Strange New World Picks of the Week

Sept. 27, 2007 — -- It seems that good causes and good times are in the air here on the "Strange New World" this early fall. The folks over at the One Laptop Per Child initiative -- that's the MIT-spawned effort to put a slick laptop in the hand of every child on the planet -- are rolling out a pick-of-the-week-worthy two-for-one deal. And Microsoft has sent the video gaming set into blissful hyperspace with its release of "Halo 3." Our early "testing" (read: Dan blasting aliens) shows this game will not only let you star in your own living, breathing B sci-fi flick, it is critical to Microsoft's future.

And if that's not enough, the year's big solar power show is happening in Long Beach, Calif. The tree-hugging days of solar power are definitely over: The event is red hot. Harnessing heat and power from the sun has never been cooler or more potentially lucrative.

Here, then, are our picks for the week:

One Laptop Per Child: I'll Take One for My Baby and One for the Road

One Laptop Per Child is the brainchild of MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte. The much publicized initiative aims to provide $100, ruggedized laptop computers to kids around the world, rich or poor. When St. Nick was globe-trotting, talking up his PC to world leaders, he got pledges up down and sideways to purchase large quantities of these bad boys. But now that the laptop is ready to ship -- guess what -- just like PBS, Negroponte is having a hard time collecting on all those good wishes.

This is where we -- the good and generous peeps of North America -- come in: For two weeks in November the OLPC folks plan a "buy one, give one" special: For $399 you can buy not one, but two Linux-based ruggedized laptops, one for you and one for charity. The second laptop is tax deductible. And the first one is the perfect gift for that kid who's been bugging you for a laptop, but who you just know would break a high-end model within 10 minutes.

Go ahead, do the right thing.

'Halo,' the New Windows?

We all know "Halo 3" will hit the video game world hard, like Kirstie Alley on dollar Whopper night. We figure "Halo 3" will easily sell 1 million copies before we can blink, but there is another, more important, story here: Microsoft's playful game division is suddenly dead serious to the suits out in Redmond, Wash. The XBox started off as a Bill Gates' personal hobby; "Halo" was fun and all, but it did not matter one whit to the company when they had 90 percent of the office software market. No longer.

With core software franchises under pressure from Google and the Linux, the "Halo" and Xbox franchise is one of Microsoft's big hopes for future profits. So the "Halo 3" launch actually moved the company stock up ... at least for now. And we'd be willing to bet that Microsoft will sell more units than Windows Vista did in the United States during its first weeks and months.

Even stranger, Microsoft is slowly headed down the path blazed by Sony and other big hardware companies where the flagship product is a console. Content is now as important as hardware and software. How awesome would that be if the destiny of a company started by a pimply-faced college kid fell into in the hands of a bunch of pimply-faced college kids?

Solar: the New Nuclear

A big solar power show, Solar Power 2007, kicks off this week in Long Beach, Calif., and solar heat is oh so cool. Industry heavyweights like Kyocera and PiperJaffray will be there to show off their new green-power wares.

And because they soon will be the world's largest energy consumer, it's good to see that China will be well-represented too. Most of the buzz is about super efficient new types of solar cells. But we like what we are seeing in a basic passive solar collector from American Solar Works, which makes hot water with no moving parts.

But as much as we love solar -- it is, after all, the geeks' answer to the future -- a word of caution: While all of these new technologies are interesting, you should know that there is a big fat industry standing between you and your solar-powered toaster: The third-party vendor needed to put all this neat solar stuff together. These solar integrators can be a huge pain. After all, they are just another breed of contractor. The hope is the technology will get cheap enough and efficient enough so installers like Borrego Solar, Innergy Power and the rest will have to play nice with an energy-hungry populace.

Let the sunshine in.

Jonathan Blum and Dan Evans co-host "Strange New World," a weekly syndicated radio show. Blum hosts the blog Blumsday.com and Evans is a features editor at PC Magazine.