Hi Phil, You may also want to have a look at the InkMedia Mobile Personal Computer by Ink Media Inc. Canada and Gerry Morgan Foundation Canada:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InkMedia The InkMedia mobile computer (Ink MC) by Ink-Media Inc. Canada, is a low cost mobile computer running Linux/FOSS costing under US$300 manufactured for the developing and developed world to reduce the digital divide. InkMedia have a different technology and approach to market than the other low cost computer initiatives. It was developed after experience in India showed how the traditional PC fared badly with respect to overheating, hard drive failures and virus infections, all of which added to the total cost of ownership. The Ink MC is ROM based and so has no hard disk or moving parts. It draws power more like a mobile phone and can run on a 12V car battery or solar power solution. As an individual productivity tool it is designed to bring inclusive access to technology to the following social and economic sectors of society: Home Users Public Sector Schools and Academia Nonprofits and Civil Society Healthcare Small and Medium Enterprise Creative Commons Community Project Background InkMedia's mission, is to produce portable, powerful and people driven products to bridge the digital divide. Its main activities involve producing a highly innovative low cost ROM based laptop computer to tackle the digital divide. InkMedia's research and prototyping began well before the concept of other low-cost laptop projects like One Laptop Per Child and Classmate PC were introduced. The InkMedia is already commissioned by OLDES, an EU co-funded project under the IST Programme costing 3.65 million euro (under 6th FWP Sixth Framework Programme) with a funding of 2.5 million euro. [1] Specs Available from InkMedia Website [3] Freescale i.MX31 Processor Supports 1024 X 768 True Color Video Output(with internal LCD disabled) (RGB and LCD) Plus mpeg 2 hardware decoder 4 USB 2.0 ports, 1 USB 1.1 port (for keyboard) 2 SD slots 256 MB Ram 1 GB NAND Flash, containing read only file system (compressed) 128 MB Flash stick / mp3 player (external) 1 Stereo minipin audio out, stereo minipin line in, stereo minipin mic in 1 RGB out for VGA monitor 10/100 Ethernet jack, USB Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g WiFi 110-220 Volt input power supply, will accept 12V car battery input and solar power chargers 5-8 Hours of battery life 8.6" Diagonal SVGA display (4:3) Supporting 800 x 600 True Color Key Features The Ink MC is a Mobile Computer which radically reduces the Total Cost of Ownership from initial cost, to software licensing and maintenance. The InkMedia design ensures that the typical points of failure are removed as: There is no hard disk to fail, slow down or pick up viruses. It has no moving parts to overheat and there is only a usb connection between the keyboard and the computer, which is located behind the screen. The keyboard can be detached leaving the computer as a screen reader. Users save files to a usb stick/MP3 player, network or web server. This helps schools who currently struggle to recover work from a hard disk when the laptop fails. Ink MC is designed as a personal productivity device but it can just as easily be used as a public computer for example in clusters for flexible use across a school. It does over 90% of what most people need on a day to day basis through its Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), which includes Open Office. There is no training overhead as it is simple to use and users are not expected to carry out running repairs." You can read more on the Wikipedia entry page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InkMedia -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Phil Shapiro Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 4:29 PM To: digitaldivide@digitaldivide.net Subject: [DDN] Low-Cost Eee PC Laptop for Sale Soon hi DDN community, for those who might be interested, i'm blogging on PCWorld.com about the soon to be released low-cost Eee PC laptop. see http://tinyurl.com/yw46wm and http://digg.com/linux_unix/Low_Cost_Eee_PC_Laptop_for_Sale_Soon if there are people on this list with information on how to order this laptop outside the united states, thanks for sharing that info with the rest of us. phil -- Phil Shapiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.his.com/pshapiro/briefbio.html http://philsrssfeed.blogspot.com http://www.his.com/pshapiro/stories.menu.html "Wisdom starts with wonder." - Socrates "Learning happens through gentleness." _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
