>Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 13:27:00 -0400 (AST)
>Subject: ICTD News for 27 July 2006
>From: "ICTD Newsmaster" <ictdnews@undp.org>
>To: ictdnews@undp.org
>
>---- First Million OLPC Laptops on Order
>Nigeria has officially ordered and paid for 1 million of the
>One Laptop per Child (OLPC) computers. The deal marks the first
>actual order for the project that aims to provide Linux-powered
>notebook computers to children in developing economies.
>http://www.sdnp.undp.org/perl/news/articles.pl?id=8850&do=gpage
>
>---- The Laptop Crusade
>Figuring out how to protect everything from dust and moisture
>was harder. Béhar replaced the traditional keyboard on Design
>Continuum’s model with a sealed rubber one and built a sensor
>right into the palm rest to eliminate the seam between it and
>the trackpad found on a regular laptop. Other problems: The USB
>ports were exposed to the elements, and a pair of radio antennas
>had to stay outside the machine. (The Media Lab wanted the
>antennas to have a half-mile range for building a city- or
>village-wide mesh network, with each laptop acting as a node.)
>Solving one problem solved the other: Béhar turned the antennas
>into a pair of playful “ears”that swivel up for reception or
>down to cover the laptop’s naked ports.
>http://www.sdnp.undp.org/perl/news/articles.pl?id=8854&do=gpage
>
>---- One Laptop Per Child not Feasible in India
>Education secretary Sudeep Banerjee’s letter to his counterpart
>in the Planning Commission , Rajiv Ratna Shah, strongly
>disapproving of the ‘One Laptop Per Child’ idea — $100 each,
>cost to be borne by government for one million pieces — floated
>by MIT, had instead asked the plan panel to invest similar
>money for universalisation of secondary education.
>http://www.sdnp.undp.org/perl/news/articles.pl?id=8852&do=gpage
Nearby Thu Jul 27 16:18:23 2006