Quickly, because I’m a little out of free time right now, we’ve been lended 6 XO green laptops for 24 months, fo a project we intend to start shortly on a Dokeos-XO integration work.

More details:

• the project proposal: http://rt.laptop.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=41215
• the acceptance process report: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Contributors_program/June_5%2C_2009

I’m very happy about that and I can’t wait to finally be able to work on it. Depending on whether we get them before DOKUDA, the huge e-learning event we’re organizing in Lima, Peru, we might get working on the style before then, to show it off.

MUDGE’S Musings

We’ve appreciatively quoted John C. Dvorak here at Left-Handed Complement. First, because he writes about computer-based topics that interest me. Second, he writes quite well. Third, because his curmudgeonly chops put a guy named MUDGE to shame.

Today he weighs in on a familiar topic to L-HC reader, One Laptop Per Child. Dvorak, the curmudgeon’s curmudgeon, takes a pretty good swat at a program that we’ve enthusiastically followed for the past few months. For a history of our posts on this topic, you may peruse the links here:

One Laptop Per Child Doesn’t Change the World

Does anyone but me see the OLPC XO-1 as an insulting “let them eat cake” sort of message to the world’s poor?

by John C. Dvorak

Hands Across America, Live AID, the Concert for Bangladesh, and so on. The American (and world) public has witnessed one feel-good event (and the ensuing scandals) after another. Each one manages to assuage our guilt about the world’s problems, at least a little. Now these folks think that any sort of participation in these events, or even their good thoughts about world poverty and starvation, actually help. Now they can sleep at night. It doesn’t matter that nothing has really changed.

This is how I view the cute, little One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO-1 computer, technology designed for the impoverished children of Africa and Alabama. This machine, which is the brainchild of onetime MIT media lab honcho Nick Negroponte, will save the world. His vision is to supply every child with what amounts to an advertising delivery mechanism. Hence the boys at Google are big investors.

Dvorak’s point: this program is a little like Marie Antoinette: “They’re starving, let them eat little green computers!”

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

One Laptop Per Child Doesn’t Change the World – Columns by PC Magazine

Whew, John! That emperor really is stumbling down the parade route starkers!

He does make a strong point, but I still like the initiative. Yes large swaths of the globe are starving, thirsty, and ignorant that there is anything better out there and how to get it. Yes, we need to send those folks food, pharmaceuticals, water purifiers.

But John, we can also send them practical educational devices, in the form of cute, green computers.

Maybe OLPC will help teach that world to feed, clothe and sustain themselves.

We actually found Dvorak when researching this next item. The folks at Zonbu have also struck again. We actually linked to our original post in the list above, here it is again. Never let it be said we at L-HC don’t deliver on the promise of Sequitur Service©.

Zonbu Launches ‘Green’ Laptop

by Tony Hoffman

Zonbu, maker of the Zonbu Mini desktop PC, has announced a notebook computer along the same lines, to be manufactured by Everex.

The Zonbu Notebook is designed to be environmentally friendly, with lower power usage and less hazardous material than normal laptops, and proper recycling techniques.

We wrote about the original desktop Zonbu, and compared it to OLPC. They both represent a reasonably clean sheet of paper as far as their attempts to reinvent computing in a basic, efficient, manifestly less costly way.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Zonbu Launches ‘Green’ Laptop – News and Analysis by PC Magazine

Have a guy on our who has been talking up Zonbu; check him out if you like. I am always a fan of paying less, but I hardly think any of these devices are meant for the likes of yr humble svt. But, as I wrote previously,

Maybe someday, even MUDGE will pay less than $1200 for a PC. Never happened yet, since as prices per component go down, the sheer number of additional must-have components seems to have kept the price level, or growing. Maybe this paradigm shift will finally break that pattern.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

In 2009, worldwide laptop sales are expected to surpass desktop sales for the first time—reaching more than 150 million. Most people will keep a laptop for just three years or so before shelving it or tossing it onto a junk heap. Here’s how designers plan to make this ubiquitous gadget more eco-friendly across its entire life span, from manufacture to recycling.

PROBLEM: Petroleum-filled plastic
SOLUTION: Make cases from corn
New bioplastics—plant-based polymers—require less oil and energy to produce than traditional plastics. One challenge: upping heat resistance so electronics won’t melt them. Fujitsu makes a laptop with a half-natural, half-conventional case and is now testing a castor-oil plastic that’s up to 80 percent bio-content.

PROBLEM: Landing in landfills
SOLUTION: Upgrade, don’t trash
The EPA estimates that Americans discard 19,000 tons of laptops a year. But soon it may get easier (and cheaper) to upgrade your laptop than to replace it, keeping e-waste out of dumps and saving the energy and materials needed for a whole new computer. Laptop-maker Asus recently released a model that lets users change the processor, graphics card and other parts just by removing one panel, instead of spending hours disassembling the computer.

PROBLEM: Power-sucking displays
SOLUTION: Create greener light
An LCD can eat more than half of a laptop’s power, mostly due to its fluorescent backlight. Some laptops are lit with more-efficient LEDs instead, but the next step may be to nix backlights altogether. Displays made of OLEDs, or organic light-emitting diodes, form images with electroluminescent films. In small sizes, as in cellphones, OLEDs can significantly cut power use (depending on the image’s colors); companies hope that this advantage will scale up.

