OLPC ditches keyboard

The Cambridge foundation that helped inspire the current boom in cheap laptop computers is now working on something even more radical - an ultra-cheap computer with no keyboard, reports The Boston Globe.

Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the One Laptop Per Child Foundation (OLPC), revealed plans for the new computer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab yesterday. Due for release in 2010, the new machine will be smaller and lighter than the foundation's current XO laptop, which went on sale last year.

The new device will feature two video display screens, one of them replacing the keyboard found in other laptops. The screens will be touch-sensitive, and can be configured to act as a traditional keyboard. But the screens can also serve as a single large viewing area.

Cisco, Google and Yahoo vigorously defended their business operations in China yesterday, but sceptical senators and human rights advocates told the companies they need to do more to protect user privacy and combat censorship around the world, says MercuryNews.com.

Senator Dick Durbin, who chairs the judiciary subcommittee that held the hearing on human rights and the Internet, said he and two Republican senators would look at possible regulations. One option, he said, is a House Bill that would make it a crime for Internet companies to turn over personal user data to a government that suppresses dissent.

Durbin also criticised the "intolerably slow" negotiations by Internet, tech and telecom companies, along with rights groups, that have worked for almost two years on a code of conduct for business dealings with repressive governments.

Netflix, the DVD-by-mail rental service, yesterday took another step toward delivering films straight from the Web to TV sets through a new device, boosting its stock by as much as 10.9%, according to Reuters.

The $99.99 device lets Netflix subscribers "stream" movies and television episodes to their TVs with no extra charges or viewing restrictions, the company and its partner, Roku, said in a statement.

Forrester analyst James McQuivey called the move a salvo in the "coming war over the territory known as the consumer living room".

Google yesterday added a climate change overlay to its Google Earth function, which shows how climate change could affect the planet over the next 100 years, reports the Herald Sun.

Using information from the British Met Office and the British Antarctic Survey, the animations illustrate how temperatures are predicted to change in different countries and how the Antarctic ice shelves have retreated during the past 50 years.

The Climate Change in Our World application allows users to zoom in on certain countries and cities to learn about climate change projections for that region.