The US$300 InkMedia mobile computer seems to be similar to other low cost laptops proposed for education in developing nations, such as the One Laptop Per Child and the ASUS EeePC. These have no hard disks, to reduce power use and hard disk failures; and use the Linux operating system.The InkMedia web site makes some questionable claims, such as "cannot get a virus, a worm or ad-ware of any kind" and "never slows down, as it doesn't have a hard disk to de-fragment". These claims are overstated: solid state memory, when used to emulate a disk can have malicious software installed and needs to be defragemented occasionally.
Also the InkMedia's removable keyboard design would appear to make the unit more vulnerable to damage, than the more traditional clamshell design of the ASUS EeePC. The One Laptop Per Child has a swivel and fold mechanism which also may prove to be a point of failure.
I think the writer has missed the point with regard to the InkMedia computer. The computer's nand flash where all the programs and operating system are stored is locked down so that it cannot be addressed. In doing so, fragmentation and virus attacks are eliminated. All temp files that the computer writes are to a location on writable flash.
ReplyDeleteGerry wrote October 27, 2007 1:30 PM:
ReplyDelete... InkMedia ... is locked down so that it cannot be addressed ...
The non-writable flash is protected, but the writable flash can be changed and so could have malware on it and may need to be defragemented.
A malware is far less likely with the InkMedia mobile than a computer with the operating system on a writable disk.
But the makers claimed it "... cannot get a virus, a worm or ad-ware of any kind ...".
This is too much to claim. Programs running on the computer will need somewhere to write files. Those files can have mal-ware.