BOFFINS AT THE Massachusetts Institute of Technology have invented a crank powered laptop that can be made for $100. The machines' AC adaptor doubles as a carrying strap, there is a hand crank to power them when there's no electricity.
It can fold into more positions than an Indian yoga expert and is covered in a rubber coating so it is pretty tough.
The big idea is that it will enable third world children to have access to IT and the boffins want to make 5 million to 15 million of the machines. It is not just third world countries either. MIT hopes to start buying them for all 500,000 middle and high-school students in the state.
The machines are not exactly quick. They have a 500 mHz AMD chip and flash memory instead of a hard drive. It runs on Linux too. However the laptops can connect to Wi-Fi wireless networks and be part of "mesh" networks.The hand crank sounds a great idea, but apparently you only get 10 minutes of juice from a minute’s winding so it might not be so useful.
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