OLPC battery life-- an update
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Glaskowsky passes along some feedback from the OLPC organization.
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Dell SP2008WFP: 20-inch wide-screen LCD monitor with Webcam
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A cache of flash in a new Samsung notebook hard-drive series will halve boot times and slash power usage, giving battery life a nice bump, the company says. In Gadget Lab. In Gadget Lab.
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The computing technologies to go beyond Moore's Law
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A new Âgas gaugeÂ chip for laptop batteries provide much more accurate readouts of time left.
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Former One Laptop Per Child CTO Mary Lou Jepsen has created a for-profit company, Pixel Qi, which will use OLPC inventions to build a $75 laptop.
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How much do all our devices in "standby" mode cost us in terms of electricity usage and real dollars?
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As&#160;One Laptop Per Child prepares to ship its highly anticipated XO laptops in two weeks, it is developing a &quot;supercharger,&quot; a mass battery recharger that will draw power from cows and yo-yos to help the laptops run longer.The supercharger is a box that will charge 15 batteries at a time, said Mary Lou Jepsen, chief technology officer for OLPC.The supercharger complements other environmentally friendly battery charging technologies being used or under development for the XO laptop, Jepsen said. Users can hook up handcranks, cows, yo-yos, foot pedals and solar panels to the box to recharge batteries.Last week OLPC said it was designing a cow-powered generator through a dynamo with a system of belts and pulleys using cattle to generate power.A typical charge cycle for a laptop battery should be about three hours, Jepsen said. Groups of children will be able to share batteries.Currently in design, the supercharger will be ready for manufacturing next year, Jepsen said.A laptop&#39;s mileage depends on its usage, so OLPC designed an environmentally friendly laptop that could work with a rugged, low-power battery, Jepsen said. The laptop&#39;s specially designed lithium-ferro phosphate battery consumes between 2 watts to 8 watts depending on usage, Jepsen said. It lasts five years and works in environments up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius), Jepsen said.The XO batteries do not work on normal laptops, which can sap up to 40 watts of power depending on usage, Jepsen said.The XO is also the first laptop that uses only alternative energy, Jepsen said. Low-cost solar panels are great as a power option where there is plenty of sunlight, Jepsen said. Energy is especially scare in developing nations, so the laptop will hopefully pass on energy preservation lessons, which could help preserve battery life in the XO, Jepsen said.The laptop goes into manufacturing this week after three years of design experimentation and attempts to reduce manufacturing cost. It will first be offered in two weeks to consumers in the Give 1 Get 1 program, in which two laptops can be purchased for about US$400, with a user getting one laptop and the other being donated.&quot;We&#39;re exhausted, but exhilarated,&quot; Jepsen said.REFERENCES:OLPC experiments with cow-powered laptops ... seriously, Oct. 24, 2007
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Flashy new OS features could drain laptop batteries faster than XP, hardware vendors and analysts say.
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The One Laptop Per Child Project (OLPC) is toying with a novel source of power for its low-cost XO laptops: cows.
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Safend, an international provider of endpoint i
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Krishna Palem thinks introducing a little uncertainty into computer chips could extend battery life in mobile devices--and maybe the duration of Moore's Law, too.
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How far is too far when it comes to the freedom of software? Plus: Palm slipping, Windows sliding.
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Big OLED screen, 802.11b, slick design, long-running battery...
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Science & environment: Â· Apple announces UK sale date for Â£269 gadgetÂ· Rural customers face network problems
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(InfoWorld) - Ultramobile PCs, the new product category developed by Microsoft, have been unsuccessful so far because they're too expensive and their batteries don't last long enough, a top Advanced Micro DevicesÂ executive said Friday. AMD is exploring the prospects for ultramobile PCs, which includeÂ Samsung Electronics' Q1, but wants to be sure they make sense for users before making a big commitment, said Phil Hester, AMD's chief technology officer, in an interview at Computex. The devices are currently more expensive than many laptop PCs and their batteries don't last very long compared to other devices. They also need new screens that can be viewed outdoors under the glare of the sun, according to Hester. "We have a processor for that space when the space is ready," he said. Most of the big design wins for ultramobile PCs have gone to Intel and Via Technologies, which may help to explain Hester's coolness to the market. Samsung recently announced a new version of the Q1, called the Q1 Ultra, which starts at about $800 and uses Intel's new McCaslin processor. The new Intel chip should improve battery life considerably over the previous model, from 1.5 hours to more than 4 hours, according to Samsung. But AMD has had some design wins too, with itsÂ Geode processors. Raon Digital, a South Korean company, uses the Geode LX800 in its Vega ultramobile PC, and has put an LX900 in its Everun, which hasn't been launched yet. The Vega boasts 6-hours of battery life, while the Everun lasts seven hours on its standard battery, or up to 12 hours with an upgraded battery pack. Besides ultramobiles, the Geode family is aimed at low-end laptop PCs and the high end of the handset market, Hester said. There's a Geode processor in Nicholas Negroponte'sÂ One-Laptop-Per-Child laptop. The OLPC project is trying to reduce the cost of its laptop to $100 and put it in the hands of school children in the developing world. Hester believes the battle to put the next billion people on the Internet is not going to be won by PCs, however. "I really think for most people, the device is going to be the handset," he said. Â
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Gabe: We did a really awesome project (can I say it"s awesome, is that okay?) for Wired magazine. You can either go pick up the most recent issue and read it there or check it out on their site. They asked us to do a piece for them handicapping all three of the next generation systems. We tried to be as fair as we could and hopefully you"ll get a kick out of it.