In our series on green ethical computers, a good example of a green, ethical computer company is olpc or one laptop per child, A non-profit devoted to providing children everywhere with opportunities to explore, experiment, and communicate by sending laptops which help education and as the name states aims the give one laptop to every child, in the 3rd world, every child has the right to be educated and have the opportunities to be educated
the Laptops OLPC uses The XO Laptop are green in more ways then one, the laptop itself is coloured bright green a in child friend colour, the other way this laptop is green is than is uses less energy then most laptops as it runs on 1w and can be charged using a solar cell and is eco friendly and are very cheap to buy.
These computers are also very easy to use, which is ideal for children, plus this company will even sell you one for your own children to use at £100 or $100 its the cheapest laptop on the market
more video can be found at
http://www.youtube.com/user/OLPCFoundation
more inforation about the project from
http://www.laptop.org/en/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Laptop_per_Child
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC_XO-1
http://www.olpcnews.com/
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Home
specs for laptop from http://www.laptop.org
hardware
"A real world laptop for real world change. The XO laptop.ox laptop hardware spec
Many years and an infinite amount of sweat equity went into the creation of the XO laptop. Designed collaboratively by experts from academia and industry, the XO is the product of the very best thinking about technology and learning. It was designed with the real world in mind, considering everything from extreme environmental conditions such as high heat and humidity, to technological issues such as local language support. As a result, the XO laptop is extremely durable, brilliantly functional, energy-efficient, responsive, and fun."
software
"The XO Laptop will bring children technology as a means to freedom and empowerment. The success of the project in the face of overwhelming global diversity will only be possible by embracing openness and by providing the laptop's users and developers a profound level of freedom.
As the children grow and pursue new ideas, the software and the tools need to be able to grow with them and provide a gateway to other technology.
Benefits
Learning is our main goal. We do not focus on computer literacy, as that is a by-product of the fluency children will gain through use of the laptop for learning. Children—especially young children—need the opportunity to learn far more than Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. Of course, picking up these skills, having grown up with a laptop, will be readily accomplished.
Epistemologists from John Dewey to Paulo Freire to Seymour Papert agree that you learn through doing. This suggests that if you want more learning, you want more doing. Thus OLPC puts an emphasis on software tools for exploring and expressing, rather than instruction. Love is a better master than duty. Using the laptop as the agency for engaging children in constructing knowledge based upon their personal interests and providing them tools for sharing and critiquing these constructions will lead them to become learners and teachers.
As a matter of practicality and given the necessity to enhance performance and reliability while containing costs, XO is not burdened by the bloat of excess code, the “featureitis” that is responsible for much of the clumsiness, unreliability, and expense of many modern laptops."
