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Intel to Make Cheap Flash Laptop
sien writes "In a similar vein to the One Laptop Per Child computer Intel have announced that they intend to produce a similar cheap laptop using flash storage.The entry of Intel and the declaration that Microsoft intend to get Windows running on the One Laptop Per Child machine suggests that there may be a general market for a cheap, robust laptop without hard drive or optical storage."
Microsoft and inexpensive seems like an odd combination to me. Same goes for flash drives. Durable? Yes. Cheap? No.
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
Isn't the weakest point of a laptop the LCD screen rather than the hard-disk?
And what computer is being offered?
Plus, it's too big to be a PDA, too small to be a usable laptop. Maybe a decent movie player, but that seems about it.
If I could buy a drop in flash memory replacement for my laptop's hard drive and the economics made sense (say US$500 for a 20gig device), I'd buy it tomorrow. 99% of the data that I use could easily be fit in that amount of space and if it didn't, I could keep relatively cheap removable flash cards around for data that I need once in a blue moon. The increase in battery life, decrease in heat, and decrease in noise would be well worth the additional expense for me.
It would be even better if they could put it in a truly portable format. With flash it could even be an instant-on type device! To make it small, and inexpensive, they should keep the screen size and resolution low. MS could probably develop a smaller footprint of win/outlook/office. I'm sure Adobe could slim down their reader a bit. They might even consider going to a "tablet"-like format with a miniture keyboard.
Of course, to be really innovative, they could add wireless and connectivity to the cell high-speed data networks. God, this could be awesome!. Oh, right; so much for cutting edge, I guess.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
As a third world country, why should I buy this for $400 when I can buy OLPCs for like $150?
As someone in a first world country, why should I buy this when I can buy a REAL laptop for $400 or under thanks to sales, rebates, the used/refurbished/surplus market, etc?
As for the optical drive, this made be think that I use mine for two things: ripping CDs and installing software. I can see why someone wouldn't need on in an OLPC type situation (or where they want to sell these), not to mention that they are fragile (relative to flash memory and other parts of the computer).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I think that NickNeg had a great idea with the OLPC. Make a computer, portable at that, cheap enough for most consumers to own.
But if it can't run most of the new programs or aa new OS for that matter, the overall use of this thing is going to be nil.
Even if that is not that case, assuming it runs everything swimmingly, what is to stop people and corporations from buying a ton
of these to use for various reasons. I mean suddenly your boss can afford to give you a laptop and say, "Hey I need this report finished by morning, heres a company laptop?"
It's not that this will be the case, but its the actaul effect of these cheap portable devices going to be what it's creator had in mind?
...bah... forget it! No one thinks that's funny anymore except me.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Yes, but these companies don't make their money on food or shelter.
Most of the OLPCs are going to countries where the people have shelter and food and water, but are in desperate need of decent education.
Plus I'd love a small laptop I could play simple games or read web-pages on while I had nothing better to do. I have a pocket pc, but software is lacking for it and typing on it is a pain. (I'm not a child btw)
there may be a general market for a cheap, robust laptop without hard drive or optical storage
Ah, so *there* is where our handheld industry went! And with all seriousness, I have been horrified with all of the handhelds since the Palm first came out. I can't understand why they don't build general-purpose cheap and fully-functional small computing devices -- that aren't obtusely designed and super fucking expensive.
I'd love to get my hands on one of Negroponte's OLPC laptop thingies. If Microsoft is getting into the market, lets all hope and prey that they are ultra mass produced, and flop terribly.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Intel and Microsoft are big corporations. Big corporations:
1. can't afford to take chances when there's even slight chance a startup may become a viable competitor
2. can afford money-wise and resource-wise to react to even the silliest of those potential competitors
I'm not saying OLPC is silly, but I'm just saying: don't make a big deal of it. Intel/MS just want their options covered.
