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Because the laptops are intended for the education of children. For the vast majority of the world's nations, that's a government responsibility, not a personal responsibility.

That's the simple, pat answer, but there's more to it. That the laptops would be put into large-scale (preferably unanimous) use from the top down has been a core concept of the project from the beginning, and it's influenced some of the design considerations. The methods of collaboration (which is fundamental), and the networking model itself, are based on the assumption that there will be multiple XO machines in a small area. If you try to sell these things piecemeal at $175 each (at first) to private citizens who both have heard of it and can afford it, in a dozen different countries, you'll be lucky to ever have more than a couple of them in the same location. On the other hand, if you're Nicholas Negroponte and you leverage your and your family's schmooze points with various national officials, you can persuade the ministries of education to purchase and deploy them as an official program. Then you'll always have multiple machines in a classroom.

In fact, you might even have—wait for it—one laptop per child.

> If the power goes out, you can crank-start it

No you can't, "The yellow crank, while cute, in the end proved impractical; it migrated to the AC adapter as it also morphed into one or more other types of human-power devices."

No crank.

Why are you not reading the FAQ?

Alternatively, if you're so smart - you obviously have all the answers - where's your program to help the uneducated poor of the world? Oh, right, it's easy to bag someone else's project than do something yourself.

Stop trying to see this from your first world perspective. If its the same price, the governments would be best suited to choose Microsoft. The software works, and just about every company uses it. Its best for the customers.

Wow! You really drank the Microsoft kool-aid! Let's dissect your statement and find out if it stands up to the ultimate test: that of factuality.

Assertion one: If its the same price, the governments would be best suited to choose Microsoft.

First, it is not the same price. It is $3 more expensive per unit. The OLPC project is charging for the hardware, not the software. So your statement is foolish since it is clearly not the same price.

Second, it is not clear that even a stripped-down version of Windows XP would run properly on the OLPC. The XO Laptop has a 433 MHz Geode LX processor, which is an architecture known for its low IPC (as compared to other x86-compatible processors of this era.) It has only 256MB RAM and 1GB flash storage. Windows XP is not capable of operating in 256MB without swapping heavily, which would destroy the flash memory. You CAN run Windows XP on a system this slow, or even slower. But it will run like dookie.

Third, there are a number of reasons not to use Microsoft. I will not go into them now, we all know what they are whether we agree with them or not. But there are basically no compelling reasons for Windows to be used for this purpose. And in fact, there are no compelling reasons to ever run Windows except interoperability with Windows. And that is becoming less and less of an issue all the time.

Assertion two: The software works

I find this to be the most hilarious of your assertions. Windows is a gigantic pile of junk. It is utterly, laughably unreliable. It is extremely poorly documented, and there is no way but reverse-engineering to find out what many of the settings in the registry and config files are for. In fact, without using a registry monitor, you have no idea that some of the settings are even possible, because they are undocumented and the keys are not created unless they are needed.

Windows is not the fastest operating system. Windows does not support the most hardware. Windows is not most secure, or even secure - it is insecure by design and nothing short of a complete security audit (which Microsoft claims is in progress) could fix the problems. And if you did one, you'd probably break all backwards compatibility.

Oh wait! That's the story of Windows Vista! Which has already been shown to also be insecure, many times over.

Assertion three: just about every company uses it

I hope you are aware that Linux is the only operating system consistently gaining market share in the server market. It's good for a wide variety of purposes for which Windows is severely deficient. About the only thing Windows has ever been better than Linux at was serving static pages - and then we got kernel-level HTTP acceleration in Linux. Now there's nothing.

Also, if everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you do the same?

I've used Linux pretty much everywhere I've worked. I have to admit, this is the first time I didn't feel I needed a Windows box. I do actually still run Windows, because I haven't yet found an alternative to Crystal Reports, and WINE's ODBC is pretty crap still (not that I could necessarily do any better.)

But I don't feel I need a Windows box! And these schoolkids need one even less.

Assertion 4: Its best for the customers.

Right. Because what customers want is DRM, a "security" scheme that asks them for confirmation every time they pick their nose, and utter instability. Those are really features that will help them. Granted, some of that is a Vista feature - but that's the "upgrade" path from Windows XP. Your proposal is that instead of educating a gener

I googled in my memory.

