flash memory you inserted. To restore backups, click "Restore" and go through the same routine. It will take this standard Li-ion rechargable battery (which you can swap without turning off) and this standard flash memory you can get in any photography or computer shop. Recharger is built into the laptop itself, and works all over the world, and also from car; just change the plug on the end of the cable. All the software you need is installed, with separate Flash memory backup for automatic restore if things go tits up. If they do, press the "Repair" button (recessed here) and it will automatically restore to the state it was in the last time it worked. The case is shock resistant, dust-proof, splash-proof. You can drop it, stand on it, sit on it. Hinges are metal. Any part breaks, we can replace it with the unfastening of a few screws in 10 minutes flat. And it comes in a variety of colours."
Nicely put, Nexxo, IMO, theirs absolutly NO reason what so ever that companys coulnt create a pc/ laptop as you describe, it`d be perfect for everyone, plain and simple is how it should be, But for the geeky people *cough* you`d still be able to do whatever you liked with it.. (sets off to create a company and produce these laptops, and pwn Dell, ect.)
Yea, like i said in my previous post. Instead of trying to create longer battery life and extra features with current gen processor's and videocards. They should be using lower end processors and current batteries and screens. I think you would get a cheaper costing laptop with a longer lasting battery and still be able to keep the simplicity of it all. Too bad (and i mainly blame this on intel) people think GHZ speed is everything and its bad if it isnt new.
Ooh! And I just thought of something else. Given that at about $200,-- / £114,-- such units would be laughably cheap over here, they would be excellent subjects for some really creative and original modding!
You do realise the computer you would like Nexxo will cost an absolute fortune and is unlikely to me made available on the market for 10 years at least. You want it to store 10 million documents and 1000 mp3's AND run from flash. So your talking about 7 or 8 GB of flash with fixed write cycles. Oops expensive and nasty when the flash IC's refuse to read, especially the flash you backed up to. You want 2 screens instead of 1? There goes the battery life, which already has to last for 10 hours. And you have to be able to change the battery without turning it off, without mains power that means another lithium battery with a finite life. Expensive again. Also lots of fun when the built in battery runs out of life. You want it to connect to wifi spots automatically. What about security? Where do you enter the WEP key? If we dont have a WEP key or some sort of security then we have lots of open networks, which will be easy to hack since our laptop takes care of the virus/firewall bit. The backup bit is easy to do, theres lots of software that already does this or something very similar. You want the recharger built into the laptop. 110V-240V mains into the laptop. Damn that thing is going to warm. Warmer than your average laptop, a definite knee cooker. It also increases the size of the thing. You want an IP65 rated enclosure for the laptop with army type ruggedness. Thats going to cost a fortune and reduce functionality. Anything which you have to seal against the elements and protect from dropping suddenly becomes an engineering nightmare. And you want to produce this on a mass scale so the prices arnt silly? Not a chance. You had some nice ideas Nexxo, but until we move along technologically this laptop aint gonna happen. I personally believe as many do that technology is complicated and always should be. Once you simplify it you open it up to hackers, you reduce its functionality and start global problems. How many virii would be circling the globe if computer hardware was restricted to those who could use it? Technology for the enlightened is the way it should be, but it will never happen. We will continue to struggle on with *******ized hardware and software that cant decide wether it wants to be simple or easy and then fails to deliver because of that. I personally believe that to own/use a computer you should be forced to take a 'Computer Driving Licence'. People would then think twice about buying a packard bell from PC world, connecting it to the net via wannadoo broadband and allowing it to be taken over by a hacker and become part of a spam attack/DoS attack. Rant Over... Back on the topic though the idea of a $100 Notebook is a great idea. Lets give children in poverty stricken areas of the world $100 worth of computer instead of $100 worth of education/clothing/food. Edit: The swear filter seems to think that B_astard and B_astardized are naughty.
