Nicholas Negroponte’s OLPC project is taking up speed with selected manufacturer Quanta Computer now having started the test production of the low-cost laptop intended for students and children in developing countries. Initial test run outputs should be available next month. Quanta has earlier selected its new plant in Changshu, China to produce the computer and benefit from up to 20% lower labor costs at that site.

The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is a non-profit organization set up to oversee the project and construction of the USD100 laptop. Both the project and the organization were announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2005.

OLPC is funded by a number of sponsor organizations including AMD, Brightstar Corporation, eBay, Google, Marvell, News Corporation, SES Global, Nortel Networks, and Red Hat. Each of these companies has donated two million dollars.

After India in September announced that it is going to develop his own low cost computer, the project got a boost with Libya placing an order for 1.2 million laptops.

Quanta Computer’s president Michael Wang has set a shipment goal of 10 million units for the USD100 notebook project over a period of 12 months starting from the first quarter of 2007.

A video explaining the OLPC is on YouTube (click on the image below to open).

A web site has been created where a pledge can be put down to purchase one of the laptops at USD 300. They are trying to get 100,000 people to sign-up by October 31, 2006 (so far unfortunately only about 3650 people signed up)

More information on the OLPC / 2B1 project:
OLPC wiki
One Laptop per Child News
Wikipedia on OLPC

Today Bittorrent announced that its popular file sharing software will be embedded into network routers and Internet devices.

BitTorrent enabled network devices will allow users to connect to the Internet, schedule and download files without the need to use a PC.

ASUS, Planex and QNAP are the first to announce plans to embed BitTorrent’s download manager and client into their products. Co-operations with other consumer electronics manufacturers are planned for the digital home products and entertainment network markets.

Bittorrent is currently best known for its open-source file-sharing protocol that simplifies and speeds up transferring large files over the Internet.

Yesterday official SUNA news agency reported that the Sudanese foreign ministry has given Jan Pronk, special representative of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in Sudan 72hours to leave the country.

Last week Professor Pronk wrote in his personal blog that the Sudanese army had lost two major battles in Darfur to rebel groups, one in Umm Sidir last month and the other in Karakaya earlier this month, and has suffered heavy casualties. Following this the Sudanese army demanded an apology from Professor Pronk and accused him of psychological warfare.

When we were checking Jan Pronk personal blog earlier today none of the criticized text could be found on the web site any more. While there might be other reasons the Sudanese government wanted him to leave the country, he is definitely the first person ever being declared persona-non-grata for blogging.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has recalled Professor Pronk for consultations and he will be leaving Sudan tomorrow. Professor Plonk was the UN Special envoy in Sudan since 2004.

More than 200,000 people have been killed and 7 million displaced in three years of fighting in Darfur.

During the 1970s NASA Ames has conducted a series of space colony summer studies. Colonies housing for about 10,000 people were designed and a number of really amazing artistic renderings of the concepts created.

The Library with the full size images is accessible here

Thumbnails of some of the images are shown below.

images courtesy NASA Ames Research Center

In fashion and brand conscious Tokyo it can be one of the greatest sins to step out of a shop with the wrong bag - ideally you are carrying one with a major European brand name printed on.

Now help for those is literally - at hand.

A department store in Tokyo has put up machines selling paper bags (pictured right) that do not immediately give away if they are new or already used for a while.

We hope designs of the bags are changed frequently so that it does not become to obvious for passers by and the effect would be lost…

via Tokyo Times

When you recently looked out a subway train window in a tunnel and you’ve seen a runner or a blond girl taking over the train you were watching a new type of advertising displayed with MotionPoster’s new advertising system.

It works by installing 192 backlit poster images in the tunnel and turning them on with a sensor system that checks the speed of the passing by train so that each poster is lit exactly when a train window is besides it.


To create the impression of a movie an effect similar to that of a flip-book is used and the system is able to adapt the display sequence if the train accelerates or slows down. Basically it works like a movie only that the audience is moved and not the film.

