Pedal-Powered Laptops Tested in Afghanistan
Pedaled-powered laptops for school children in Afghanistan.
We've always been a fan of the OLPC initiative. It's hard not to like an organisation that works so hard to help educate children in developing countries but what we like most are the innovative solutions the OLPC team comes up with when faced with problems.
This week OLP Afghanistan, which has been running for about a year, announced a few technical developments, one being a prototype for a pedal-powered version of XO laptop. Previously, machines deployed in areas where power is an issue have been charged via a hand-crank. However, OLPC Afghanistan has taken the Freeplay hand crank and connected it to the feet, which can more easily provide power. OLPC says doing so should make it much easier to deploy the laptop to countryside / rural areas.
Check out the video below.
For more on what OLPC Afghanistan is up to, check out the rest of the blog post by clicking here.
- Business,
- OLPC ,
- Afghanistan ,
- pedal ,
- Latpop
- Windows 7 Could Spur Mac Sales Instead
- Another Peek at Dell's Sexy Adamo XPS
- Warcraft Movie Adapted By Private Ryan Writer
- Apple Working on Fix for Snow Leopard Data Loss
- T-Mobile Letting Sidekick Users Break Contracts
- AT&T to Sell Nokia Netbook for $299 With Contract
- Cisco Announces $2.9bn Acquisition of Starent
- T-Mobile: We Might Get Sidekick Data Back
- AMD Radeon HD 5770 Hits Streets Early
- Microsoft Hires Family Guy to Sell Windows 7
- Acer Reveals Windows 7 Multitouch Notebook
- Acer Shows 11.6" Aspire Timeline CULV for Win 7
- WoW Players Need to Convert to Battle.net Soon
- Wi-Fi Direct Coming, Could Wipe Out Bluetooth
- Acer Reveals First 3D Laptop
- Of Course: Lawsuits Filed Over Sidekick Fiasco
- MSFT: We've Got Most of the Sidekick Data Back
- Patriot Memory Brings Box Office To Your HDTV
"We've always been a been of the OLPC initiative"
I assume you meant "Been a fan"
Anyhoo.
Good idea. I can also see that as a helpful tool for overweight kids in industrialized nations.
Ha. This belongs in America, not Afghanistan. Gotta get this fat country in shape.
i think this might cure internet addiction, for kids who are obese, if we were to go with the stereotype of how internet addicts are obese.
These are awesome. We definitely need them here too. Lower your body-mass index and your carbon footprint! Ha ha.
I've actually thought of getting one of those pedal powered exercise bikes for doing long sessions of desktop work... can this work to store a charge as well? It would be cool if kids could plug it into their bicycle and as they pedal to school or wherever, it would charge the battery
Soon it will be Pedal-Powered Mobile phones.
It would be better (damn posted before me), if this was used to power huge battery that would store the power till its needed, such as when areas such as afghanistan, where having power 24/7 is a known problem, can just easily connect their electric devices to this battery, during a power outage.
Ofc the alternative is a generator.
Nice idea.
I don't think you'll have to pedal too much, The XOs don't have significant power consumption.
These are awesome. We definitely need them here too. Lower your body-mass index and your carbon footprint! Ha ha.
+1. Haha..I could imagine this tech being implemented on today's high end notebooks. Buy a Core i 920XM with Sli GTX 280M + 640 GB x 2 in RAID 0, and a huge 12 cell battery, excellent for two hours of juice and a pedal system for recharging.
In less than a week, no magic fat-to-thin-in-less-than-a-week pill or some strange utopian natural herb is going to match the exercise you'll be doing on this aerobic desktop replacement.
need to get a pedal powered charger for my netbook! Just the other weekend there was a power outage for several hours and me and my friend were resorting to playing mario kart on it, I didnt have the battery fully charged when the power went out, if i had this it wouldnt have mattered!
"Ha. This belongs in America, not Afghanistan. Gotta get this fat country in shape."
Australia is now ranked above the U.S. in obesity.
"Ha. This belongs in America, not Afghanistan. Gotta get this fat country in shape."Australia is now ranked above the U.S. in obesity.
In a couple of years we'll have American's become the most muscular people in the world, when it comes to legs at least
Finally, sitting in front of your computer whole day will be good for your health!
It's great to have a laptop in the country side, but what are you going to do with it, when it has no internet connection?
Those Afghan kids are skinny enough they dont need to be skinnier
I wonder how fast you would need to peddle in order to play World of Warcraft on a decent rig. Would help a lot with obesity in the states.
Great, that's what we want, healthy terrorists with strong legs for when they run towards us to blow us up to smithereens. I can't wait to see the Taliban's training video...