Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 4th Mar 2008 09:55 UTC, submitted by johnno
Hardware, Embedded Systems 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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Curious..
by Brendan on Tue 4th Mar 2008 12:12 UTC
Brendan
Member since:
2005-11-16

Am I the only one wondering if this type of mesh computing could be adapted to work in a normal city?

It'd be nice to stop paying internet and mobile phone bills, and use a mesh of 200 nodes per square KM instead...