Tablet Prototype Needs No External Power Supply

timothy writes "I'd like to see computing devices with no need for an external power supply — an e-book reader, a general knock-about PDA, a phone — all kinds of things. But there's a certain heart-strings appeal to such a computer intended as an educational tool for precisely those kind of places where basic infrastructure (like the provision of electricity) is a stumbling block. Perhaps built-in solar makes more sense, in more places, than the hand-cranked power the OLPC project ended up dropping from their laptops-for-kids program."

Comments

RTFA

[copponex]

It uses a tiny solar cell, like a calculator. If you have some form of light, you have a computer.

Palem says the I-slate is the first of a series of electronic notepads being built around a new class of low-energy-consumption microchips under development with Switzerland's Center for Electronics and Microtechnology. The team says the chips will allow the I-slate to run on solar power from panels similar to those used in hand-held calculators.

If you aren't going to read the articles posted to slashdot, may I ask why you are bothering to come here in the first place? Did they run out of rabble at the local Tea Party meeting inside the Chuck-E-Cheese?