Laptop: $100. Power: free as sunlight.

Sometimes living in Cambridge makes it easy to come up with material.

At lunchtime today I saw someone sitting with an XO Laptop from the OPLC project.  I know that this project has issues, but I like the idea in general, and especially its use of open-source software.

I guess I’ll consider the conversation I had with this person as off-the-record, but I will mention that I didn’t bring up the “nail in [OLPC's] coffin” that I had read earlier this morning.

Anyways, the OPLC power source received some attention when its crank was abandoned in favor of a yo-yo-like flywheel.  But the cool thing about the laptop I spied today: it’s solar powered. People have done this before with improvised connections to solar cells, but I think this is a photo of the GP Solar-powered “Multi-channel battery charger” designed for the XO and described here.

OLPC XO laptop with GP Solar-powered Multi-channel battery charger.

EDIT: For a nice post detailing how an OLPC computer — or really any small, simple netbook — could really be used in the classroom, visit this page.