Friday 30 May 2008

The £99 Elonex laptop: how can it be so cheap?

A new budget computer aimed at schoolchildren is about to be launched. One A new laptop computer for just £99 sounds like the kind of offer found in a spam e-mail or on a dodgy auction website. But the British company Elonex is launching the country’s first sub £100 computer later this month and hopes to be making 200,000 of them by the summer. It will be aimed at schoolchildren and teenagers, and looks set to throw the market for budget laptops wide open.
Called the One, it can be used as a traditional notebook computer or, with the screen detached from the keyboard, as a portable “tablet” – albeit without the planned touchscreen that Elonex had to abandon to hit its £99 price tag. Wi-fi technology lets users access the internet or swap music (and homework) files between computers wirelessly.

Personal files can be stored on the laptop’s 1GB of built-in memory or on a tough digital wristband (1-8GB, from £10) that children can plug into the USB socket of whichever computer they happen to be using, be it the One, a PC at school or their parents’ laptop.
So how can Elonex make a computer for so little? After all, UK consumers paid an average of £477 for a new laptop in 2007, according to the retail analyst GfK.

The secret is simple: open-source software. The One runs on Linux, which is a rival to Windows but completely free to use. Open-source software can be freely swapped or modified by anyone who wants it. In the past such operating systems (there are several of them) have been outgunned by the more sophisticated Windows programs. However, an open-source operating system is ideal for low-cost devices as it performs well on less powerful, cheaper hardware.
Naturally, the One is more basic than all-singing, all-dancing notebooks. Nonetheless, it includes a free word processor and spreadsheet, a free web browser and free e-mail software. It has a 7in screen, a rubbery little keyboard and no CD drive. And it all runs on an ageing chip that was designed before its target audience of seven-year-olds were even born.

InGear had an exclusive hands-on look at a preproduction One. The keyboard was slow and spongy and the built-in speakers could be louder but the screen was bright and the software package impressively varied (if rather sluggish) on this prototype.

Preloaded programs ranged from instant messaging software and a photo editor to games and an MP3 player. Moving files to and from the USB wristband was easy enough – and there’s a Bluetooth version with 2GB of memory (£120) that lets you swap files with mobile phones too.
Elonex will be launching the computer at the Education Show at the NEC in Birmingham at the end of this month, and is targeting schools as potential buyers.

The Elonex One isn’t the only low-cost educational laptop out there, however. Asus launched an open-source laptop in the run-up to Christmas last year. The Eee PC (about £200) has proved popular with adults as well as children, with its first shipment selling out nationwide within hours of its November release.

The One Laptop per Child initiative, which began in America, hopes to offer a “Give one, get one” event this year in Britain, where consumers can buy two computers – one for themselves and one for a child abroad – for about £200.

But open-source software has its problems. If no one owns it, there’s no one to complain to when things go wrong – and the One has no antivirus or firewall software built in. The old-fashioned feel of the One’s programs could also flummox modern cyber-kids used to the slick menus, wizards and plug-and-play simplicity of Windows.

Of course, in the context of laptops costing more than £1,000 – and even copies of Microsoft Office software retailing at as much as £120 – paying £99 for a fully functional, internet-ready laptop packed with software isn’t a huge risk to take.

And it’s this magic price that is the One’s biggest asset. The more that parents choose to buy Ones, the more music and games their kids will share, and the more sought after it will become. A laptop as the coolest thing in the playground? Stranger things have happened.

Article Source: The Sunday Times.

Monday 26 May 2008

Mobile phones - the future

Whilst educationalists discuss the value of and the issues associated with young people using mobile phones to learn, a recent conference in America has agreed that mobile technology is the next stage in the development of the internet.

"The breadth of the new ideas floating around and the different ways that people are thinking about information and using the web further away from browsing into more personalised information is exciting," said Ms Baker, speaking to the BBC News website at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.

She is convinced that mobile phones will be one of the forces that will help people make better use of information pertinent to them

"Information that matters to me is what the future is about," she said.

Read more about what the future offers in mobile technology at BBC News Technology.

Staying safe and taking risks

Jonathon Zittrain, author of "The future of the Internet - and how to stop it", has recently suggested that we need two types of digital devices. The "green" device is a locked down computer that has tight security with restricted and protected access to the internet. The "red" device is totally open with unlimited capability to download but no security settings. You take the risk that you may download a virus and can completely wipe the hard drive to restore your settings. Both red and green could be on the same computer.
Do you think that this is a good idea to give users both the protection and yet the freedom that they need? Read more in Bill Thompson's article and see what you think.
BBC News Technology