Let's not forget that cheap computers for poor countries were made long before OLPC (and all failed) and will continue to be made. The least thing: it'll be fun to watch the development in this "market".
In fact, it is 4 times costlier than the one hundred dollar laptop being developed by OLPC. And more over, OLPC project is purely a humanitarian project aimed at improving the education of the children. Where as Intel's project even though commendable is no where near to the lofty ideals of OLPC.
Linux Help
for all things on Linux
...you can look up stuff.
Might I recommend the OLPC home page for starters - which is where you end up if you type "one laptop per child" in pretty much any search engine (or your browser's search bar, if you have one)?
Take ten seconds to learn about something before commenting on it, and you will look like a genius compared to most people around here. Your question is answered in the WIKI, and probably about ten thousand other places already.
"suggests that there may be a general market for a cheap, robust laptop without hard drive or optical storage."
No? India and other countries are already miffed that the U.S. has tried to foist substandard hardware on their "poor" populations to make technology more accessible.
While the intentions of OLPC program are commendable it really ignores the fact that basic education and literacy - a prerequiste for computer use, and power are fundamental components that are not readily available in developing areas of the world.
Come on, what could *possibly* be more important than making sure every child in this country can post mindless drivel on their MySpace account at any time?
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
And the Final Jeopardy question is:
Q: What do I really need in a laptop?
I figure NX, vnc, GoToMyPC or one if its friends, or any other remote-screen system will let me get to my office or home PC from the road or around the campus and really, that's all I need in a laptop. Of course, it should have local audio/camera for videoconferencing and local printing for when I need it.
As far as truly local/disconnected operation goes, I need lightweight viewers for Microsoft Office so I can read and print files and do presentations, a notepad for taking notes, and maybe some games to keep my mind sharp when I'm in a motel room out in the boondocks. I'll need a small amount of local read-write storage for these files, which should auto-sync with the office machine upon connect.
Just make sure I can add on new wireless technologies as they become available.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Of coures, now that I think of it, most of my woes were down to the fact that PDF is a horrible format at the best of times, and no matter what you just can't read a PDF document on a handheld.
If these laptops turn out to be cheap why can't we get handhelds with bigger screens, or even dual screens that fold over to fit in your pocket. I'm sure they exist, but they're either expensive or lack the complete functionality that I need, or frustratingly, it turns out that there is hardly any free software available.
Windows CE Licensing, you would probably want 'core' ($15) as it comes with Word and the other goodies ...
said better elsewhere...
Microsoft/Intel cannot lose the Windows mindshare, marketshare, niche market, quarterly analysis, exposure, or allow the embarrasment of missing a potentially revolutionary nascent technology or low-budget competition.
How much is the exposure worth? Brand imprint? Visual or Process (how to do things) imprint? Said to be lots.
They would do the project(s) at a loss.
Seeing as how MS seems to favor a $100 price-point for its OS, the laptop would have to cost $0.
If that actually happens, and then if, by some remote chance, refunds for the Microsoft Tax were suddenly made mandatory (by a state's law, say, Massachussetts). Wowee-Zowee. Free laptops for everyone, courtesy Mr. Gates!
(I'm not holding my breath)
MjM
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
I think that there is a huge market for a low-end, pretty laptop. If Intel designs and markets it correctly, it will be the next "must-have" for college students. If the specs and price are right, I'd happily sit one on my parents' desk when replacement time comes around. I do my work on a desktop with a nice big monitor and I have a beat-up desktop at home: my laptop needs to give presentations, keep me in touch while travelling, and not break when airport security plays with it.
But what I really want is a PADD.
I think the project is doing ok. I've seen one in person. It has 2GB of flash memory, a 200mhz processor, a Microsoft OS and high speed wireless internet. It happens to also be one of the most portable computers I've ever seen. They didn't get it down to $100, but even with the storage upgrade it was only about $350. I think they called it a Cingular 8125.
Nice machine, and it even makes phone calls.