At last FOSDEM, Jim Gettys gave a presentation of the technical specs of OLPC's XO-1 machine. I remember I found the part about the low-voltage sunlight readable display particularly impressive for a $135 device.

OLPC XO-1 manifacturer Quanta announced selling a XO-like device on the open market later this year, at a price around $200. Presumably it will have a display of the same technology.

you might want to look at the OLPC http://laptop.org/

        * Liquid-crystal display: 7.5" Dual-mode TFT display
        * Viewing area: 152.4 mm × 114.3 mm
        * Resolution: 1200 (H) × 900 (V) resolution (200 DPI)
        * Mono display: High-resolution, reflective monochrome mode
        * Color display: Standard-resolution, quincunx-sampled, transmissive color mode
        * Special "DCON" chip, that enables deswizzling and anti-aliasing in color mode, while enabling the display to remain live with the processor suspended.

http://laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/specs.shtml

you might want to look at the OLPC http://laptop.org/

        * Liquid-crystal display: 7.5" Dual-mode TFT display
        * Viewing area: 152.4 mm × 114.3 mm
        * Resolution: 1200 (H) × 900 (V) resolution (200 DPI)
        * Mono display: High-resolution, reflective monochrome mode
        * Color display: Standard-resolution, quincunx-sampled, transmissive color mode
        * Special "DCON" chip, that enables deswizzling and anti-aliasing in color mode, while enabling the display to remain live with the processor suspended.

http://laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/specs.shtml

The problem with the "activity" metaphor is that it's restrictive: you can perform the activitites we've thought of in advance and presented to you.

The starting point for info on OLPC security is the Bitfrost specification. I've only skimmed it, myself, and don't have any particular comment except that it looks interesting.

In God's name, why? That proposal goes fundamentally against the entire philosophy of OLPC. They're giving capable computers to school children not so they can "accomplish real work" (shudder), or even so they can "learn to use a typical OS", but simply so they can learn, explore, create, collaborate in general. This machine is targeted at the next generation of world citizens, not the next generation of office drones or elite hackers. Most OS simplifications have been made so that the user doesn't have to think about how it works or how its behavior compares to other platforms, OSes, or applications—not because it's the most the hardware can handle.

Of course you would, but you're not a six-year-old child who's never been within fifty miles of a computer before, are you? Step into those shoes for a moment, and then think about whether you feel restricted by Sugar's multitasking model. I'll bet you're already having too much fun creating songs with TamTam to worry about it.

And for those students who develop a deeper interest in technology and want to explore the other possibilities of their hardware, as you said, other OSes will surely run on it. I'd imagine there will be plenty of websites dedicated to that once these things start to see real use. Always remember that Sugar itself is an OS with design goals that are very specific and very different from existing general-purpose systems.

I absolutely understand security concerns arising from the lack of a visible address bar in the browser, though I haven't yet tried Sugar out for myself. That sort of thing raises some tricky questions about Internet safety in general. However, I think those questions are better handled by the local administrators of Mesh Portals, which if I understand correctly are the only way for an XO laptop to get onto the Internet. When there is no portal on your Mesh, the address bar really does become wasted space for most purposes.

In God's name, why? That proposal goes fundamentally against the entire philosophy of OLPC. They're giving capable computers to school children not so they can "accomplish real work" (shudder), or even so they can "learn to use a typical OS", but simply so they can learn, explore, create, collaborate in general. This machine is targeted at the next generation of world citizens, not the next generation of office drones or elite hackers. Most OS simplifications have been made so that the user doesn't have to think about how it works or how its behavior compares to other platforms, OSes, or applications—not because it's the most the hardware can handle.

Of course you would, but you're not a six-year-old child who's never been within fifty miles of a computer before, are you? Step into those shoes for a moment, and then think about whether you feel restricted by Sugar's multitasking model. I'll bet you're already having too much fun creating songs with TamTam to worry about it.

And for those students who develop a deeper interest in technology and want to explore the other possibilities of their hardware, as you said, other OSes will surely run on it. I'd imagine there will be plenty of websites dedicated to that once these things start to see real use. Always remember that Sugar itself is an OS with design goals that are very specific and very different from existing general-purpose systems.