The system is currently getting installed in various countries around the globe and a series of top brands have already started to use it. In Germany it costs about USD 35,000 to show ads for 4 weeks.

Don’t miss out on the videos showing how it works:
(1) A longer video showing the system and some advertising campaigns is on the Aap web site
(2) A series of 13 short clips showing the different campaigns is on the Motionposter web site.

More information can be found on the MotionPoster and the Aap! web sites

What not so long ago was the size of a standard portable hard disk you can now put into your pocket with Transcend’s new high capacity USB 2.0 flash drive (JetFlash 2A).

Transcend says that the device has read/write speeds up to 25/20 MB per second. It comes bundled with software applications (Auto Login, Data Backup, E-mail, SecureZip, PC-Lock, Favorites)

Features include:

• Available in 1, 2, 4, 8 or 16GB memory sizes
• Fully compatible with Hi-Speed USB 2.0
• PC-Lock Function: Makes JetFlash 2A a key to lock your computer
• SecureZip Function: Compress and/or Password protect saved files using AES Encryption
• E-Mail Function: Use your JetFlash 2A to Securely Send, Receive and Save e-mails
• AutoLogin Function: Automatically login to websites where you have a password
• Favorites Function: Store all your favorite website addresses on the JetFlash 2A
• DataBackup Function: Backup, Restore and Synchronize your Data
• Plug and Play installation
• Lifetime Warranty

For those who are looking for mobile phones with style and believe that Bling-Bling is better left to others we would suggest the Bang & Olufsen Serene phone together with the Louis Vuitton case and headset cover.

Manufactured together with Samsung, the Bang & Olufsen Serene phone is out for quite a while. It might not feature the latest top resolution camera or other add-ons but as a tri-band GSM phone supporting 900/1800/1900 MHZ frequencies and also GPRS you can use it almost anywhere on this planet.

But with its truly unique design it definitely stands out. From the cooperation of Bang & Olufsen with Luis Vuitton comes the specially made set of “apparels” for the phone and accessories.

More information on the phone can be found on the Bang & Olufsen website.

You can locate your nearest Louis Vuitton store at the Louis Vuitton website.

If you thought that the boy scouts motto “Be prepared” means loyalty, helpfulness, and being trustworthy you can add another one.

More then 50,000 boy scouts in the Los Angeles area now can also earn merits through partnering MPAA organization with their “Respect Copyrights” badge.

Activities for earning the badge include identifying 3 ways copyrighted material may be stolen or visiting a movie studio to see how many people would be harmed by copyright piracy. The program further includes instructions by the MPAA on copyright law. And there is the presentation…

No comments, read the full story at ars technica

Did you ever wanted to know who is just calling you on your mobile phone? With Nokia’s new HS-13W headset you can not only see the number it shows an image with it.

It’s a Bluetooth headset with an ear plug, but the interesting part is the 128 x 128-pixel 4,096-color display you can hang around your neck. It does not require to attach any wires to your phone and the display shows the entries in your phonebook, or caller ID information, so you can see who’s calling you without fishing for your phone. The device also allows you to interact with your phone with a 5-way joystick and includes a simple text editor for your phonebook. It can store up to 250 contacts plus 500KB of pictures.

You can also show text messages or images on the display as a slide show. I guess thats a feature that provides a lot of open space for many different uses…

Features in details:

• 128 x 128, up to 4,096 colors display
• Up to 5 hours on, up to 150 hours standby operation time
• 500 KB for images, 250 names with 2 numbers each for phone book
• Color display shows phonebook or caller ID information
• Wireless handsfree call handling
• View and share text or images on the 128 x 128-pixel color display - one by one, or a slide show
• Speaker-independent voice dialing accepts commands from multiple people
• Simple text editor for editing phonebook, naming images, or creating display texts

Nokia is offering the HS-13W headset for about USD 300 in the US.

Compatible phones:

via OhGizmo