TW
I am not sure how a laptop with flash memory would be any cheaper than one with a hard drive. Also, Microsoft is not going to be doing this for free, so the OS would be adding to the cost (unlike one with Linux). Last but not least, flash memory has a limited number of read/writes, and it gets slower as it approaches that limit.
I like the idea of a cheap laptop for the world masses, I just don't see how this fits the requirements.
Cheers,
Paul C.
Sr Developer
http://www.jbilling.com/ - The Open Source Enterprise Billing System
And loose the concept of a laptop. Do I know what to make of it? Would I be posting here?
There is something that I would carry with me contstantly. But do you
need a full Vista? Do you need a useable keyboard? How much 'disk space' do you really need?
If it had integrated wifi, cell/w bluetooth, media options, gps? And was LIGHT and COOL and
LOW POWER?
Maxi-Ipod-Mark-VI
Each charitable group should work with their ability. If you are good at clothes, then so be it. If you are good at food, then so be it. Computer companies are good with computers. Duh! Right? So, solve that need. The needs of these poor countries go beyond just food, water and shelter. They need education so they can lift themselves out of poverty. And since this world is becoming heavily computerized, give them the tools that will benefit them. I fully support any effort to get computers to the poor.
Bearded Dragon
Doesn't flash have a finite read/write limit? Isn't that kind of important to know if you're using it as a hard drive that *might* contain swap space, might contain files that are read and written a lot? What about the fact that flash can only be erased in blocks? Hard drives are cheap, reasonably robust (it's been a long time since I've broken one), and for the time being can hold a tremendous amount of data in a small-ish package. Why not work on making the more immediately sensitive parts more "robust", like someone mentioned above with the screen?
It is actually sub-$300, better specced than an OLPC, several *gigs* of memory (512M in the OLPC) and a faster processor. This is beefier than an OLPC and built to survive a harsher environment than a standard notebook. It fits a need, IMO.
engadget's review from 2 months ago.
3. Big corporations can afford such small expenditures.
Why? The return is so great on the investment. It would probably cost less to offer tens of thousands of these things that to pay for their name to be favorably placed in major markets around the world.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I think the durability of storage goes, Magnetic, Solid-state, Optical.
Most optical drives dont last longer than 2 years.
that's all
Need food? Don't have any of that but here's a laptop.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
No: Flash is more expensive per GB when measured in quantities.
Yes: look at PDA memorey requirements, or PCs just for Mail, Web and a bit of letter writing - there 1 GB is plenty. And in Flash still cheaper than the cheapest HD (80GB or where is the cheapest HD nowadays?)
I'll bite - where are the parts lists, schematics, etc to build this now? I have a 1GB USB drive - what do I attach to it to make a computer? Particularly one that can play MP3/OGG? Where's O'Reilly's hacks magazine when you need it? I mean, with a Linux bootable distro and a RAM drive, this could be pretty slick.
Hey I love Slashdot and all, but why are you linking to another news site and not Intel's,
Same goes for flash drives. Durable? Yes. Cheap? No. Durable? No. Cheap? Yes. Flash drives IMO aren't that durable but they are pretty inexpensive I think. Depends on the type I guess.
Making windows run on the OLPC laptop has nothing to do with perceived marketability.
Microsoft are just trying to establish/maintain a monopoly on schools software. They are trying to brainwash kids into the microsoft mentality so they've got customers for life.
;-)
http://www.hasbro.com/playskool/videonowjr/
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Note that this got a funny mod. It is funny, because every time one of these stories comes up, someone makes a comment like that, and then we get a brand new flamewar about this topic.
I think an appropriate solution to comments like the parent is to alternatively mod them "funny" and "redundant", which to my mind, are both true. (Certainly the latter is.) Do it long enough and you can drive their karma into the basement :P
It would also be accurate to mod it flamebait but that one's harder to have come through metamod.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Everytime this discussion comes up someone asks why computers should be sent when there are other needs. Your comment was direct and to the point. I only wish I had been the one to make it. :)
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
Hey, you're teasing me, aren't you? I'm supposed to be getting that exact model sometime this week for work, to replace our 957's.