I absolutely understand security concerns arising from the lack of a visible address bar in the browser, though I haven't yet tried Sugar out for myself. That sort of thing raises some tricky questions about Internet safety in general. However, I think those questions are better handled by the local administrators of Mesh Portals, which if I understand correctly are the only way for an XO laptop to get onto the Internet. When there is no portal on your Mesh, the address bar really does become wasted space for most purposes.

There is a pretty obvious address bar from what I see

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Image:Sugar_browser_with _library.png

Well, considering the OLPC specs it will run on a AMD Geode 433MHz processor, it MIGHT run ok on a 166.

Would be worth a try. Especially with the live CD, no time wasted installing.

It's worth noting the Geode processor was designed for pocket PC type use. So the 433MHz is also powering graphics.

I think I also saw a vmware image of the OLPC OS floating around a while back. But anyway, for those of you who haven't had a chance to explore the Sugar UI, it's a pretty different model that totally shitcans the "desktop" model for more of a community model, where one performs "activities" rather than run "applications". Worth taking a look at just to see another approach to how computers can be used from a user experience perspective.

I think I also saw a vmware image of the OLPC OS floating around a while back. But anyway, for those of you who haven't had a chance to explore the Sugar UI, it's a pretty different model that totally shitcans the "desktop" model for more of a community model, where one performs "activities" rather than run "applications". Worth taking a look at just to see another approach to how computers can be used from a user experience perspective.

Nothing. They're slow and don't do everything you need. Have you actually looked at the specs or seen the UI video? This will be a good device for school children who are new to computers, but I don't think most consumers would be too interested in this.

Which is probably why they don't open it up to the general market. That would open them to dealing with distribution cost, marketing, support, etc. That's not saying I wouldn't but one, but I also don't expect it to replace anything I currently own.

They don't attempt to get the platform into the hands of developers who might be able to develop applications, instead of relying on giving compilers to children who have never seen a computer before.

Incorrect. If you are a developer who wants to contribute, and your project requires access to the hardware, you can apply for a laptop. I don't know the details, but it sounds like they provide the laptops for free and request that you send it back when you are done with it. (...which is all a volunteer developer truly needs. I expect most people who say they want to contribute really just want to own a laptop, in which case this offer would be disappointing.)

There are also numerous projects underway to make it easier to develop for the laptop without actually owning one. You can download emulation images. And you can try installing a Sugar development environment if you have a Un*x machine. But this is a little tricky, so several people have put together LiveCDs of the development environment already set up.

And there are no plans to include a C compiler on the final laptops, as they are cramped for space. The only development environments currently planned are based on Python and Smalltalk.

They don't attempt to get the platform into the hands of developers who might be able to develop applications, instead of relying on giving compilers to children who have never seen a computer before.

Incorrect. If you are a developer who wants to contribute, and your project requires access to the hardware, you can apply for a laptop. I don't know the details, but it sounds like they provide the laptops for free and request that you send it back when you are done with it. (...which is all a volunteer developer truly needs. I expect most people who say they want to contribute really just want to own a laptop, in which case this offer would be disappointing.)

There are also numerous projects underway to make it easier to develop for the laptop without actually owning one. You can download emulation images. And you can try installing a Sugar development environment if you have a Un*x machine. But this is a little tricky, so several people have put together LiveCDs of the development environment already set up.

And there are no plans to include a C compiler on the final laptops, as they are cramped for space. The only development environments currently planned are based on Python and Smalltalk.

They don't attempt to get the platform into the hands of developers who might be able to develop applications, instead of relying on giving compilers to children who have never seen a computer before.

Incorrect. If you are a developer who wants to contribute, and your project requires access to the hardware, you can apply for a laptop. I don't know the details, but it sounds like they provide the laptops for free and request that you send it back when you are done with it. (...which is all a volunteer developer truly needs. I expect most people who say they want to contribute really just want to own a laptop, in which case this offer would be disappointing.)

There are also numerous projects underway to make it easier to develop for the laptop without actually owning one. You can download emulation images. And you can try installing a Sugar development environment if you have a Un*x machine. But this is a little tricky, so several people have put together LiveCDs of the development environment already set up.

And there are no plans to include a C compiler on the final laptops, as they are cramped for space. The only development environments currently planned are based on Python and Smalltalk.

