Bridging the digital divide

An article in Guardian Unlimited | looks at the (possibility of) a $100 laptop aims to bring equal technology opportunities to children in the developing world. Negroponte, from MIT, is hoping with collaboration from Samsung and others to have a prototpye ready for September. In order to minimise cost, they’ll be linux based. To minimise hardware problems, they’ll have Flash drives, rather than Hard drives – and there are various other ideas to get over some of the practicalities. One of those I like best is the idea of Parasitic power – or power that is gained from key presses!