Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

Video on $100 laptop

Andy Carvin posted a 7 minute video back in November which includes an interview with a developer of the MIT $100 laptop.

The keyboard is customizable for each country which orders it, and just costs $5! The description of how the developers are designing the screen technology to maximize performance and minimize both cost and power consumption is amazing. AMD is making a 1/4 watt chip for this project, and they are going for a total power consumption of 3-4 watts. Their most important design considerations were:

  • low cost
  • low power consumption
  • must look cool
  • had to be an eBook

The cylinder under the screen holds standard “C cell size” batteries. The hand crank is the only moving part of the laptop. Worst-case design specs are one minute of cranking for ten minutes of power. In eBook mode power consumption will be much less.

Here is the direct link to the movie file on Andy’s server. It took several minutes to download fully over my high speed connection, but it is well worth waiting for! 🙂

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On this day..


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