Pretty neat for $100 (or maybe $170)!
The engineers have thought of a number of ways to address the power issue:
A team of US-based researchers, backed by a billionaire, have re-invented the computer in an attempt to revolutionise education in the developing world.I wish they would do that for regular computers.
The engineers who designed the energy efficient laptop have thrown out a whole host of conventional ideas in order to produce a computer that will be useful in nations where electricity is in short supply.
This is throttled back so it stays cool on its own without the need for a power guzzling fan. It is the first of many tricks that ensure the battery can power the laptop for 13 hours.
More energy is saved by removing the need for a backlight on the display. It uses natural light so it can be read in brilliant sunshine.
The coup de grace is that when the computer goes to sleep and the CPU is hibernating the screen is still readable.
The engineers designed it without a hard drive, using chips instead to cut down on power consumption:
"One of the things in laptops that take up a lot of power is actually the hard drive. It is actually spinning around as a motor. It just uses up a lot of power," said OLPC designer Chris Blizzard.Even the operating system was designed to use less power:
"...there are no moving parts that require motors. It also has to do with reliability but it is mostly to do with power at this point.
"And there is a storage chip that is on the motherboard where you put your files instead of a hard drive."
The XO operating system for the OLPC is custom built and adapted from Linux to slash the amount of power the chip requires. It uses applications which make far fewer demands on the processor than in a conventional computer.It uses an antenna to cut down on the power used by WIFI cards and it's even kid powered :-)
The OLPC is fitted with a ripcord that owners can crank to power up the device.
"What we are hoping is you will be able to get a 10 to one ratio - that is for each minute you pull and crank on the laptop you can get 10 minutes use out of it."
