The $100 laptops that are rolling out of MIT are powered by crank or foot pedal. Now there’s a project that will wifi network these laptops using solar power. This is the brainchild of some ex-Sun Microsystems engineers and MIT.This technology will make the internet readily available in remote areas using off the shelf components. Each node costs approximately 300 bucks, will service a village, and run for around a month on low sunlight.

Gee, if they hooked up with the Wifi Dirigible project they could extend that network MUCH further! FYI, the wifi balloon was developed primarily to restore broadband into areas affected by natural disaster. Considering how much the internet connections helped in restoring the New Orleans area and reconnecting displaced people, this is a great idea.

To keep green areas green and keep indigenous people from deforesting areas for cooking fuel, solarcooking.org strives to make solar cooking technology available to areas, especially in Africa and South America, that are being heavily deforested. Personally, I wouldn’t mind using solar power for cooking instead of fossil fuel . . .

Technorati Tags: Alternative Energy, MIT, 0 Laptops, Solar Wifi, Wifi Balloon, Solar Oven, Solar Cooking, Deforestation

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 5th, 2006 at 9:06 am and is filed under Sustainability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.