PROBLEM: Guzzling power from the grid
SOLUTION: Harness the sun
Portable solar chargers suited for laptops already exist. A company called MSI Computer has even developed a prototype laptop with photovoltaic cells integrated directly into its case.

PROBLEM: Toxic waste
SOLUTION: Get the lead out
Concerned that dumped gadgets could leak poisons, the law is cracking down on dangerous ingredients. (The lead in solder, for example, is now being replaced by silver and copper.) Last year, the European Union enacted legal limits on toxins in electronics sold there, and the U.S. introduced a similar (though voluntary) rating system for computers. President Bush recently mandated that 95 percent of government-purchased electronics meet the American eco-standards, eliminating about 3,000 tons of hazardous waste by 2011.

PROBLEM: Tricky recycling
SOLUTION: Make a digital parts list
Recycling computers can be expensive and time-consuming. Dismantlers usually pull out valuable parts for reuse or resale, but they have to examine each computer individually to determine what’s in it. If manufacturers add a radio-frequency ID tag to a laptop, says Valerie Thomas of Georgia Tech, it could instantly tell recyclers how to recover components.

PROBLEM: That spinning hard drive
SOLUTION: Switch to flash memory
Future laptops could knock 10 percent off their energy use just by replacing hard drives with solid-state, or flash, memory, which has no watt-hungry moving parts. Dell debuted a laptop with a 32-gigabyte solid-state drive this year. By 2012, manufacturer Samsung says, the drives may hold about 30 times as much data.

PROBLEM: Energy-intensive manufacturing
SOLUTION: Build more- efficient factories
Producing a laptop requires nearly as much energy as it will use over the rest of its life, but new plants may slash this consumption. One of the world’s greenest computer–chip factories could go online as early as 2009. The Texas Instruments plant in Richardson, Texas, will consume 20 percent less electricity and 35 percent less water, spit out 50 percent fewer nitrogen oxides—and cost 30 percent less to build—than TI’s previous plant. In one energy-saving measure, the plant uses the waste heat generated by its huge air conditioners to warm water for free, eliminating the need for four polluting gas boilers.

for more info : http://www.popsci.com/popsci/environment/9fdcdae055883110vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html

.

PROBLEM: Petroleum-filled plastic SOLUTION: Make cases from corn New bioplastics—plant-based polymers—require less oil and energy to produce than traditional plastics. One challenge: upping heat resistance so electronics won’t melt them. Fujitsu makes a laptop with a half-natural, half-conventional case and is now testing a castor-oil plastic that’s up to 80 percent bio-content.

PROBLEM: Landing in landfills SOLUTION: Upgrade, don’t trash The EPA estimates that Americans discard 19,000 tons of laptops a year. But soon it may get easier (and cheaper) to upgrade your laptop than to replace it, keeping e-waste out of dumps and saving the energy and materials needed for a whole new computer. Laptop-maker Asus recently released a model that lets users change the processor, graphics card and other parts just by removing one panel, instead of spending hours disassembling the computer.

PROBLEM: Power-sucking displays SOLUTION: Create greener light An LCD can eat more than half of a laptop’s power, mostly due to its fluorescent backlight. Some laptops are lit with more-efficient LEDs instead, but the next step may be to nix backlights altogether. Displays made of OLEDs, or organic light-emitting diodes, form images with electroluminescent films. In small sizes, as in cellphones, OLEDs can significantly cut power use (depending on the image’s colors); companies hope that this advantage will scale up.

PROBLEM: Guzzling power from the grid SOLUTION: Harness the sun Portable solar chargers suited for laptops already exist. A company called MSI Computer has even developed a prototype laptop with photovoltaic cells integrated directly into its case.

PROBLEM: Toxic waste SOLUTION: Get the lead out Concerned that dumped gadgets could leak poisons, the law is cracking down on dangerous ingredients. (The lead in solder, for example, is now being replaced by silver and copper.) Last year, the European Union enacted legal limits on toxins in electronics sold there, and the U.S. introduced a similar (though voluntary) rating system for computers. President Bush recently mandated that 95 percent of government-purchased electronics meet the American eco-standards, eliminating about 3,000 tons of hazardous waste by 2011.

PROBLEM: Tricky recycling SOLUTION: Make a digital parts list Recycling computers can be expensive and time-consuming. Dismantlers usually pull out valuable parts for reuse or resale, but they have to examine each computer individually to determine what’s in it. If manufacturers add a radio-frequency ID tag to a laptop, says Valerie Thomas of Georgia Tech, it could instantly tell recyclers how to recover components.

PROBLEM: That spinning hard drive SOLUTION: Switch to flash memory Future laptops could knock 10 percent off their energy use just by replacing hard drives with solid-state, or flash, memory, which has no watt-hungry moving parts. Dell debuted a laptop with a 32-gigabyte solid-state drive this year. By 2012, manufacturer Samsung says, the drives may hold about 30 times as much data.

PROBLEM: Energy-intensive manufacturing SOLUTION: Build more- efficient factories Producing a laptop requires nearly as much energy as it will use over the rest of its life, but new plants may slash this consumption. One of the world’s greenest computer–chip factories could go online as early as 2009. The Texas Instruments plant in Richardson, Texas, will consume 20 percent less electricity and 35 percent less water, spit out 50 percent fewer nitrogen oxides—and cost 30 percent less to build—than TI’s previous plant. In one energy-saving measure, the plant uses the waste heat generated by its huge air conditioners to warm water for free, eliminating the need for four polluting gas boilers.

Source: POPSci