They don't attempt to get the platform into the hands of developers who might be able to develop applications, instead of relying on giving compilers to children who have never seen a computer before.

Incorrect. If you are a developer who wants to contribute, and your project requires access to the hardware, you can apply for a laptop. I don't know the details, but it sounds like they provide the laptops for free and request that you send it back when you are done with it. (...which is all a volunteer developer truly needs. I expect most people who say they want to contribute really just want to own a laptop, in which case this offer would be disappointing.)

There are also numerous projects underway to make it easier to develop for the laptop without actually owning one. You can download emulation images. And you can try installing a Sugar development environment if you have a Un*x machine. But this is a little tricky, so several people have put together LiveCDs of the development environment already set up.

And there are no plans to include a C compiler on the final laptops, as they are cramped for space. The only development environments currently planned are based on Python and Smalltalk.

Perhaps I got the wrong person breaking the crank but the crank did break. But at least I don't resort to name calling like a 4 year-old child would when I disagree with someone.

Thailand says they don't want the OLPC, and so does India critics from those countries have cited that the OLPC is not mature enough and doesn't have the quality that they need for their education system.

Have you seen the OLPC specs?

433Mhz processor
7.5 inch LCD display
No rotating media (no floppies, CDs, DVDs)
No hard drive but a 1024Mbyte flash drive.

The quality of this laptop is far below the standard that other laptop makers use, while this quality might have been good for 1993, times have changed. India, Thailand, and other nations want a more mature OLPC program with a better quality laptop that can compete with modern laptops. Students want to use CDs and DVDs on the laptops, and be able to bring data to them from older systems that use floppy disks. They want to store media files and that 1024M of storage will fill up fast. I mean for the modern student that wants to record a video presentation for class, this laptop will not do. Not only that but the 7.5 inch screen is tiny and hard to read.

This looks like the type of Laptop that Mattel or some other toy maker might make. Are you kidding me?

If anyone should have their intelligence questioned it is the people in the OLPC program.

I think part of the reason the $200 laptop costs $200 is that they're selling them in bulk to governments. (...) If that ends up bringing the cost of the laptop into the $300-$400 range, you're suddenly competing with the likes of Dell and other low-cost laptop manufacturers.

If I read the article correctly, US$200 is the price Quanta is planning to sell this XO-like device for to individuals. (I am wondering if a portion of the price goes directly to the OLPC project. Since the article does not mention it, I am inclined to think this is not the case.)

If I remember correctly from the OLPC talk at FOSDEM, the pricing of the OLPC project's actual XO (in bulk, to governments) is currently expected to start at around US$135-140 when production begins this year, which was slightly over the target. The goal is to reach the US$100 mark in 2008, which is why the XO is/was also known as "the $100 Laptop". Quite an impressive price, given the hardware specifications, in my opinion.

Thank you for your valuable FUD. Here's further reading.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/WiXi

The New York Times article explains why SimCity is one of the ten most important video games of all time:

SimCity helped establish the genre known as god games, in which players take on an omnipotent role, controlling the game world rather than simply participating in it. It also broke convention by refusing to establish criteria for winning, leaving the decision of what constituted success up to the player.

SimCity was selected by Mr. Bittanti, a researcher at the Humanities Lab at Stanford who works with Mr. Lowood. The game is "one of the most important art works of the 20th century," Mr. Bittanti said, adding: "It completely reinvented the whole notion of games. And then it transcended the game world to become a cultural phenomenon."

SimCity and its four follow-ups have sold 17 million copies, and the franchise it spawned, the Sims, has sold 85 million copies.

SimCity exemplifies Seymour Papert's ideas about Constructionist Learning:

Constructionism (in the context of learning) is inspired by constructivist theories of learning that propose that learning is an active process wherein learners are actively constructing mental models and theories of the world around them. Constructionism hold that learning can happen felicitously when people are actively making things in the real world. Constructionism is connected with experiential learning and builds on some of the ideas of Jean Piaget.

The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project is based on Seymour Papert's ideas about Learning Learning by fun immersive play, and his experience teaching the Logo programming language to elementary school students: Constructionist Learning and Constructivism are central to the goals of the OLPC.

