Hasta La Gadget!

Canadian telecommunications company WeWi will soon be launching a solar-powered notebook called the SOL Laptop. While it’s not the first of its kind, it has at least one impressive feature that makes it one to watch: WeWi claims that the built-in solar panels can charge the laptop in just 2 hours.

I got in touch with WeWi Founder & CEO David Snir to find out more about the SOL Laptop. David said that they were motivated to make their own solar-powered laptop partly because of their projects in Ghana, where weekly outages frequently left them with no access to electricity.

David is still keeping his cards close to his chest with regards to the laptop’s solar panels, but he did say that they’re currently getting about 16.08% efficiency. Pair that with the laptop’s entry level guts – an Intel Atom D2500 1.86GHz dual-core CPU and Intel GMA 3600 integrated graphics – and you get a 2-hour charge time. The laptop’s battery can store enough energy to power the laptop for up to 10 hours, but David said that the laptop can run “directly by sunlight”: as long as its solar panels are exposed to sunlight, you can use the laptop even if the battery is nearly empty. It’s like plugging into the sun.

The SOL Laptop’s solar panels will also be detachable; you’ll be able to work in the shade while the panels soak up the sun. WeWi is also working on an accessory that will let you charge other devices using the laptop’s solar panels.

Like its power-sipping CPU and integrated graphics, the rest of the SOL Laptop will only excite people stuck in 2010. It has a 13.3″ 1366 x 768 LCD screen, a 320GB HDD, 2-4GB DDR3 RAM, a 3MP webcam, 3 USB ports and a card reader. But it does have Ethernet and HDMI ports, as well as support for modern wireless standards: GPS, Wi-Fi 802.11n and Bluetooth 4.0. It even has a cellular modem that supports 3G & LTE.

David also said that the laptop’s case is made of a “special polymer with unique treatment for strength.” Finally, the laptop will come with an unspecified version of Ubuntu installed. I guess by now you can see what all of those bullet points are describing: an affordable netbook that’s at home outdoors.

The SOL Laptop will be released at the end of 2013 in African and Middle Eastern countries, with U.S. and Canada soon to follow. It will have two variants, a $350 (USD) standard model and a $400 Marine model that’s water-resistant.

Assuming that the 2-hour charge time claim holds up in real world usage, what’s most disappointing about the SOL Laptop is that it’s actually a SOL Netbook. But David also said they’re working on other solar-powered devices; perhaps a high-end version of the laptop is in the works as well.

[via SOL & DVICE]

Canonical’s Indiegogo campaign for the Ubuntu Edge smartphone had an auspicious start, but it slowed down after the first few days. The Linux developer may have just rekindled interest, however, by dropping the regular price of the Edge from $775 to $695 for the last two weeks of the crowdfunding drive. Part supplier deals helped reduce the manufacturing costs, Canonical explains. While that’s not the lowest price that we’ve seen during the campaign, there won’t be another discount — if you’re at all interested in the unique Android and Ubuntu hybrid, you’ll want to make a pledge today.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Via: The Next Web

Source: Indiegogo

Laptop battery life is something that we all can’t seem to be happy with. No matter how long the battery is able to last, there are always times when we curse into the wind when we get that dreaded battery warning while on the road. However, a new Ubuntu laptop looks to solve those problems […]

Smartphone companies have it pretty rough — they’ve got to sink millions into research and development every year, all in the hope of making their next shiny touchscreen gewgaw the fastest, slimmest, smartest, prettiest one ever. And every year we eat it all up, and take what we’re given.

But Canonical, the folks behind the incredibly popular Ubuntu Linux distro, isn’t your average phone smartphone company. It doesn’t have a huge production budget like Samsung or Apple, so it decided to crowdfund the creation of its first phone. Turns out that’s not the only thing they’re doing differently — Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth is currently fielding questions on Reddit, and he’s expressed interest in having backers of this current project getting some sort of say over what goes in future models.

And thus, Mark may have just come up with the coolest backer perk ever. Quoth Shuttleworth:

“This first version of the Edge is to prove the concept of crowdsourcing ideas for innovation, backed by crowdfunding. If it gets greenlighted, then I think we’ll have an annual process by which the previous generation backers get to vote on the spec for the next generation of Edge.”

In case you haven’t been following the story, the Edge is an awfully handsome concept for a phone that will run Ubuntu and Android and sport a sapphire glass-covered 4.5-inch 1280×720 display, along with the “fastest available” multi-core mobile processor, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The internet being what it is, Redditors couldn’t help but throw out bits of hardware for Shuttleworth and the Edge team to consider for the current model anyway. IR blaster? A “cool idea,” he says. Wireless charging? Probably not going to happen.

Shuttleworth was pretty forthcoming when it came to lingering questions about the Edge’s design and proposed rollout. As it happens, the team is still having trouble figuring out what sort of speaker system to throw into the thing (my two cents: the closer to HTC’s Boomsound setup the better), but it Canonical has asked potential carrier partners to agree to take note of a set of conditions that should minimize bloatware if the Edge is ever picked up and sold with long-term contracts.

Now this all hinges on the notion that Canonical was right in thinking that enough people would believe in a company that has never made a smartphone before to basically pre-order one for (at least) $675. In a way, this is a perfect move — if the project hits critical mass, everyone gets a phone. If it doesn’t, well, no harm no foul. The crowdfunding movement has given a software company a shot at really making a mark in an industry dominated by giants, some of which are already feeling the pinch because their pricey flagship devices perhaps aren’t selling in the astronomical numbers they were hoping for.

And so far, things appear to be going rather well. Canonical’s Indiegogo campaign only went live three days ago and Ubuntu fans have already chipped in just a hair under $6 million. Of course, there’s no guarantee that sort of traction will continue for any serious length of time — the company has already had to add some less expensive device pricing tiers to keep the campaign from flaming out too soon, and it’s still got a ways to go before it hits the $32 million goal.

(Oh, and in case you were wondering, Shuttleworth seems to be tackling nearly every question being thrown at him — no Rampart shenanigans here.)

You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

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