I'm told that as a business customer, we're actually getting the units for free with the usual 2-year contract.
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
Those of us who actually want to help the third world are against simply giving them food. If you're going to give them anything, you give them what they need to produce food. Otherwise people just have more babies because they're healthier, they're even further beyond their ability to feed themselves, and now you have MORE mouths to feed. Or children to die of starvation.
Giving them computers, if done properly, is giving the gift of education. The only way out is through.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No matter how much RAM you have, Windows still seems to need a swap file that is constantly being written to (not to mention all the writing to the registry). Given that current flash technologies have a limited number erase/write cycles, I hope the flash-based hard-drive is replaceable (CF card maybe?).
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Within a decade, mobile phones will be the primary computing device for the majority of the market. Yes, you'd connect it to a docking station at home and at the office so there's a proper input device (keyboard/mouse) and output device (TV/monitor).. but for 90% mobile devices will be powerful enough to handle e-mail, the interweb and calendar/groupware functionality.
Heck, even as a software engineer the only reason I use a laptop is the lack of a proper Wifi, keyboard and screen for my phone.
400 dollars is still 400 dollars, whether for a scaled down laptop or for a full-blown laptop.
There's this thing called the INTERNET, where... ...you can look up stuff.
It was a legitimate question. There's no reason reason to chastise him for asking it. I think the fact that he read the origional article and was reading through the comments was proof enough that he was already taking time to learn about the subject.
One good thing about article submiters is that in addition to a link, they also give you a summary. You can learn enough to know whether or not to click the link, and sometimes the summary itself is good enough to tell you what you need.
It's nice that you took the time to tell that guy where to find information, but you could have helped him, and the rest of us, by giving us the short version in your post. It could have kept us on site reading other insightful comments and "you will look like a genius compared to most people around here."
TW
The OLPC or a similar project is another great way for the Gates Foundation to funnel money back into Microsoft while perpetuating the Windows monopoly. That's why they have such an interest in running Windows on the OLPC platform and making a competing platform. Better yet if the mesh networking doesn't quite work.
I can imagine Bill going to various corrupt governments (look at Thailand right now for an example) and saying "We can run Windows on those things and make them useful for you, and the Foundation will even foot the bill".
Do you have ESP?
Just out of curiosity, were you using the CF as swap space? I can imagine it wouldn't last long under those conditions, particularly if the system was also RAM-starved (or any situation where RAM working set). But as a regular hard drive, it seems like it ought to be okay for a while (though I suppose you'd want to disable logging, too, as much as possible). How fast were your systems failing?
I've often wondered how CF or other limited-write systems handle swapping and memory-management. It seems like it introduces a whole new set of trade-offs; in addition to the usual speed vs. cost and speed vs. space on disk trade-offs, you also have to deal with speed vs. system life.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The 8125 has 320 x 240 resolution on a 2.8 inch screen. Screen + keyboard does not a laptop make. By this definition the $19.99 leapfrog learning unit would be defined as a laptop, but it really is not.
I know I shouldn't feed the AC idiots, but I guess I'll take one for the team and record my rebuttals for posterity.
When was the last time you looked up on the computer something about plants?
If you deal with plants regularly, and your answer is not a date in the recent past, you are officially a tool. The internet is the greatest research library that has ever been.
That's good. He might drop it.
Well, why don't you give him a computer?
The fact that you have time to post on slashdot indicates to me that you could provide him one.
Perhaps no one is providing him a laptop because that's your job, and you are able to?
By the way, you're some kind of arrogant ass to think that handing your kid a laptop will make a better difference in the world than giving them to kids in the third world. Your child is no more or less valuable than anyone else's.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
This device might fit you needs:
a rs/5
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/nokia770.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
PDF brochure is here.
