OLPC Presentation

Mark J. Foster gave a longish presentation about the OLPC ($100.00 laptop) project which you can watch here. It's one of the best explanations I've seen yet about the project and goes into some details of the hardware. I've mentioned before that this project can make sense solely as an e-book reader and Foster says that (vindicating my guess). He mentions that most countries spend more than $100.00 over five years in books for children, if they buy the laptop and download the books they would not only save money, but have something that does more than what paper books can do.
Other things that were new to me is that the laptop will have a light to see the keyboard. I already knew about the web cam but he gave a nice scenario about the first time you turn on the device. When you first turn it on, through diagrams and audio it help you take a picture of your face and creates an avatar. As others turn on their laptops and go through the process you should start seeing their faces appear on your computer screen as nearby friends.
Another bit I didn't know about was that the laptop would forward Wifi even when turned off (as long as it has power). A final bit that was interesting is that the laptop can hibernate itself in less than 100 ms and keep the screen on showing the last item. If you do something then it un-hibernates (in less than 100ms) and you won't even notice that it went asleep.

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