sky, Author at Sky's Blog

Can I please have 1/10 of the $100 laptop?

5 May, 2007 by sky Leave a Comment

The $100 laptop visits ISDE5 The Times of India today (5 May) reported that Indian researchers are striving to create a $10 laptop – having rejected the $100 laptop (now way over $100) as too expensive. Yeah, that may be true for many, many countries. $100 (or $150 or $175 or $200) could add up to a half year of labor for many people in many places.

Apparently the South-Asian researchers have gotten the cost down to $47 so far, labor included.

They report “A meeting of industry and academia is to take place in IISc, Bangalore, later this month to go through the two designs and invite more suggestions.”

Tracking how Green Your Computer is

3 May, 2007 by sky Leave a Comment

Due to Apple’s release yesterday of information about how they’re going green, I checked a follow-up article on Greenpeace.org this morning. They applaud Apple’s initiative, raising its score to 5 out of 10 and urging them onward!

And here’s their continuing call to action – Green my Apple, to the Core.

For a broader overview of greenness in computers, here’s Greenpeace’s Guide to Greener Electronics.

A Greener Apple

2 May, 2007 by sky Leave a Comment

Steve Jobs and Apple, Inc. published today a statement entitled A Greener Apple describing what they’re doing to reduce toxic substances in their products, and to ensure that the substances used can and will be recycled or reclaimed. Here’s one statement – “Apple recycled 13 million pounds of e-waste in 2006, which is equal to 9.5% of the weight of all products Apple sold seven years earlier. We expect this percentage to grow to 13% in 2007, and to 20% in 2008. By 2010, we forecast recycling 19 million pounds of e-waste per year — nearly 30% of the product weight we sold seven years earlier.” Steve points out that HP and Dell currently recycle about 10%, which is about the same as Apple’s current percentage and he stated that he expects Apple to outstrip these other companies very soon.

This is good news and a good move toward environmental transparency. It would be hypocritical of us to push the Internet, and computers as substitutes for polluting technologies (especially air travel) and then be contributing repeatedly to the poisoning of the earth!

Put a Little Sugar on it (OLPC)

27 April, 2007 by sky Leave a Comment

Wayne Hodgins has posted a good “current news” article that points to a number of other online comments on the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative (the $100 computer). Wayne refers to Jeremy Allison’s article “A laptop to change the world” and Wayne quotes Jeremy’s final statement from the article “If it succeeds, I think it will change the world in ways we currently can’t envisage.” The second I start thinking about that I recognize that the Sugar interface that’s being built for the laptop which tag-lined this way – “Sugar is the core of the OLPC Human Interface. Its goal is to turn the Laptop into a fun, easy to use, social experience that promotes sharing and learning.” is what might accomplish this.

And I’m going to emphasize those words “sharing” and “social” – I think that’s where the laptop will have its greatest effect (that is IF they really can keep these computers networked). Computers and networks are for communication as much as they’re for computing. Actually FAR MORE for communication than for computing. (When was the last time you executed a good floating-point operation on your computer? In fact, do you know what a floating-point operation is?) Nope, you use your computer for communication far more than you do for computing.

Keep your eye on Sugar.

Geekin’ out on the $100 Laptop (OLPC)

20 April, 2007 by sky Leave a Comment

My friends are all over the map in terms of their opinions of the “$100 laptop” computer by the One Laptop Per Child [OLPC] project. They range from those who think it’s a total scam and rip-off (no link – anonymous for now) to those who are actively seeking to produce software for the computer.

But I was pointed at a really good “review” article today entitled The Laptop Crusade – Nicholas Negroponte’s $100 laptop is a sweet piece of engineering. But can it really change the world? By Tekla S. Perry in IEEE Spectrum online. It’s worth reading. [The picture at the left is the Sugar interface that kids will use to operate the computer and discover their communities.]

You may already know that my opinion is that the OLPC computer:

Will actually work, and will be useful as a communications platform;
Be somewhat “fragile” in the field, and difficult to keep operating;
Cost more than $200 because nobody’s counting the cost of shipping, deploying and making it operational in the field.

All in all, I am positive about its potential and think that it’s worth tracking as the story unfolds.