On the one hand, not as inexpensive as the OLPC, and it seems to lack some of the features like the mesh networking.
On the other hand, you might actually be able to buy one, and it should be able to play StarCraft.
Intel FTW!
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
I thought this concept died in the US along with the HP200LX.
--- Do you believe in the day?
Intel has the idea right (on the business side--I'm not here to argue the socio-economic points of money spent on computers in non-1st world economies), and the track record to know that economies of scale and scope will drop prices.
My question is this? With other players in the laptop market selling machines in the sub-$500 range, why not leverage some of those existing supply chains and commoditize basic laptops (let's set aside the typical supply-chain Wintel duopoly for this discussion), pushing those price points down to the sub $400 range? It just seems that the industry is reinventing the wheel in search of this holy grail of "laptops for the world", incurring additional R&D costs in the process, when they could already move closer to this reality by creating a commodity baseline laptop.
I do acknowledge that in designing cheap laptops for the world there are some key differences in user needs and system requirements, particularly limiting power consumption and minimizing the risk of mechanical failure, but aren't those benefits we all would want to reap in the consumer and enterprise markets as well?
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
I think it depends on your viewpoint. The OLPC initiative was willing to make a lot changes in the typical configuration of a laptop in order to make their project work. They have a much smaller screen, a different OS than most people in the world use, a non-standard and very small "hard drive" and an unusual wireless configuration.
On the other hand, I have a full-size external keyboard, an email client, a web browser, the ability to use quite a large number of off the shelf software packages, many of them free or open source, and a full blown SDK available from the OS vendor.
It may not technically be a laptop, but I'd be interested in hearing your take about the things the make the OLPC more of a laptop than my 8125? After you get past form factor, I think it's going to be kind of hard.
BTW, can you guess why I wouldn't include a Leapfrog? No open programing support. If you can't write programs for your general-purpose computer, then it's not a general-purpose computer.
But it's possibly the coolest device I own. It's footprint is an inch or so smaller than a sheet of typing paper, but it has a full laptop keyboard, a big-enough screen and no moving parts. All Flashcard memory. The battery runs for twice as long as that of normal laptop. It has enough screen size to make itself useful where a palm-sized device is not. That is, it's comfortable to read and write on where a palm device cannot even get through a single paragraph without the need for a scroll function. This means you can easily do real work on it, and opening it up isn't like deploying a small RTS factory.
Granted, it's no good for games or your
It would be cool if Intel were to put out a better version of the same thing. There is a real market for a dedicated portable word processor/reader, without the bells and whistles and distractions/irritations of a regular lap top. --But very few players have stepped up to the plate to offer such a tool.
Every writer I show it to drools. They know just how dumb a laptop is for writing; it's like owning a car so you can have a decent glove compartment.
-FL
I agree, though my biggest fear is this: they are given the laptops, but not shown how to use them, or inspired to learn more. Even most people here in the U.S. see the computer as an end, not as a means, very unfortunately. Damn you, Microsoft, for putting planting the idea of having a computer just for the sake of having one. Okay, rant over. Let's hope we can take that into account when we deliver the things, eh?
Sometimes I comment just to hear myself typing.
Agriculture is one of the more intensively computerised industries out there right now. I am in agriculture and we use computers all over. In the house, in the buildings, in the equipment, and having a lot of it net enabled is a big help. I mean there is an A to Z list of where computers are useful and are being used in everything from the backyard garden to the highest levels of commercial production. There's some pretty darn neat stuff too, for example, we just bought a few truckloads of corn for our beefers. The guys we get it from use an autonomous tractor to work their fields. That's right, no humans drive the thing, GPS and a computer does it once the field is surveyed once to define the limits and shape (by driving the perimeter once), a computer analyses it and determines the most efficient planting and harvesting pattern, and then goes and does it with little human intervention. Where we live part of the operation is poultry and the houses are heavily computerised, everything, temperature, feeding, watering, electricity supply for all of that, all mostly automated now, and net enabled so it can be remotely monitored and trouble-shot if needs be.
