these are cool

[solarbird]

Remember the "$100 laptop" targeted for educational use in the developing word? Production is finally ramping up, currently at $176 but they're still hoping to reach $100. I'm interested in the awfully, awfully cool screen technology, aside from anything else, and the network infrastructure looks smart too.

Meanwhile, found originally by lyonesse, the jokes just write themselves: French civil servant leads normal life with tiny, tiny brain.

This isn't new, but I love these pencil carvings, by which I mean, art made by carving into pencils.

Finally, over here, a visual instruction guide to making basic but attractive bento. Yay!

Comments

[wytwolf.livejournal.com]

Some more fun bento sites with great ideas and recipes:

http://www.bentoyum.com/
http://www.kitchencow.com/
http://www.c4vct.com/kym/bento/index.htm

I wish mine looked as good as some of these.... practice makes perfect I guess ^_^;

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Those laptops look really cool. I've always been a big fan of technology that focuses more on "How can we make sure that this keeps working?" than on "This'll be really cool...on the one time in three that it doesn't crash..."

I'm gonna have to start following that project.

Also, those pencils are mind-blowing, but with a definite undercurrent of "You people have way too much time on your hands" ;-)

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

I may get one of these just to *have* one of these. :-) Are they actually on sale, yet, and if so, where?

Wonder if Amiga OS can be modified to run on it...

[solarbird]

They're for sale to large NGOs and third-world educational systems, but they actively don't want a western market showing up for them as they don't want them being re-exported to wealthier countries. At least, not these models. It's possible that there will be a consumer version sooner or later, though.

[chirik.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see a western market version of those. They'd make a great first laptop.

[solarbird]

Somebody's making a $200 laptop for western sale, but it's much more standard - standard power config, normal/non-ruggedised keyboard, and so on.

[solarbird]

Oh, right, devichan posted about it below.

But it's rather different.

[quen-elf.livejournal.com]

The screen technology is nice (incidentally, I retain significant doubts about whether the project as a whole is worthwhile) but I still think electronic paper is the way forward. Hopefully! Screens that don't need power to display things are a pretty good idea (even though 0.2W is not a lot of power already, wonder how that compares to the e-paper average assuming a refresh every 30 seconds or so?) and the display quality should be better than reflective LCD. Obviously, e-paper is only a solution for electronic book readers and not for general computer use, but I happen to be more interested in the former (slightly higher resolution on desktop monitors would be nice, but otherwise they're basically OK).

On the other hand the dual mode is nice. My electronic dictionary uses a reflective LCD display and you can read that fine in bright sunlight, too... but not so much the rest of the time. So being able to switch to backlit is probably important for these laptops.

[devichan.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the EEE (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0%2C1895%2C2141742%2C00.asp) PC (http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=522) yet?

WANT! :)