At the Game Developer's Conference, SJ Klein (Director of Content for the One Laptop Per Child project) gave the keynote address at the Serious Games Summit. He explained the philosophy behind the project, and asked developers to join in the project to develop a game platform, games, tools and courseware to distribute to classrooms and homes of some two billion children across the globe.

SJ Klein said: "Existing games are nice, and cute," but games for things like learning language are the "gem they're targeting." Most importantly, Klein said in a direct plea to the serious game developers in front of him, the project needed frameworks and scripting environments -- tools with which children themselves could create their own content.

-Don

The New York Times article explains why SimCity is one of the ten most important video games of all time:

SimCity helped establish the genre known as god games, in which players take on an omnipotent role, controlling the game world rather than simply participating in it. It also broke convention by refusing to establish criteria for winning, leaving the decision of what constituted success up to the player.

SimCity was selected by Mr. Bittanti, a researcher at the Humanities Lab at Stanford who works with Mr. Lowood. The game is "one of the most important art works of the 20th century," Mr. Bittanti said, adding: "It completely reinvented the whole notion of games. And then it transcended the game world to become a cultural phenomenon."

SimCity and its four follow-ups have sold 17 million copies, and the franchise it spawned, the Sims, has sold 85 million copies.

SimCity exemplifies Seymour Papert's ideas about Constructionist Learning:

Constructionism (in the context of learning) is inspired by constructivist theories of learning that propose that learning is an active process wherein learners are actively constructing mental models and theories of the world around them. Constructionism hold that learning can happen felicitously when people are actively making things in the real world. Constructionism is connected with experiential learning and builds on some of the ideas of Jean Piaget.

The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project is based on Seymour Papert's ideas about Learning Learning by fun immersive play, and his experience teaching the Logo programming language to elementary school students: Constructionist Learning and Constructivism are central to the goals of the OLPC.

At the Game Developer's Conference, SJ Klein (Director of Content for the One Laptop Per Child project) gave the keynote address at the Serious Games Summit. He explained the philosophy behind the project, and asked developers to join in the project to develop a game platform, games, tools and courseware to distribute to classrooms and homes of some two billion children across the globe.

SJ Klein said: "Existing games are nice, and cute," but games for things like learning language are the "gem they're targeting." Most importantly, Klein said in a direct plea to the serious game developers in front of him, the project needed frameworks and scripting environments -- tools with which children themselves could create their own content.

-Don

The New York Times article explains why SimCity is one of the ten most important video games of all time:

SimCity helped establish the genre known as god games, in which players take on an omnipotent role, controlling the game world rather than simply participating in it. It also broke convention by refusing to establish criteria for winning, leaving the decision of what constituted success up to the player.

SimCity was selected by Mr. Bittanti, a researcher at the Humanities Lab at Stanford who works with Mr. Lowood. The game is "one of the most important art works of the 20th century," Mr. Bittanti said, adding: "It completely reinvented the whole notion of games. And then it transcended the game world to become a cultural phenomenon."

SimCity and its four follow-ups have sold 17 million copies, and the franchise it spawned, the Sims, has sold 85 million copies.

SimCity exemplifies Seymour Papert's ideas about Constructionist Learning:

Constructionism (in the context of learning) is inspired by constructivist theories of learning that propose that learning is an active process wherein learners are actively constructing mental models and theories of the world around them. Constructionism hold that learning can happen felicitously when people are actively making things in the real world. Constructionism is connected with experiential learning and builds on some of the ideas of Jean Piaget.

The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project is based on Seymour Papert's ideas about Learning Learning by fun immersive play, and his experience teaching the Logo programming language to elementary school students: Constructionist Learning and Constructivism are central to the goals of the OLPC.

At the Game Developer's Conference, SJ Klein (Director of Content for the One Laptop Per Child project) gave the keynote address at the Serious Games Summit. He explained the philosophy behind the project, and asked developers to join in the project to develop a game platform, games, tools and courseware to distribute to classrooms and homes of some two billion children across the globe.

SJ Klein said: "Existing games are nice, and cute," but games for things like learning language are the "gem they're targeting." Most importantly, Klein said in a direct plea to the serious game developers in front of him, the project needed frameworks and scripting environments -- tools with which children themselves could create their own content.