If I was joe farmer in the developing world, I would want at least one computer and net access, for the weather, looking up parts and suppliers, monitoring the markets, learning about new techniques and improving technology, etc, etc. All good stuff and useful. Heck, I use the net just to look up weeds to see what they are sometimes, or to look up more exotic seeds to try for instance, or to look at new breeds of animals, etc. I've ordered a lot of old weird parts for machinery online, because that is a lot more efficient than driving around dealer to dealer. I use the net all the time for stuff like that.
File writes are unlikely to exceed flash's 100K lifetime, but virtual memory might. You may get away with eliminating with a couple gigs of core.
I don't know how giving very poor people computers will solve much of anything. Give a poor family a computer in the united states and see how well it improves their situation...
I don't think that providing laptops to children in these countries will do much to bridge the enormous gap that exists in world wide education. Computers can be a useful tool, but they are more of a supplemental tool than a stand-alone teacher. I have grown up in the information era, and I certainly have learned a hell of a lot more from my college and highschool education that computers alone. Sure there will be some kids or people that can usefully use laptops to learn valuable skills and research other economically beneficial things, but I believe this will be a very small minority of the population because especially in rural 3rd world areas there is VERY little education (or at least from what I've read and seen in rural Mexico, and Tanzania).
What is the best way to help impoverished people? Well... hope to make them more self-sufficient like the parent said. One way to accomplish this is via "micro-loans", a program established by the World Bank with a few other charity programs running their own equivalent. Basically, loaning people small sums of money (usually less than $100). You'd be suprised at how far $100 will go in terms of establishing farms or creating small industry. The repayment rate is over 90%, but the number of loans made is far less than is needed. Investment leads to growth, simple as that, economics 101. The only problem is that many people don't want to loan their money out at a very low interest rate to accomodate the neads of developing communities, so the lenders are restricted to those in the non-profit category, doing it out of the goodness of their own heart.
The sad reality of a world market-economy is that wealth becomes very unevenly distributed as the labor becomes more and more specialized. In other words, people who don't have valuable skills (usually obtained through education) get left further and further behind. There are many people living in very similar conditions to over 1000 years ago. They are malnourished, poor, and destined to labor VERY HARD to put barely (or not) enough food on the table.
Everyone is too hard on Microsoft. I share the many frustrations people have with their software, costs, and obtuse licensing. However, if Microsoft is going to help advance the development of cost effective flash based storage, I for one can't be critical.
- A 7.5" display versus a 2.8" display
- A 1200x900 resolution versus a 320x240 resolution
- A real Keyboard (70+ keys, 1.2mm stroke; sealed rubber-membrane key-switch assembly) versus a Thumb Board
- The ability to run a variety of operating systems versus the ability to only run Windows Mobile
I can keep going, but I dont need to...Vibration and shock are the enemies of most HD tech. Flash is pretty much invulnerable to that compared to hard disks and while it's write operational life is less than a hard drive, it's seek time is nonexistent and it has a superlative read lifespan.
For a device where it's not a simple matter of ordering a HD or popping over to Fry's or CompUSA for a replacement part, Flash, if used right is the right answer even if it's "more expensive" as the cheaper part is actually more expensive in the long-term sense. Until you see something like the rigid foil media technology, where it's vibration and shock characteristics appear to match Flash's and it's read/write endurance exceeds it as well, Flash would be the answer there.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Heck, I'd buy a cheap laptop where I can enter data and send it to a remote storage location (email account, remote desktop). I'd gladly sacrifice having a harddrive and optical drive.
Just don't make it look like Strawberry Shortcake and I'm there!
The resolution was a suprise. I thought I had seen something much smaller elseware. 1200x900 is actually pretty good and 320x240 actually kind of sucks.
