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$100 Laptop Finally Gets A Name |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Tuesday, 29 August 2006 |
 Corrected: The One Laptop per Child Organisation has finally put a name
to its progeny - introducing the 2B1. Designed to bring millions of children in the developing
world into the 21st Century, the laptop computer (which had an initially target
price of US$100) has become a reality thanks to the combined efforts of academics
and the IT industry.
After initially saying the not-for-profit project would
proceed if the organisation could secure 4 million in orders for the device, it
seems two million is enough to get the ruggedised low-cost laptop a name.
<Corrected to reflect fact that firm orders have not been placed from Nigeria and Thailand as previously reported> Although Brazil, Nigeria, Argentina and Thailand have all been rumoured to have placed orders, the OLPC organisation has recently denied any firm orders have been placed. It did confirm test equipment is being sent to the Governments of Nigeria and Thailand prior to the first prototypes which are set to roll off the assembly line in November this year.
India has publicly announced it will not take part in the project saying the idea was "pedagogically suspect" and that it would rather spend the money on schools and teachers.
Perhaps there are more orders in the works, but the laptop,
which OLPC says is so much more than a cut priced version of existing laptops
looks far closer to becoming a reality now that the design seems settled enough
to give the thing a name.
The 2B1 is able
to creates its own mesh network out of the box so they can talk to each other
even if there is no internet connectivity available. But by making it a mesh
network, only one of the devices needs an internet connection and then all
others can automatically share that connection.
The screen is a 7.5-inch, 1200×900-pixel, TFT screen and
self-refreshing display which is a higher resolution (200 DPI) than 95% of the
laptops on the market today. Two display modes are available: a transmissive,
full-colour mode; and a reflective, high-resolution mode that is sunlight
readable.
Both of these modes consume very little power: the
transmissive mode consumes one watt-about one seventh of the average LCD power
consumption in a laptop; and the reflective mode consumes a miserly 0.2 watts.
Overall the laptop nominally consumes less than two
watts-less than one tenth of what a standard laptop consumes-so little that 2B1
can be recharged by human power. This is a critical advance for the
half-billion children who have no access to electricity.
At the heart of the machine will
be a 400Mhz AMD Geode processor, 128MB of dynamic RAM and 512MB of SLC NAND
flash memory on board. The design calls for instant on capabilities with its "skinny"
Fedora distribution of Linux loaded out of the flash memory.
Each machine features a video/still
camera, three external USB-2.0 ports, and an SD card slot, stereo speakers plus
line-out jack and a microphone. The 2B1 is VOIP-enabled.
With soft, rounded edges and
integrated kid-sized handle the 2B1 is about the size of a textbook and lighter
than a lunchbox. It has a nifty hinge that turns it from standard laptop to
ebook reading, to gaming platform.
Experience shows that
the laptop components most likely to fail are its hard drive and internal
connectors. The 2B1 has no hard drive to crash and only two internal cables.
For added robustness, the machine's plastic walls are 2.0mm thick, as opposed
to the standard 1.3mm.
Its mesh network antennas, which far out-perform those
of the typical laptop, double as external covers for the USB ports, which are
protected internally as well. The display is also cushioned by internal
"bumpers."
The estimated product lifetime is at least five years. To
help ensure such durability, the machines will be subject to factory testing to
destruction as well as in situ field testing by children.
www.laptop.org
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