Fantsuam Foundation from Nigeria have developed a prototype of a computer which runs on 8.5 watts of power as compared to an average computer which consumes 300 watts. Named as the Solo Computer, it does not possess any spinning disks which is the main reason for dust clogging.
The Solo or ‘so low’ computer features an ARM processor, flash drive (up to 1GB) instead of HDD, 14.1″ TFT LCD, up to 1GB RAM, keyboard, mouse and a free software. The only thing which is not low is its price which costs US$1200. Now considering a gadget meant for third world countries its helluva expensive.
Project Page [Thanks, James for the link]
Does anyone know what kind of solar panel that is and who makes it?
Thanks!!!
This is obviously a hoax. Not even a nicely conceived hoax.
http://www.fantsuam.org/
Our basic objective is to empower women in rural areas of the country to work their ways out of poverty, promoting the use of ICT in support of traditional Governance in rural development, education, rural-urban-rural and rural-rural connectivity, eCommerce, IT transfer for the manufacture of tropical solar-powered computers in our rural areas, accessibility
Nice to see Jamie doing the simple check of searching for the Fantsuam Foundation on the net ?
goggle for “Solo Computer” +fantsuam = 229 hits, the first page of hits seems to confirm the nigerians have done a great job for people with no access to mains electricity
Nope, not a hoax.
Take a look, here.
They started working on these about 3 years ago!
Where’s the source link?
Its’ great improvement to enfranchise rual peoples. Is it really tough enough to withstand 12 screaming children & cost of phone service must be outrageous. Colour model would be final solution & maybe TV tuner & sound card to make it more affordable useage in home enviorment
this is another nigerian scam just by looking at the price.
price needs to be more like $120 dollars.
Although not a joke it is seemingly a very bad design and far too expensive, these guys need to get a 1st world education.
How useful will this thing really be and considering it won’t have internet access because it’s for people who don’t even have electricity, what a joke.
What will they really be able to do with it, and what operating system will it run and who’s gonna make and maintain the software for them ?
Or is software another area where this company/organization gets to rip off whoever pays for this junkbox ?
If they run Linux, Unix, Windows, or Mac there’s unbelievable amounts of freeware and or shareware already in existence.
Btw, why don’t these people figure out that you can buy your own brand new laptop (take your pick a Windows/Linux or Mac OS X/Unix/Linux laptop for less than they are charging for that piece of crap, and it’s not even a true portable.) They call it a ‘transportable’, well no shit.
Any computer is transportable.
Hell, even supercomputers are transportable.
Also, they mention running off of a solar cell and car battery.
Gee you mean like how you can charge/use your laptop off a car battery ?
Also any solar cell can charge your laptop’s battery, duh.
Dude, buy a Dell laptop or if you have the money to spend on the best a macbook [preferable a macbook pro] and get 1 trillion times the computer plus software and even save money.
Dell’s laptops brand new start at $499.00
Macbooks from Apple start at $$1099 which can run Windows, Mac OS X/Unix and or Linux !
Both of which are truly portables and not ‘transportable’ like this junk box for $1200.00
Apple
Dell
The reason this thing is for 3rd world people is because they’re the only ones stupid enough to use it and their governments/corporations are the only ones stupid enough to pay for such a thing; as they don’t know what the rest of the world uses and offers. (Only partially kidding here, who in their right mind would spend $1200.00 U.S. on such junk ? Only the feeble minded and unknowing.)
Since it’s powered by solar cell does this mean they can’t use the computer at night or in bad weather ?
What happens when they’ve had rain for a few days and there isn’t enough power from the solar cell to properly charge the battery ?
Another joke.
Instead of these knuckle heads trying to make a better ‘computer’ for 3rd world people which obviously they can’t do and they also can’t provide at a lower or even decent cost, they perhaps should focus on coming up with new economical ways of powering existing computers for 3rd world people.
Seriously, if you want cheap and good, buy a Dell and just figure out how to power it.
Make a bunch of exercise equipment that will generate power to charge batteries which power the computers.
All of these 3rd world countries have tons of homeless/jobless kids that do nothing all day, this could even be a healthy job for them.
Treadmills, trampolines, weights, etc. all to charge batteries.
Simple, smart, easy and VERY ECONOMICAL also beneficial to those exercising.
They could also use the battery power to power other electric devices like :
Refrigerators, fans (to keep from dying of heat – yes these places are hot as hell often times.), charge cell phones for human workers, jump start vehicles when their batteries die.