However, I have a bluetooth (cheaper IR ones are available) external keyboard which negates the keyboard issue. And on the operating system I gotta ask, who cares? Were PowerPC Mac laptops any less laptops because they only ran the Mac OS?
I just looked at the specs of the OLPC laptop. In general, it's much better than I remember it being. Cheaper than my 8125 too. But that doesn't mean my handheld couldn't perform most of the role of a laptop if asked to do so, which I do on a regular basis. I agree that we should send the OLPC laptop to a kid in Africa over my 8125 any day of the week. But that doesn't make my 8125 any less a cheap "laptop" in functionality.
TW
Hi all - so a naive newbie question about flash drives: their operational life is less than hard drives, but how much so?
How about a flash drive in a shared student house firewall box? I've been running Ipcop on an old pc to support a house full of college students who probably all go on line for a couple of hours each day. It seems like overkill to have a big old pc consuming a lot of electricity for this simple job. I love the idea of swapping out the old pc for something a lot smaller and tidier running ipcop off the flash drive as an embedded firewall. My question is - how long would a flash drive last if you're saying it won't last as long a hard drive? I know that's kind of "how long's a piece of string" but can you offer any estimates? weeks? months? a year? two years? cheers!
And just how useful would your Toshiba be when you can't keep it away from dust and rain, and when you only have access to electricity every other week? There's a hell of a lot of design (and therefore cost) that had to go into these things that simply doesn't apply to a normal laptop. In fact, the appropriate thing to compare these with would be a rugged laptop like the Panasonic Toughbook, which would probably run about $2000 for the same specs as the Toshiba you mention!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Didn't they already make something like that?
I think they've called it the Ultra Mobile PC. (UMPC) Incidentally, I clicked on "hardware" and found amusingly vague specs.
Here's what you do: Just strip-out all the junk (HD, and WindowsXP) keeping the real goods (install around 40GB permanent flash storage, upgrade RAM, expand Wi-Fi with 10/100 Ethernet) and you've got a suprisingly usable brick. Expand further to use CF/SD/MMC/PCMCIA and it becomes ultra-usable. I bet it wouldn't cost all that much in the end.
Add some embedded linux and you're ready to go!
Just how much do they pay people to think up these things anyway? (too much)
This post © Copyrite Duggeek, all rights reversed.
Sounds great for simple tasks on the road, reading email, simple internet, readout for my gps. I assume it would have a USB interface to upload gps maps etc. Obviously a wi-fi as well. Cheap enough to leave in my car. Sometimes you don't want all the bells and whistles on a device.
Back before Microsoft decided to caponise their consumer Windows CE platform and only promote the stripped down version in the Pocket PC there were a number of flash-based "laptops" like this in fairly common use. The Thinkpad z50 was the first really practical one I know of...
Pity about the Jornada line being dumped. I had the Jornada 568 and it was a much better handheld than the iPaq.
Interesting as I learned how to read and write in elementary school and learned how to teach myself in middle school. I stopped going to highschool after 1 1/2 years of not caring and learned everything I know via the internet and experiencing things on my own.
Your point is still somewhat valid though as most of these children have little or no reading capabilities. I just figured I'd point out that the usefulness of college and high school is overrated. People can and will learn on their own given the opportunity.
I thought I was supercilious, but I must bow to the master!
Pray enlighten us, what exactly is the right problem, and how are upper class geniuses (such as yourself, presumably) solving it?
And incidentally, is it painful to be without arse? Just curious.
Not only that, but lots of places there simply are no schools. Having a laptop is better than nothing. QED, the OLPC project is potentially useful in certain cases.
I'm with you, by the way. I got my CHSPE when I was in my second year of high school and escaped the stupidity of high school a couple years and change early. I subsequently went out and worked for a living, got hired by IBM out in TX (I was born in CA) and later came back, worked for Cisco, worked for some others... and never even got a diploma, although I have a legal equivalent of course. The point is that formal education is arguably less effective than self-guided study.
