James Cameron is an engineer testing the mesh networking capabilities of the OLPC XO laptop. He lives in a tiny town in the remote Australian outback called Tooraweenah. There is little noise in the radio spectrum in such a remote place, creating a perfect mirror of the environment where the XO will be deployed (rural third world countries). Cameron reveals how the OLPC XO's mesh networking capabilities work by turning the kids into part of the network infrastructure, including the USD 35 solar powered mesh node designed to be deployed on top of a tree or any high area to widen the network's reach. Testing in the Australian outback, Cameron discovered that the range of the XO could go up to 1.6km 'quite easily' at 1.5m above ground.
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2005-11-16
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2005-07-11
I really enjoyed reading about this: a good example of technology being used to change lives.
The idea of a mesh network to avoid the need for a central server being reachable at all timesis a great one, along with the ingenuous ways people find to get around other limitations, such as the lack of a conventional power source (cow-power, great stuff!)
A big "good on'ya mate" to the Outback techie James Cameron for doing his bit towards making this project a viable endeavour.
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2007-12-17
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SSsshhhh, maybe Intel/Microsoft will hear you and send a sales guy to coerce^H^H^H^H^H^Hexplain to you the benefits of the bigger, heavier, less efficient, slower, less capable offering called the Classmate. Oh, it's got a smaller screen/res too. It's just about inferior in every department. But that's not stopping them disrupting the distribution of the XO.
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2005-07-06
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2005-08-11
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2005-07-24
I've been watching the season one and two episodes of "The Twilight Zone", which are being served up, gratis, over at cbs.com. So when I read the following, well... you can imagine. ;-)
Edited 2008-03-04 20:38 UTC