The use is almost limitless and so is the free power source given enough people; and the fewer the people the less electrical needs/use.
They could even use the equipment and produce the electricity at night when it’s not hot and then use the electricity during the day to better their lives.
Why don’t governments or other organizations already do this ?
Who knows, I suppose they don’t really care about these 3rd world people.
A total joke and borderline fraud in my opinion.
Mental note:
Never let people from a a 3rd world design something for the 1st world.
Interesting. You can get an 8W solar panel for around $100, seems like this may be one of the more expensive components of the product.
I hate to have to state the obvious but the presence of a website and a photo of some bits and pieces shoved together on a tripod with a car battery does not lend legitimacy.
Look at the website. Look at the photo’s in particular. Then note that there is just one persons email address as the contact section. As a registered charity, with a management board, international charity registrations etc., why no other contact information?
Has anyone seen a working demo? I very much doubt it.
Drop over to 419eater.com and have a look around. They’ll educate you about exactly what to watch for when looking at a website you suspect may be fraudulent etc. You’ll also learn that no photo coming from a Nigerian rural setting should be trusted….Simple facts folks.
Interesting set of replies.
Instead of hearing positive feedback to a revolutionary, albeit expensive solution I had to read scam speculations (they are nigerians) comments on ‘so called’ third world technological development (you’ll be telling me europe and the US have the monopoly on innovation next), even stupid comments about there not being enough sun (it’s Africa, sun is not a problem) and buying a dell and a treadmill and putting some kids on it!
It saddens me that even in the arena of technological innovation racist stereotypes and views will always present themselves. Apparently if you don’t live in the US or europe you cannot possibly innovate. Better off buying the finished rip off product from dell, getting a pile of innefficient, nicely packaged 2nd class performance systems for your money. How about solutions for the problem instead of knocking a truely innovative idea cos you don’t like the people who made it.
I have yet to see Dell, Apple or any of the other corporate dinosaurs create innovative solutions to level the playing field for so called third world nations in IT and internet technologies.
It is not in their interests as they get the raw materials for the components at extortionately cheap prices due to the imbalance of trade in the world, thanks to the said european and US govts.
Innovative IT solutions developed and distributed altruistically will have a knock on effect of rebalancing the distribution of wealth and maybe….God forbid allow countries to develop.
Just a thought or two.
True the machine the nigerians have created/invented or whatever is useless it’s more like a misguided high school project, you can even get a cheap laptop, solar panel, charger,batteries and an inverter for just over $1200,at least the laptop will come with software and the batteries can also provide lights at night (good for doing homework).
As for those who say ; Never let people from a a 3rd world design something for the 1st world, I think it would be helpful if you had actually spent some time in a third world before you make such statements american universities conduct interviews in a lot of these poor countries own universities and pick the best students and take them away (check your top unis lists of people doing all the fancy research and find out where they have come from) maybe I could share with you a popular chinese joke; China’s population is 1.2 to 1.6 billion compared to america your population is just a rounding error.Your arrogance only fuels your downfall in 10 years time the chinese will rule the world, and when they do I hope they will be just as arrogant maybe then you will understand.
I much prefer Andre’s considered approach to some of the former comments.
For a fuller, more accurate and generally better explanation of this development, please take the trouble to read the definitive statement from the Fantsuam Foundation. It is reproduced here
Mark and others are running this computer down, but first understand how this computer will probably be used. I expect this computer to be set up in a fixed location, with the screen indoors and the solar panel outdoors.( I can’t imagine an 8 Watt screen will do so well in bright daylight.) The computer will be used mostly for data entry, typing, or as a kiosk. I don’t expect the applications needed to require lots of computing power. Remember, computers were already useful back in the days of the IBM 8088. In some rural environments, dust, moisture and insects would ruin a laptop or desktop computer. This is designed to run all day, store data on a flash drive (I presume). It is designed for specific functions, not as a general computer. In some circumstances this design will be preferable to a laptop (which costs about the same) And, where there is no power, this is definitely preferable to a desktop. If it is a useful idea, someone else will copy the design and make it cheaper.
Hoax..
How much pollution did they contribute to make this hoax? (my only Q)
This is not a fraud. It is a UK-Nigerian collaboration. In UK it is ExPLAN Ltd, in Nigeria it is Fantsuam Foundation. Both are well respected by people who know them. I know because I made the introductions that led to this collaboration. The Solo is designed to be robust and suited to local needs – climate, dust, infrastructure, social structure, small is beautiful principles of local economic growth, small scale local assemmbly for job creation and technology transfer, knock on benefits of that technolgy transfer. It has wide implications. Its design is influenced by local knowledge that many outsiders would not start to understand – let alone consider in the design process.
