autonomous computing

As posted on slashdot about the Pico-ITX format.

Ruggedized CarPC casing with according computer in it (15 to 35 Watts)
http://www.cartft.com/news/nl/219

http://www.kentdisplays.com/

http://www.nopowerdisplays.com/

The
BiNem® technology is energy efficient and drastically
reduces power consumption of displays.
Nemoptic display modules only
need energy to change the display content. Once the
image is written, it will remain indefinitely without consuming
any additional power.

Mini-Box.com: mini-ITX, nano-ITX, pico-ITX solutions

Maximizing Performance and Energy Efficiency using Multi-Threading (PDF 120KB)

Maximizing Power Savings on Mobile Platforms

I have been thinking about starting an open source project for building a low-power, extremely energy-efficient and at the same time cheap, yet powerful computer system. it should be designed to be used anywhere in the world, with minimal deployment time and configuration hassle. Ideally, it should also be configurable just by the means of pressing a simple button. The main target audience should be humanitarian organizations which must quickly deploy and setup communications infrastructure to organize their work.
The main design criterias of this system should be:

• maximum autononmy,
• designed for harsh and extreme conditions, like high-altitudes and remote places,
• extremely low-energy footprint,
• robust remote-administration capabilities (terminal, Xterm, optional encryption and compression for maximizing data throughput),
• preferably solar-powered,
• extremely robust (no moving parts if possible),
• small-size, lightweight,
• self-organizing (e.g. for MESH-routing demands)
• and extremely easy and flexible to configure.

The main idea is to have a small unit that can easily be used for different demands, like a fileserver, an http server, routing, VOIP tasks, and even media services if additional hardware is attached.
Additional add-ons could be WIFI-components, a back-up battery system and/or UPS, as well as external peripherals like keyboard, sound output and a screen.

Ideally, i’d like to see a turn-key solution which can easily be adapted to the needs on site. Just use one unit, and you can use it as a normal computer.

Drop 3 to 4 of those, and you can cluster them up to a more powerful data-center. Drop 5 to 10 of these units with a WIFI-connection, and you got a communication network onto which you can build services like VOIP (think “instant-telephone-system”).
I got some ideas on how to attain this goal. There are extremely low-voltage mainboards from VIA, AMD and others (tested here, and sold here), as well as some designs which just use one solar panel to power one of these mainboards. Three different mainboard factors seem to be available from VIA:

1. Mini-ITX (17×17cm)
2. Nano-ITX (12×12cm)
3. and a newly announced Pico-ITX (10 x 7,2cm)

Here is a blog entry about this, including a webvideo.

The main idea to turn this into an open source project is that everyone should be able to get a blueprint of the unit, and eventually modify it as needed. I can imagine an additional business around this which would see pre-configured and assembled units…

Somewhat related projects are:

• Green WIFI