$100 Hand-Crank Laptop Almost a Reality
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 09.30.05
Thanks to Nicholas Negroponte and the Media Lab at MIT, children in developing nations around the world will have access to technology. Negroponte, the co-founder of the Lab, said MIT and his non-profit, One Laptop Per Child, is in discussions with five countries -- Brazil, China, Thailand, Egypt and South Africa -- to distribute up to 15 million test systems to children. The idea is that governments will pay roughly $100 US for each laptop, and distribute them for free. The laptops will largely be powered by a side-mounted hand-crank, and can be juiced up with convential electric current or batteries, when they're available. The proposed design of the machines calls for a 500MHz processor, 1GB of memory and an innovative dual-mode display that can be used in full-color mode, or in a black-and-white sunlight-readable mode. One display design being considered would also consume unconventionally low amounts of power and money; Negroponte said the technology can be used to produce displays that cost roughly 10 cents per square inch. "The target is $12 for a 12-inch display with near-zero power consumption," he said. The systems will be Wi-Fi and cell phone-enabled, and along with four USB ports, will include something called "mesh networking," a peer-to-peer concept that allows machines to share a single internet connection. Negroponte said the current plan is to produce 100 million to 150 million units by 2007. ::CNET via ::Gizmodo
The hand-cranked feature might make this lap top an important force-multiplier for Community Emergency Response Teams.
If the price for governments is $100 per student, I'd be willing to pay $200 for two computers: one for my CERT team and one to subsidizes a student.
"the current plan is to produce 100 million to 150 million units by 2007"
So... how recyclable are they?
Sounds like a great idea, but the reality is people in developing nations need other things much more, such as infrastructure for clean water, sanitation, adequate food supplies, healthcare, so on. This is similar to the Clinton administration's project to get computers and web access to children in poor nations, which failed about ten years ago.
Computers can help, but a budget that big could make a more useful impact in other places.
These laptops might be intended for kids, but I'll bet in under a year, half will be stolen, and in the hands of adults, using them for less desirable things.
But hey, at least they'll create thousands of jobs, burning all the e-waste in about 5 years ;)
The problem is that Negroponte doesn't ever want to sell them to individuals. The solution is the free market - someone else will take his ideas and produce a commercial product that's pretty much the same.
Negroponte would do better to take the design, as well as other innovative ideas, go to these same governments, and compel them to open up their economic systems to allow the companies building these things to operate locally. That would do a lot more for the average standard of living there than handing out "free" gadgets that will be abused and black-marketed.
These are intended to help developing countries increase the average education level in less than a generation. An educated population is a better candidate for outsourced manufacturing. Attracting new business can bring the whole country out of poverty.
This is not meant to be a stop gap "Here's some food, now I feel better" it is meant to be a one piece in a long term solution.
Steve Gilliard's Newsblog (stevegilliard.blogspot.com) has a lively thread on this topic. Steve himself is skeptical of anything that won't run Windows, but the comments lean toward the idea that this is a good thing, if it comes to pass. I especially liked the comments of the former teacher in Guatemala.
I believe The Economist had a survey a few months ago about how much more useful and cost effective it would be to drop cheap cell phones into underdeveloped countries, and get their governments to slash telephony tariffs.
Hand-cranked laptops may warm the hearts of rich-world technogeeks, but most people in the Third World just want a reliable way to communicate with each other: to check the price of soybeans in the market, to get weather reports, and so on.
Every article about this (currently vaporware) device keeps talking about how it only costs $100. But that's BS. It will cost $100 to governments buying millions of them. For an individual the price would be much higher.
This will help both with communication (soybean prices, and perhaps making new social connections) and with education.
Ideally it will lead to better grassroots political organizing in the global south, as we saw happened in the velvet revolution and other internet-enabled uprisings.
Rob
how about making the computer available to the poor and children in the U.S.?
cranked laptop
Remember me telling you about these?
How about attaching the handcrank to a small wind mill