-Don

The New York Times article explains why SimCity is one of the ten most important video games of all time:

SimCity helped establish the genre known as god games, in which players take on an omnipotent role, controlling the game world rather than simply participating in it. It also broke convention by refusing to establish criteria for winning, leaving the decision of what constituted success up to the player.

SimCity was selected by Mr. Bittanti, a researcher at the Humanities Lab at Stanford who works with Mr. Lowood. The game is "one of the most important art works of the 20th century," Mr. Bittanti said, adding: "It completely reinvented the whole notion of games. And then it transcended the game world to become a cultural phenomenon."

SimCity and its four follow-ups have sold 17 million copies, and the franchise it spawned, the Sims, has sold 85 million copies.

SimCity exemplifies Seymour Papert's ideas about Constructionist Learning:

Constructionism (in the context of learning) is inspired by constructivist theories of learning that propose that learning is an active process wherein learners are actively constructing mental models and theories of the world around them. Constructionism hold that learning can happen felicitously when people are actively making things in the real world. Constructionism is connected with experiential learning and builds on some of the ideas of Jean Piaget.

The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project is based on Seymour Papert's ideas about Learning Learning by fun immersive play, and his experience teaching the Logo programming language to elementary school students: Constructionist Learning and Constructivism are central to the goals of the OLPC.

At the Game Developer's Conference, SJ Klein (Director of Content for the One Laptop Per Child project) gave the keynote address at the Serious Games Summit. He explained the philosophy behind the project, and asked developers to join in the project to develop a game platform, games, tools and courseware to distribute to classrooms and homes of some two billion children across the globe.

SJ Klein said: "Existing games are nice, and cute," but games for things like learning language are the "gem they're targeting." Most importantly, Klein said in a direct plea to the serious game developers in front of him, the project needed frameworks and scripting environments -- tools with which children themselves could create their own content.

-Don

The New York Times article explains why SimCity is one of the ten most important video games of all time:

SimCity helped establish the genre known as god games, in which players take on an omnipotent role, controlling the game world rather than simply participating in it. It also broke convention by refusing to establish criteria for winning, leaving the decision of what constituted success up to the player.

SimCity was selected by Mr. Bittanti, a researcher at the Humanities Lab at Stanford who works with Mr. Lowood. The game is "one of the most important art works of the 20th century," Mr. Bittanti said, adding: "It completely reinvented the whole notion of games. And then it transcended the game world to become a cultural phenomenon."

SimCity and its four follow-ups have sold 17 million copies, and the franchise it spawned, the Sims, has sold 85 million copies.

SimCity exemplifies Seymour Papert's ideas about Constructionist Learning:

Constructionism (in the context of learning) is inspired by constructivist theories of learning that propose that learning is an active process wherein learners are actively constructing mental models and theories of the world around them. Constructionism hold that learning can happen felicitously when people are actively making things in the real world. Constructionism is connected with experiential learning and builds on some of the ideas of Jean Piaget.

The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project is based on Seymour Papert's ideas about Learning Learning by fun immersive play, and his experience teaching the Logo programming language to elementary school students: Constructionist Learning and Constructivism are central to the goals of the OLPC.

At the Game Developer's Conference, SJ Klein (Director of Content for the One Laptop Per Child project) gave the keynote address at the Serious Games Summit. He explained the philosophy behind the project, and asked developers to join in the project to develop a game platform, games, tools and courseware to distribute to classrooms and homes of some two billion children across the globe.

SJ Klein said: "Existing games are nice, and cute," but games for things like learning language are the "gem they're targeting." Most importantly, Klein said in a direct plea to the serious game developers in front of him, the project needed frameworks and scripting environments -- tools with which children themselves could create their own content.

-Don

The New York Times article explains why SimCity is one of the ten most important video games of all time:

SimCity helped establish the genre known as god games, in which players take on an omnipotent role, controlling the game world rather than simply participating in it. It also broke convention by refusing to establish criteria for winning, leaving the decision of what constituted success up to the player.

SimCity was selected by Mr. Bittanti, a researcher at the Humanities Lab at Stanford who works with Mr. Lowood. The game is "one of the most important art works of the 20th century," Mr. Bittanti said, adding: "It completely reinvented the whole notion of games. And then it transcended the game world to become a cultural phenomenon."

