OLPC aka XO Laptop aka $100 laptop

So yesterday I was reading this review of the OLPC laptop, and was quite interested in it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/techn ... pogue.html

Some more info:
http://laptop.org/
http://www.xogiving.org

I'd heard bits and pieces about it before, but it was cool to hear about the sharing and code-view button, and some other bits and pieces.

So my question is: Apart from the obvious interest the Humanitarian/Welfare Dept might have in them, is there any more creative usage for them by The Church or its members?

(No, I'm not envisioning primary talks read off the screen, or shared to the other kids by
mesh-wifi. )

redzarf wrote:So my question is: Apart from the obvious interest the Humanitarian/Welfare Dept might have in them, is there any more creative usage for them by The Church or its members?

My interest in them is for emergency communications. Passing formal messages by voice is horridly slow and requires a good radio circuit. Digital allows you to do much more and can get through a weak signal - very handy when using improvised antennas and low power.

However, the power consumption of a modern computer, even a laptop is ugly. Do the calculation of how much battery power you would need to run a laptop for 3 days and you'll see what I mean. You're talking at least multiple car battery-sized units. And that's just for the computer. Unless you're at a site that has a generator, it's not practical. Unfortunately generators have a whole host of liabilities.

But the XO's power draw is a lot less. If the article is accurate, an average of 2W, that's incredible! That is very do-able on emergency power. The fact that it's rugged and spill proof is just bonus. With those monstrous wi-fi antennas, I'd hope that it has a good range for networking in a shelter/eoc.

Also continuing with what Russell said, just having the ability to recharge using a drawstring is very beneficial in emergency comms.

As for the church in general, I do not see a great benefit, but it does allow those in impoverished regions to access articles from the church's website.

RussellHltn wrote:My interest in them is for emergency communications. Passing formal messages by voice is horridly slow and requires a good radio circuit. Digital allows you to do much more and can get through a weak signal - very handy when using improvised antennas and low power.

However, the power consumption of a modern computer, even a laptop is ugly. Do the calculation of how much battery power you would need to run a laptop for 3 days and you'll see what I mean. You're talking at least multiple car battery-sized units. And that's just for the computer. Unless you're at a site that has a generator, it's not practical. Unfortunately generators have a whole host of liabilities.

But the XO's power draw is a lot less. If the article is accurate, an average of 2W, that's incredible! That is very do-able on emergency power. The fact that it's rugged and spill proof is just bonus. With those monstrous wi-fi antennas, I'd hope that it has a good range for networking in a shelter/eoc.

Yes, it does draw only a couple watts an hour, but that's assuming that it will be used continuously. The interesting thing about the laptop is that it can suspend and resume in a few milliseconds, so even when it is not "on", it can still receive and relay network traffic.

In addition, the power circuitry was designed to be unbelievably tollorant, so you can pretty much hook it up to any power source of any voltage you happen to have, within reason. (The actual numbers are anything from 5-25 V; see http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Battery_and_power)

Aaron

cannona wrote:Yes, it does draw only a couple watts an hour, ...

Aaron

Bringing to mind how my EE and physics professors of former decades would correct the above...

The correct way to say that is "it draws only a couple of watts", period. Or, to be extra wordy, you could say "it draws only a couple of watt-hours per hour". The Watt is a unit of power. The Watt-hour is a unit of energy. Power is energy divided by time. Energy is power multiplied by time.

cannona wrote:Yes, it does draw only a couple watts an hour, but that's assuming that it will be used continuously. The interesting thing about the laptop is that it can suspend and resume in a few milliseconds, so even when it is not "on", it can still receive and relay network traffic.

In addition, the power circuitry was designed to be unbelievably tollorant, so you can pretty much hook it up to any power source of any voltage you happen to have, within reason. (The actual numbers are anything from 5-25 V; see http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Battery_and_power)

I know the unit has some very heavy power management going on. I was kind of concerned that the programs I'm interested in would cause it to run continuously and not be able to "sleep" as it does normally.

The wide range of voltage input is added gravy. Most radios and such were designed for mobile use, so most hams are setup for 12V operation. Many business laptops use some other voltage so one would either have to get a car adapters to boost the DC voltage, or run an inverter to power the AC adapter. Either way, it's not as simple or efficient as letting the computer do it.

rmrichesjr wrote:Bringing to mind how my EE and physics professors of former decades would correct the above...

The correct way to say that is "it draws only a couple of watts", period. Or, to be extra wordy, you could say "it draws only a couple of watt-hours per hour". The Watt is a unit of power. The Watt-hour is a unit of energy. Power is energy divided by time. Energy is power multiplied by time.

You forgot to include j in case the power transfer was not matched.

thedqs wrote:You forgot to include j in case the power transfer was not matched.

Nice try, but that only applies to AC power, not DC.

rmrichesjr wrote:Bringing to mind how my EE and physics professors of former decades would correct the above...

The correct way to say that is "it draws only a couple of watts", period. Or, to be extra wordy, you could say "it draws only a couple of watt-hours per hour". The Watt is a unit of power. The Watt-hour is a unit of energy. Power is energy divided by time. Energy is power multiplied by time.

Yeah, I'm sure I learned that at some point. I was just being sloppy. But thanks for the correction.

73's
KD6QPK

RussellHltn wrote:Nice try, but that only applies to AC power, not DC.

Though I believe the recharging mechanism generates AC power.
Though the storage medium is DC, true.

rmrichesjr wrote:Bringing to mind how my EE and physics professors of former decades would correct the above...

The correct way to say that is "it draws only a couple of watts", period. Or, to be extra wordy, you could say "it draws only a couple of watt-hours per hour". The Watt is a unit of power. The Watt-hour is a unit of energy. Power is energy divided by time. Energy is power multiplied by time.

thedqs wrote:Though I believe the recharging mechanism generates AC power.
Though the storage medium is DC, true.

We surely go off on tangents easily, don't we. (no trigonometry pun intended)

The point in my posting above was the difference between energy and power.

The imaginary component, the 'j' term, is only relevant if you're working with power factor issues. The cosine of theta factor is the difference between Watts and Volt-Amps. In a discussion of Watts vs. Watt-hours, it is irrelevant.

Point taken.
Though you mentioned EE. Whenever their is the mention of EE you must always have a j in there. Even if you say e^(pi*j)+1=0.

Just a personal observation.

But going back to the original point of the thread.
Another idea would be that these laptops would be a cheaper laptop to give in business travels since you only need limited software.

thedqs wrote:Though I believe the recharging mechanism generates AC power.
Though the storage medium is DC, true.

I thought we were talking about the power supplied to the unit (DC), not what it uses internally. If it only draws 2W, that's about 40 hours on a small 7Ah battery.

There's a nice video on the XO here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBoghPvyhts

cannona wrote:There's a nice video on the XO here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBoghPvyhts

Cool video. Having watched this project for quite some time, originally I was sceptical. I'm starting to be a believer in it. The key will be if those who the laptop was truly designed for can use it to better their education and gain access to more information. If internet connectivity continues to be a problem in certain regions of the world, it will limit the effectiveness of this product.

Tom

What is cool though is that if one person in your area has internet connection then everyone can get connected and that can go on for a lot of jumps so it could bring internet connectivity to an entire region.

I especially liked the durability of the laptop.