Our class is a "guinea pig" for the Future School Programme, in which students will rely more on technology such as laptops, e-portals such as wikispaces or wetpaint sites and the internet to learn. In other words, we are being used to test whether the usage of advanced technology will prove to be successful in our school. Better to be safe than to be sorry, isn't it. So far, not many of us are bringing laptops to school. In a class of 28 students, about 9-10 of us have our own laptops. I guess most of us will have laptops around the Chinese New Year season due to the laptop subsidy programme.
But the thing is, not all laptops are environmentally safe. Several laptops do contain hazardous chemicals such as cadmium, lead and mercury. Just for interest's sake, I will introduce two fundamentally different, interesting and eco-friendly (in their own unique ways) computers on the market.
Macbook Air
Features
-mercury and arsenic free
-highly recyclable
-highly recyclable
-thin and light; portable
-5 hour battery life
-120GB hard drive, a lot of storage space
-not very affordable for the mainstream (1499 USD)
My opinion: Fusing technology, creativity and consideration for the environment is not what one sees everyday. This laptop is great in both technical and design aspects (design is Apple's specialty after all). Unfortunately in a green revolution of laptops the Macbook Air would not be as appealing to the mainstream as compared to cheaper yet almost as efficient laptops due to its higher-end cost.
XO-1 laptop (OLPC)
Features
-energy efficient
-light (about 1.5kg) and small, portable
-durable
-no toxic heavy metals
-very cheap, being less than $200
-energy efficient
-light (about 1.5kg) and small, portable
-durable
-no toxic heavy metals
-very cheap, being less than $200
My opinion: OLPC's cause is more than commendable-they seek to provide poor children with low-cost yet stylish and efficient laptops. The organization is a non-profit one, and it can be seen that they really have the needy children in mind when they designed the notebook-it is child-safe, having rounded edges and being light enough for young children to carry. The laptop also has the programme SUGAR which is targeted at young, growing children.
However, the XO-1 laptop is definitely not as powerful as notebooks such as Macbook Air and mainly appeals to children without considering adult users (designed for children). All the same the XO laptops have quite a lot of potential both in aiding humanity and saving our environment.
It is amazing to see how technology has made such progress in a mere few decades, and thankfully several major international companies do consider the environment while making their products. Green technology is definitely a key to our future success, and introducing it in the form of laptops, devices most people of the younger generation use in this computer-age, would definitely jumpstart a green technology revolution that will reverse our planet's precarious situation. I wonder what green computers of the future will be like?
Hi, this is Samuel,
ReplyDeleteMy take on Ernest's post? Firstly, you can improve the amount of opinion in your post. I mean, your true opinion is only 2 paragraphs long?! However, those two paragraphs are very reflective and swelling with ideas. I would like to dispute your first point, about the Kiddy laptops. If you have had read the news carefully, this laptop was invented as a cheap, mass-produced laptop to bring "cutting-edge" technology to the poor people in rural areas. I am not very sure it will aid humanity as this laptop is definitely one of the lousiest in the whole world. The only thing positive about this laptop is that it brings happiness to those needy children. You also noted that one of the programs in the laptop, SUGAR, is good for young children, yes, but don't you think you would rather splurge on a powerful laptop for your child than this kiddy, kiddy toy?
Next, your next point on taking the first step to save the earth by inventing greener computers is a good insight, but you could have elaborated on some of your ideas like how next-generation green computers would look like.
Happy Blogging:)
Tune in to thenewbogspacebyrevolutionaryfox.blogspot.com
where the emo Crabby rules
2I320
Well, personally, as many people do, I would prefer the first one as a birthday present :D
ReplyDeleteIn terms of my opinion on the two, we must first look at the main purpose of laptops. A laptop, as Wikipedia says (too lazy to find a more reliable source, hey this is only a comment), is a personal computer designed for mobile use and small and light enough to sit on a person's lap while in use. This is further proven by the name "laptop". Laptops are designed for portability, not for its apparent cheapness. The cost of laptops are about the same as for desktops, both with the cost proportionately equivalent to its processing power or memory space. Yes, that super-cheap laptop may be a great advancement, but why not get a desktop? Shouldn't you provide a desktop as a control?
Your post does raise an interesting point of today's society: our technology is starting to extend not just towards our own benefit, but to become more environmentally friendly. This may be due to the demand for environmentally friendly stuff. Anyway, things will always remain the same unless some new technology comes out, I think. Currently all we can do is to squeeze the components closer together. We cannot completely rely on some person's quote that our technology doubles every year. We need to study hard and think hard, to be able to make considerable advancements in technology for the next generation. So I shall end with this: we cannot wait for others, we must do it ourselves.
Mark
PS Was the end thing rather irrelevent? I... don't know.
Ziying here. Just a really short passing comment.
ReplyDeleteCant really see the link between being in the future class and sending laptops to children all over the world but I guess I am in no position to criticise that with my own blog making no sense. :P Secondly, maybe the post will be more interesting if you introduce more laptops, and give a longer description about them, i dont know...
By the way, just on an unrelated note, the links in Class 2I3 Blog list, none of them are working, so just get them fixed will ya? :D
Thanks for the comments!
ReplyDeleteOh well, just to clarify the issue about the cost of green laptops...I mentioned the low cost of the XO laptops as many pieces of green technology are really costly, and since I feel that a worldwide revolution of green technology would be very crucial in helping the environment (which I've mentioned in the last paragraph), the pieces of green technology must be affordable enough for about everyone to use them. Therefore the low cost of the green-er XO laptops is in a way a breakthrough for green technology (but of course it still has a long way to go, as Samuel has pointed out).
In response to Mark's point about desktops, I am not sure of what to reply :P but it's a good point. Anyway just to explain my choice, several reasons why I mentioned laptops is because while doing research I discovered that in recent years laptops have become increasingly popular, and in 2009 laptop sales exceeded desktop computer sales. Also, the types of laptops are definitely more diverse and more interesting to write about than desktop computers...right? :)
To Ziying, actually I am just talking the future school to "introduce" green laptops to the readers...anyway good point, it doesn't seem to be a very good link to laptops for humanitarian efforts. By the way thanks for informing me that the links do not work, if you had not stated it I probably would have never noticed -_-. I will try to get it fixed when I have the time.