On Fri, 2006-04-21 at 10:14 +0100, Shane M. Coughlan wrote:
Alex Hudson wrote:
Isn't this just the same idea Bill Gates had a few months ago?
http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/30/technology/microsoft_cellphones/index.htm
Wow! I don't remember seeing that :) Thanks Alex. I guess I must have encountered it somewhere?
Well, I think it's been thought of a couple of times previously to be honest - I remember seeing something a while ago about plugging mobiles into TVs for the purpose of running video games (might have been stuff about Nokia ngage, I can't recall).
I always thought the phone would be a bad way of doing this.
I would think in most communities, especially in large continents like Africa, people would generally receive TV over a satellite link. Satellite set-top boxes already have the TV output hardware, they sometimes run Free operating systems, have modems and serial ports, and could easily be adapted to allow a keyboard and/or mouse to be plugged in (in fact, Sky systems have come with keyboards in the past). Because they're bigger and don't have the same mobile size constraints, they could also be made cheaper, and the cost of providing general purpose computing facility would likely be most a software one, compared to the extra hardware required in a mobile phone.
Savvy satellite operators could include satellite broadband systems, which would mean that they no longer have to access the internet over some scummy 28k8 system or something, but can get a system with some real download bandwidth.
Granted it's not as portable as a mobile, but a mobile which requires a TV and keyboard to work as a computer isn't really a portable computer unlike the OLPC. Plus, they're still going to need both satellite TV and mobile phones.
I'm not totally sold on the TV as an output device. Contrary to the figures you quoted, the maximum horizontal resolution for text is somewhere in the region of 400/500 pixels, sometimes less (many older TVs start losing focus, which isn't noticeable on most TV programmes, but very noticeable on computer displays). Plus, the 576 vertical display isn't really either - it's 288 lines per scan, then interlaced. Reading text on an interlaced screen can be horrendous. So, you're talking somewhere nearer QVGA than VGA in my opinion, and mobile phones are already at that resolution (I hear there's a VGA one coming out soon too).
I also thought that the OLPC project would be better served trying to make a more up-to-date version of the Psion Series 3 or something - those things lasted for weeks on two AA batteries, and you could get some really good software for them. I'm sure I bought mine for something less than £200, and they were always pretty niche machines.
Cheers,
Alex.