I think the real problem with our current system of education is that children are not really encouraged to learn. We just shove some material at them and demand that they learn it. No children will be left behind, so keep up, you little fuckers! Not that we ask very much anyway. But what would it be like if we, say, halved class sizes and did away with a standardized curriculum? I suspect that all students would end up far ahead of where they are now. The solution, I believe, is to support children's desire to learn. Tie the things they need to learn into their interests.
Of course, we cannot do that with our current funding and we cannot do that with our current accreditation requirements. Even if we had the money to double our teaching staff, we could not get so many "qualified" teachers. Unfortunately what qualified means is that you've been brainwashed by ECE classes into being prepared to follow the insipid curriculum down to the letter. And because of the restrictions placed on school funding, you must absolutely follow the curriculum.
As I am fond of saying, our school system is designed to produce lowest-common-denominator factory workers. Too bad we have a dearth of factory jobs. Students are trained to not be the nail that sticks out, lest they get hammered down; conformity is your watchword. (Trust me, I was the nail that stuck out, and I got pounded regularly. And no, not in the ass. Thank you.) Students are trained not to question authority. Students are trained to sit in rows and perform repetitive tasks.
This is one of the major reasons why I have avoided having children, which doomed at least one of my relationships. I've narrowly missed it a couple times - my most recent ex-girlfriend and an almost-girlfriend both bred with the guy after me. I feel like Keanu or something, dodging bullets and saying "whoa".
Back on topic: Even reading could be taught by the computers. You could have a program that read aloud and showed them text with appropriate alliteration. Kind of like the learn-to-read portion of the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer in Stephenson's Diamond Age, but without any intelligence tied right to it. You could get the fundamentals just using hypertext.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Short version is "A guy named Nick Negroponte, who has devoted large portions of his life to helping others, experimented with giving used laptops to kids in areas where the population was technologically illiterate. The results were astounding , yet clearly the lack of power and networking in technologically underdeveloped areas was holding the children back. Thus Nickneg gathered a corps of geeks and industrialists to push human-powered, mesh-networked systems outwards from the edge of the developed world. The phenomenal success of cell phones in Africa and Asia indicates this could work. Extremely well-informed scientists and government agencies have examined the project's supporting science and data and are enthusiastic about the project, but because it has the potential to bring millions of 3rd world children into cyberspace without any dependency on telephone companies or software suppliers there is growing opposition to the project."
As for "looking like a genius compared to most people around here"... not my job, man!
I agree. I actually know a person who has volunteered in certain parts of Africa by teaching basic computer skills. She was saying that the goal over there is to teach people enough computer skills so that they would be able to take online classes. Now, you could argue back and forth about if an online course is better or worse than a real life course.... but since there is a shortage of teachers over there I'd say its a hell of a lot better than nothing. I would support programs that gave free online classes to people in 3rd world countries. Trust me, if I thought sending them food over and over would get them out of poverty I'd be all for it. But.. we need to get these people to help themselves.
These laptops are so cheap soon kids will get one with their happy meals.
there may be a general market for a cheap, robust laptop without hard drive or optical storage."
Uh, what? You imagine people like stuff that is expensive, breaks easily and is heavy and power-hungry?
We're all born with nothing.
If you die in debt, you're ahead.
Steve Jobs already offered free licenses for Mac OS X (Intel) for the one laptop per child project, which is committed to using totally open source software. However if Intel is doing a similar project, it's easy to imagine OS X being on there.
Windows puts a lot of things in the registry. This includes software installs (should be rare - especially if you can install from an image file) and user settings (everything you would fill out in the configuration dialogs) are stored there as well (again, this shouldn't change very often).
On top of that, the registry also contains a lot of rather volatile data, like MRU lists, window positions and so on. These would change every time you start or close an application.
WWTTD?