OLPC aka XO Laptop aka $100 laptop

[rmrichesjr]

Bringing to mind how my EE and physics professors of former decades would correct the above...

The correct way to say that is "it draws only a couple of watts", period. Or, to be extra wordy, you could say "it draws only a couple of watt-hours per hour". The Watt is a unit of power. The Watt-hour is a unit of energy. Power is energy divided by time. Energy is power multiplied by time.

Though I believe the recharging mechanism generates AC power.
Though the storage medium is DC, true.

We surely go off on tangents easily, don't we. (no trigonometry pun intended)

The point in my posting above was the difference between energy and power.

The imaginary component, the 'j' term, is only relevant if you're working with power factor issues. The cosine of theta factor is the difference between Watts and Volt-Amps. In a discussion of Watts vs. Watt-hours, it is irrelevant.

[thedqs]

Point taken.
Though you mentioned EE. Whenever their is the mention of EE you must always have a j in there. Even if you say e^(pi*j)+1=0.

Just a personal observation.

But going back to the original point of the thread.
Another idea would be that these laptops would be a cheaper laptop to give in business travels since you only need limited software.

[russellhltn]

Though I believe the recharging mechanism generates AC power.
Though the storage medium is DC, true.

I thought we were talking about the power supplied to the unit (DC), not what it uses internally. If it only draws 2W, that's about 40 hours on a small 7Ah battery.

[cannona-p40]

There's a nice video on the XO here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBoghPvyhts

[WelchTC]

There's a nice video on the XO here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBoghPvyhts

Cool video. Having watched this project for quite some time, originally I was sceptical. I'm starting to be a believer in it. The key will be if those who the laptop was truly designed for can use it to better their education and gain access to more information. If internet connectivity continues to be a problem in certain regions of the world, it will limit the effectiveness of this product.

Tom

[thedqs]

What is cool though is that if one person in your area has internet connection then everyone can get connected and that can go on for a lot of jumps so it could bring internet connectivity to an entire region.

I especially liked the durability of the laptop.