I also helped to arrange early field trials of the Solo in Oyo State. We traveled in areas with no phones, a minimal postal service and very little in the way of electric power supplies. We carried two prototypes of the “transportable” computers and their small solar panels. In order to carry them I only remember one small metal suitcase. We also had a satellite phone so that we could email, but the phone was only necessary with the early prototypes, the production models will have the necessary capability inbuilt. I recall a local doctor travelling to meet us so that he could send an email locally, thus saving himself a long journey to the state capital. Imagine if places like his clinic could have a Solo of their own.
Some months after visiting with the Solo I was back in the same area but I only had an ordinary laptop. Local people whose only previous experience of computers was the Solo were disappointed to see the comparative limitations of my laptop. I have traveled various times since in rural Nigeria, using a mixture of my laptop and rare access to cyber cafes… and wishing that I had the greater convenience of the Solo that we enjoyed during the field trials.
Considering the amount of tax taken for electronic devices 1200$ is a fair price. One has written there are 450$ of Dell laptops. well. that laptop costs 900$ in Turkey.
What is so great tech about this ??? Solar panels ??? ARM CPU ???
If all this was put on a PCB (printed circuit board), then it may be something ….
Hmm.. I wonder what the processing power of the Solo is.
Anyway for $1200, you essentially get a low performing Linux running PC, with a LCD monitor, and solar panel + battery pack + keyboard and mouse.
For ~$400 to $500 you can get a PocketPC with integrated keyboard and no need for a mouse. Hell, if you really wanted to, there are even linux builds for certain pocketpc hardware. And it’s not out of the question to link one up to a monitor with a little work. In fact, the monitor would be the main power draw, if you just used the LCD screen on the pocketpc the power requirements would be no where near 8Watts.
Another charity spends lots of money buying over priced goods to justify their budget for the next year. *Sigh*
First thing I would look at would be does it have sufficient dust filters….
How many people here think that a palmtop with the same battery/solarcell arrangement would do about the same thing for half the cost (isnt the ARM processor what they have in many palmtops ???)
As to the person thinking that China will rule the world in 10 years, they will collapse long before any such achievement (further that 10 years by far in any case) because of resource shortages and costs (like oil being 10X as expensive as the same relative cost during the expansion period for the US) and their population continuing to expand.
It seems that “Paul” has swallowed the whole corporate America spiel, and is spouting off figures and products in a way that I hear all too often.
He wants to know which OS it will use? Does it matter so much? If the system does what it is supposed to do in an acceptable way, who gives a stuff if Redmond or Cupertino get their royalties? Actually, the ARM processor was designed to run, amongst other things, using an operating system known as RISC OS. You can still get this operating system and, as far as stand alone use goes, it does everything that your vaunted Merkan OS’s can in far less bloat. That doesn’t mean that it would be best for this application, but this project shouldn’t be tied to a big conglomerate just because you feel comfortable with it. I’d even include Linux in such a statement.
“Paul” does make one good point though. The price. Although I’ve never seen a Dell supplied with its own solar panel to date, I do know that a certain UK company has a similar system in the works, and that doesn’t cost anything like this much. I’d be interested to hear the cost breakdown of this system.
Sham? No. A lot of people are going to point at the price and suggest cheaper solutions but the problem is that the pc has to be able to run off solar only 24/7 in theory. It can not use a lot of watts, which rules out heat inducing high performance pc parts and CRT monitors. So quit suggesting premade pc parts people. This pc was meant to be used at areas of the world with NO running power. You can’t just ‘plug the charger into a wall’ if there is no socket in your home to plug it into! Try running your PC without plugging it into an outlet or battery and see how far you will get.
what moron would install a CRT?
It does seem a lot of the comments posted here were done without the authors really considering the implications of designing a PC to be used in a truly remote location.
Valid points have been made, as it is quite possible to source the individual components (solar panel, battery, LCD etc) at much lower cost but purchasing these components and sitting them on a bench does not make a fit for purpose product. I don’t think it is unreasonable that a product of this type that is designed to be dumped in the back of a Toyota Landcruiser bumped about for hours on end and still work afterward would cost this much.
Also, to compare a product like this to say a Dell laptop on price is ridiculous. Dell laptops are produced in their millions, need I say more?