You can't please everyone, Hippo.. It has lots of ups and downs as any thing does, but the way i see it if i was a poor kid from some 3rd world country i`d be greatful for whatever it was you gave me, (More so than i am living here, in the UK) Giving them a computer, the one thing they`ve probaly never heard of, will be great for them, once they start learning to use it and adapt it, that opens a whole new factor for them, then we move onto the fact that since i dunno, 1million african kids, for example, have knowledge on computers, we have no reason not to set up factories overin africa, saving us money, saving companys money, and giving them all jobs. Which in-turn brings them money, and clothes, and shelter.. Its like the term "Gotta go up, to go down" or, "Dont give them a fish, Teach them how to fish"
Never said it all had to be Flash. But 8GB of Flash is not nearly as expensive as you think it is. The Nano has four. By next Spring it will have 16. The second screen could be a bog-standard, black-and-white reflective LCD screen (no backlight or just a few white LEDs). The main screen could be a low power reflective colour screen. The CPU and the rest would be a not exactly earth-scorching 500Mhz, low power chip. The secondary battery could be just a regular Lithium camera battery that kicks in for the minute that it takes to swap a battery. Tell me how that three bucks is expensive. If you ever configured a Wifi network (which I have no doubt you will have), you will notice how you have the option of letting your firewall software generate a random 128-bit encription key. So your laptop and the WiFi hotspot could, in fact, just agree on a key amongst themselves then and there, to use only for that occasion. Sounds difficult? I think not. Your car wireless remote keyfob and your car alarm do so all the time: identify each other by a rolling, ever changing encrypted code that cannot be predicted and is only used once. Ever. In a chip that costs a few bucks. My point is that this should be integral part of the OS and easy to use for a total noob. A few clicks at most. Depends. You want your battery full within 30 minutes, yes, that will generate some heat. You want to trickle-charge it overnight, then that will not generate so much heat. Next time when you charge your mobile, see how warm that charger really gets. Admittedly that's a smaller battery, but I bet it will only take an hour or two, three, to charge that. Again, depends on materials and shape of the housing. I'm not saying "army ruggedness": I'm saying it should survive splashes of coffee, accidentally sitting on, or standing on with your full weight. I know lunch boxes that can handle that without buckling or leaking. Nokia makes mobile phones (on the cheap end of the scale at that) that manage that. Barring a scratched surface, the iPod Nano survived that (see the Arstechnica review). Surviving drops from hand-held height? Keeping it light is the key. I think that technology is a tool to improve the lives of people and serve the progression of humankind. I think that good technology, like good design, should be transparent in use, be failproof, and compensate for human error, weakness and dumbness. I think technology should adapt to people, not vice versa. It should be as natural and simple and comfortable as putting on your nice woollen jumper in the morning. When it comes to virusses (not virii; I used to think that, but I checked) You forget that they are created by people who know how to use computers much better than most people. You are not going to compensate for that by trying to train ordinary Joe Schmoe with average intelligence to have l33t skillz comparable to those of us geeks. You are going to compensate for that by making technology better, "smarter", and less vulnerable to abuse. I have a really good virus scanner for instance, I hardly ever have to tell it to do anything. It could run itself. Almost all of the time, it does. And that is how it should be. But what you are proposing is to create technology that results in technological elitism: a technocratic class system with those priviliged to be rich and bright and knowledgable enough to understand and access it, and with those who are not; in which the former lead better, longer, healthier lives than the latter. Huxley's Brave New World, alright. Well, no thanks. That's what this whole $100,-- Third-World laptop is designed to prevent from happening. And on that topic: You forget that the scourge of humanity, as Dickens wrote, are both Want and Ignorance. We need to address both. My rant over.
Nexxo - your idea sounds pretty much like a PocketPC, but with some form of Linux installed, which is no bad thing. In fact, it'd be pretty amazing. It would be dead easy to plug in a CF Microdrive and have GB's worth of storage space. The OS would be in ROM, so instant on/off. Intel's PXA250 cpu scaling from 208mhz to 520mhz, depending on cpu load. Transflective screen. The only expensive part would be having the screen touch-sensitive, but then - how much would including a keyboard be (and perhaps a bigger housing) rather than having a touch senstivite screen? All the technology is available now, it depends if the manufacturing process could be scaled as such so that units could be put out at sensible prices. I've handled a PocketPC in a rugged case that's designed for fleet inspectors (it reads tyre pressures) and it looked like it'd bounce if dropped from a great height.
True. Exactly, that's the sort of thinking I'm on about The technology is already here; it just needs to be applied in more elegant, sensible ways.
