We're designing a low-power, low-cost handheld computer aimed the developing world, particularly Africa.
It's about the size of a Blackberry with a full QWERTY keyboard, runs Linux on a $1 CPU, has wireless range of 1km, and forms a mesh network automatically. Put 10 of these in Darfur and they can all communicate with each other immediately. Connect one to the Internet (via a GPRS mobile phone) and they can all share that Internet connection.
Email is the killer app of the Internet in Africa and right now people travel long distances and pay $1/hour to sit at a satellite-connected, power-hungry PC just to use Yahoo! email. With our handheld they can write a long email locally and pay a few cents to send it through the mobile phone network.
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