The rest of the World ( well ... a bit of it) moves on

Two news items brought to me by my colleague Tricia today following my blog post about laptops in Venezuela.

Firstly one from Italy where an experiment is taking place in one school in Turin to replace all of their books with computers ... for a year. The mini laptops, which run Windows software, weigh less than a kilogram, can be dropped from a height of one-and-a-half metres and are waterproof. Instead of spending the equivalent of $700 (£400) a year on books, the laptops, built by the Italian company Olidata, cost less than $400 (£228).

And secondly news from Ghana that all children between the ages of 5 and 12 in public schools are to be provided with a personal computer. Speaking at the 14th annual Teachers Awards ceremony in Sunyani yesterday, President Kufuor announced that the first batch of 10,000 units of what he described as “Magic Computers for Children” would soon arrive in the country in fulfilment of the government’s promise.

Shift happens ...

PS

Brian Smith has an interesting take on 'one laptop per child'

Venezuela '1to1' ... getting there

Announced at the end of September:

The Venezuelan government has signed an agreement with Portugal that will bring 1million low-cost notebooks, which are based on the Intel Classmate PC design, to the South American country. In July, Portugal signed an agreement with Intel to bring 500,000 Classmate PCs to that country, and now the Portuguese OEM manufacturing those laptops will supply these Intel Atom-based laptops to Venezuela.

So the Venezuelan Government has seen a way to get/keep its young people somewhere near the front as the world goes even flatter. I wonder, with all money being spent on BSF and the Primary Capital Programme whether some such initiative should have been included for all of our children/students.

Perhaps it has been considered and I missed it.

Asus competition? The Elonex ONE

Just when you thought it was safe ... the competition has only just begun.

At the Education Show Elonex showed their Elonex ONE a sub £100 laptop.
I know nothing more of it at the moment except that it could likely rival the RM Asus minBook which ships in at £169.

The new Elonex ONE also has a Linux OS, WIFI and all of the sorts of things we will begin to expect from these new generation machines. It seems that they expect 200,000 of these ready for shipping in any of five different colours. Yours can be pre-ordered on the web site for a mere £10.

This small laptop was also the device reported by Ray Barker, Director of BESA as one of the main stars of the show. You can hear his comments on the Teacher TV programme here.

I wait to hear what other think of this and to see who next will get into the frame.

Any chance of a £75 laptop ... is it a 'dutch auction'?

PS

Quick Tech Spec Comparison

ASUS miniBook
7" TFT screen
Mobile Intel Celeron-M ULV 900MHz processor
512MB Memory or 1GB Memory (Windows version)
2Gb, 4GB or 8GB (Windows version only) Solid-State Hard Drive Integrated IEEE 802.11b/g wireless
Integrated LAN
3 USB ports
Integrated microphone and speakers
Ports for external microphone and speakers or headphones
Lithium-Ion battery
Asus-developed Linux-based operating system or Windows XP Home with Works and Live Services
Integrated webcam (4G and 8GB model only)
Option of wireless 3G dongle
VGA-out port
SD card reader

Elonex ONE

7” High res TFT LCD; 800 X 400
0.95 KLXN Code 8 mobile 300 MHz processor
Linux Memory 128 MB DDR-II SD RAM
Onboard 1Gb Flash Memory
Wi-Fi 802.11b/g
Ethernet ( wired)
USB 2.0 X 2
Built in speakers
3.5 mm audio in/headphones
3 cell battery – 4 hrs
Linux – Linos 2.6.21 OS
Pre-installed software bundle
QWERTY keyboard ( removable)
Mains Power adapter


It seems to me, at first glance, as is usual in these things , that you will get what you pay for ... time and usage will tell.

PPS

Already the comments are coming in re the Elonex ONE read here from Ian Usher of 'Changing the Game'. (Thanks to him for the video at the top of this post)

The Times Online reported a sighting of the ONE back on February 17th (and I missed it !) and this was also picked up on the same day by 'engadget'. Other sightings were on 'jkkmobile' who come up with a Chinese connection.

PPPS

If you want more just run a Google Alert for the Elonex ONE. At 19.00 on Sunday 2 March there were 13 'mentions'.