LaptopMagazine recently had a few words with Nicholas Negroponte regarding the OLPC. With just a few questions asked, we were able to learn a few interesting things. Total sales, not including the big sale for 15,000 units from Birmingham, Alabama are estimated at 150,000 to 170,000 units.
There is also a chance at seeing another Give 1 Get 1 program in 2008. Negroponte stated that they “are a charity and not a business. If we continued it, it would become “sales” versus a charitable promotion.” Which is kind of a sad statement, one would think that any possible way to get more units in the hands of needy children would be good. A few options are being considered, possibly another round for the US next Christmas and also having it in other countries such as Italy and the UK.
I guess if you were looking to grab an XO laptop then you may want to consider eBay or other similar sites, of course then it would just be an individual purchase and not a charity purchase.
Battery enthusiasts who enjoy lining their checked baggage with excess power supplies are out of luck in 2008 under new government travel regulations, but it looks as though the average traveler with a laptop, cell phone or digital camera will not encounter nearly as much hassle as they might should they be holding more than 3 ounces of moisturizer.
Starting January 1, passengers will not be able to put loose, lithium-based batteries in their checked bags due to the possibility of fire, according to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Batteries that are attached to their designated devices, however, are permitted. Batteries rolling around with your clothes? Denied. Batteries installed in that extra digital camera? Good to go. Spare batteries must be packed with carry-on luggage.
TSA has imposed some restrictions based on lithium content for carry-on bags, but the 8 grams of allowable lithium basically covers most consumer electronics devices.
“All lithium ion batteries in cell phones are below 8 gram equivalent lithium content [and] nearly all laptop computers also are below this quantity threshold,” according to the TSA.
Most widely used consumer electronics use lithium-ion batteries, and the TSA will allow these batteries in checked and carry-on luggage provided they are installed in a particular device. Spare lithium-ion batteries will have to be packed in carry-on luggage. Passengers are allowed any lithium-ion batteries that contain less than eight grams of lithium, and are allowed two additional batteries that have up to 25 grams of lithium total.
Something that falls between that 8 and 25 gram threshold is this 130 watt-hour “universal” lithium-ion battery.
Lithium-metal batteries, meanwhile, which are apparently somewhat less stable than lithium-ion batteries, face tougher restrictions. They can be checked if they are installed a device, but travelers are only allowed lithium-metal batteries if they have less than 2 grams of lithium content. The average traveler, however, is probably not going to be holding many lithium-metal based batteries.
It appears that those who might run into the biggest problems are audio/visual professionals with a mountain of excess equipment. But those of us with our laptops, iPods, digital cameras and cell phones appear to be safe, provided they are attached to our devices or placed in carry-on luggage.
Why the concern? TSA said there is “no explosion hazard” with lithium batteries, but
“the Federal Aviation Administration has studied fire hazards associated with both primary and lithium-ion cells.”
Naturally, TSA would like to avoid battery fires altogether, but the idea is that should one occur, they would prefer it happen in the actual cabin so flight crews could try to put it out. If a battery catches fire in the luggage bay below the passengers, crews have no way of getting down there to extinguish it.
Check out the video above for some helpful tips on how a) not to react when your laptop explodes into flames at LAX (”Move away from the computer!”) and b) how to extinguish a battery fire with the contents of the drink cart. Um, maybe you want to avoid using a hot plate (minute 2:00)?
No word, however, on whether TSA has been training its screeners on the art of lithium-ion vs. lithium-metal battery detection.
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Carl Yankowski, the former CEO of Palm and Reebok — not that we blame him for lying low these past few years, after guiding Palm through its 2000 spinoff from 3Com to a $30 billion market cap, only to see inventory of devices like the Palm V and IIIe pile up in warehouses and the company fall to less than five percent of its former value a year later. That’s a hard act to follow, but it looks like he’ll be getting a shot as the new CEO of Ambient Devices, makers of the Orb and other friendly glowing information appliances. Yankowski replaces David Rose, who founded the company in 2001 commercialize tech developed at the MIT Media Lab, and he sounds like he’s ready to hand the company over, saying “With Carl leading the team, I am confident that our original vision for ambient information everywhere will become a reality for millions of consumers in the near future.” What’s interesting is that Carl’s Wikipedia entry was last edited in November, and it says he’s been running Ambient since August — perhaps the puppetmaster has finally stepped on stage, eh?
Samsung has revealed two new touchcreen handsets, the F490 and P720 in Ukraine during a recent event. Let’s look at the details of the F490 first. The F490 is a full touchscreen handset without a flip cover attached. It features a 3.2-inch screen, a 5 megapixel camera and works on the HSDPA network. The P720 is also a full touchscreen Armani-branded handset but with a flip cover attached. It features a 2.6-inch screen, a 3 megapixel camera and dual SIM card capability.
Looks like there are going to be a few more setbacks in the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) campaign, which has been struggling to regain footing over the past few months. First is the fact that the company has made good on the promise to end its much-lauded Give One, Get One program, which effectively came to close at the end of last year. The program was given a last-minute reprieve the last time the organization threatened to end it, and while that’s not the case this time around, Laptop has word from Negroponte himself that those looking to get their hands on one of the tiny green notebooks shouldn’t give up hope altogether.
Unfortunate news item number two is the the departure of the organization’s CTO, Mary Lou Jepsen, who is quitting to capitalize on the technology that she helped pioneer for the not-for-profit organization. Jepsen, who became OLPC’s first employee back in 2005, led the hardware and display development of the XO laptop. “I will continue to give OLPC product at cost, while providing commercial entities products they would like at a profit,” Jepsen told IT World.
Like the Give One, Get One program, Jepsen’s last day with the company was December 31st.
There’s not a whole lot to go on here, unfortunately, but according to the folks at 51nb.com, the slim-looking ThinkPad you see above is real, and set to go into production sometime this year. Nothing too unusual there, except that the full versions of the slides (which unfortunately seem to be unavailable as of this writing) are clearly marked “(C) 2006,” which sure is a little longer than most laptops take to make it from the prototype to production stage. Still, 2006 or not, the form factor is certainly nice, as is the supposed LED-backlit 13-inch screen, but we’re inclined to wait for something a little more concrete before getting our hopes up too much.
Lenovo sure likes the Olympics, not just to watch some great sporting events, but to sell Olympic themed devices. Previously, they had announced some new Olympic themed laptops. Now, they have decided to manufacture and market another device, a USB jump drive. If you have seen a picture of the laptops that Lenovo has created with the Olympic design and you liked that, then you’ll be happy to know that these new jump drives sport a similar design.
Unfortunately, there is no word on storage, pricing, or availability at this time. However, expect these to be on sale sometime before the Olympics get started this summer.
We’re already pretty high on the Dash Express, but the company sweetened the pot a little this morning by announcing that the unit is based on OpenMoko’s Neo open-source hardware platform. The Dash Express is first commercial product to use the OpenMoko GT0X reference platform, which is an updated version of the hardware in OpenMoko’s open-source Neo 1973 mobile phone. As you’d expect, the Dash Express also uses OpenMoko’s Linux bootloader and kernel, but the Dash GPS software itself is apparently still proprietary. The love doesn’t stop there, either: OpenMoko and parent company FIC Mobility actually helped design the Dash Express hardware, and FIC is going to handle manufacturing as well. All in all, a pretty solid win for the OpenMoko / Neo system — let’s hope it’s a sign of even more good things to come.
