Closing the Bandwidth Gap: HashCache

First there was the XO, the $100 laptop, bringing affordable computer technology to students around the world, particularly developing nations. Now there's HashCache, a technology that aims to solve what many in education claim as the real problem with access to information tech—the bandwidth gap.

Developed by a team led by Princeton's Vivek Pai, HashCache allows computers to store Web sites on their hard drives (offline) so that they don't have to tie up bandwidth.Typically, to cache a large amount of information from the Internet, computers would need large amounts of random-access memory (RAM) and hard disk space, but HashCache eliminates those needs. The users of this technology will also cut down on energy consumption, which is also often scarce in developing nations.

Watch Vivek Pai demo HashCache.

Many of the universities in poorer countries have very limited access to the Internet, and Pai sees his technology as a solution to this problem. Old and new computers can easily store information from the Web, free up bandwidth, and allow students access to a wealth of information.