Green Machine

The green machine, developed by Nicholas Negroponte, is an upcoming laptop for under $100 made for poor countries. One Laptop per Child, OLPC, is sponsoring Nicholas in his endeavor. The computer needs to be a durable, so it will be wrapped in a rubber skin. The battery will be charged by the wind up crank; one minute of turning the crank should provide 40 minutes of energy for the computer. The screen will have an LED display which uses 1/10 the power of the average computer screen today. It will run on a free software such as Linux and have a 500 megahertz processor. It will be able to do much of what a regular computer can do except store large amounts of data. There will just be one gigabyte of memory but will have four different USB ports to allow for external devices. They have also removed any extras within the computer. They claim that in the average computer, 2/3 of the software is used to manage the other third. They are just going to put in what the computer needs to run. They do plan to have access to the Internet through a mesh network, P2P, developed by MIT. The computers will be distributed directly to ministries of education by the millions to keep down costs. The ministries can then distribute the computers to schools and the children. They want the kids to be able to work with the computers in the classroom as well as at home. Computers are a way to access information around the world as well as a tool to help them learn. Both of these can be crucial for the development of these countries; their youth can become more educated and more aware of the world around them. Brazil, Thailand, Nigeria and Libya are planning to pilot the product. It will then be passed through Central America and parts of Africa. Many other countries in Asia and Africa have expressed interest but are still not on board yet. They are still looking at different designs for the product.
The product is still in the development stage. Just recently the test boards became available for the computer. They hope to have the product out by the end of this year or the beginning of 2007. Once 5-10 million have been ordered and paid for manufacturing will begin.