SimCity and its four follow-ups have sold 17 million copies, and the franchise it spawned, the Sims, has sold 85 million copies.

SimCity exemplifies Seymour Papert's ideas about Constructionist Learning:

Constructionism (in the context of learning) is inspired by constructivist theories of learning that propose that learning is an active process wherein learners are actively constructing mental models and theories of the world around them. Constructionism hold that learning can happen felicitously when people are actively making things in the real world. Constructionism is connected with experiential learning and builds on some of the ideas of Jean Piaget.

The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project is based on Seymour Papert's ideas about Learning Learning by fun immersive play, and his experience teaching the Logo programming language to elementary school students: Constructionist Learning and Constructivism are central to the goals of the OLPC.

At the Game Developer's Conference, SJ Klein (Director of Content for the One Laptop Per Child project) gave the keynote address at the Serious Games Summit. He explained the philosophy behind the project, and asked developers to join in the project to develop a game platform, games, tools and courseware to distribute to classrooms and homes of some two billion children across the globe.

SJ Klein said: "Existing games are nice, and cute," but games for things like learning language are the "gem they're targeting." Most importantly, Klein said in a direct plea to the serious game developers in front of him, the project needed frameworks and scripting environments -- tools with which children themselves could create their own content.

-Don

For more information on licensing, which is a real PITA for open-source developers, see here: Greenphone SDK.

On the bright side, with projects like OpenMoko and OLPC I think the world will start to realize the power and potential of these little Internet-enabled devices when combined with open-source software.

It would be a great idea to sell the OLPC retail to software developers and people in developed countries at a premium price to subsidize them for kids in developing countries. That was the most commonly request people made at the OLPC booth at the game developer's conference.

But the reason they aren't currently selling the OLPC retail yet is that it takes a huge amount of effort and overhead to manage something like that, and the OLPC organization is small and focused on delivering them to the target countries by the millions, at no margin. Managing retail sales would distract from the more important goal of rolling out the laptop to children.

Eventually some other organization might buy a million or so of them and sell them retail, but nothing like that is planned or announced yet, as far as I know.

It's not because they want to keep the laptop away from us, it's because they want to get them to the real target audience as soon as possible.

Software developers can send email to the project describing what software they want to port to it, and if you qualify they will send you one right away for free. I applied for one around christmas, to port SimCity, and it arrived by fedex in just a few days. I don't believe they will ask for them back, since the beta units will soon be obsolete anyway, after they make the next run of them.

They are however putting a lot of effort into making the software development environment available to external developers, so you can develop software without having the actual laptop. You can install the software on a Linux system and run it much faster than it runs on the OLPC, because the "emulation" does not slow it down signifigantly, and your Linux box probably has a much faster processor and lots more memory than the actual machine. There is nothing special about the screen from a software point of view -- it's just a 1200x900 16 bit display from X11's point of view. Get your software running in the development environment on a regular Linux laptop, then make it run as fast as possible, and consume as few resources as possible. Once you can demonstrate a working application on the OLPC under emulation, and need to test it against the actual hardware, you chances of receiving an actual unit to test it on are much higher.

Here is why they are not for individual sale, and here is information about where the Retail Sales Model fits into the whole concept of a $100 laptop. This article describes why One Laptop per Child Has No Plans to Commercialize XO Computer.

"The bottom line is that our mission is learning, not laptops. While we will be working with a commercial partner at some point for both machines and interesting parts--we've been looking at models where by the commercial side can help drive down the cost for the kids--our immediate priority is the non-commercial machine." -Walter Bender

-Don

It would be a great idea to sell the OLPC retail to software developers and people in developed countries at a premium price to subsidize them for kids in developing countries. That was the most commonly request people made at the OLPC booth at the game developer's conference.

But the reason they aren't currently selling the OLPC retail yet is that it takes a huge amount of effort and overhead to manage something like that, and the OLPC organization is small and focused on delivering them to the target countries by the millions, at no margin. Managing retail sales would distract from the more important goal of rolling out the laptop to children.

Eventually some other organization might buy a million or so of them and sell them retail, but nothing like that is planned or announced yet, as far as I know.

It's not because they want to keep the laptop away from us, it's because they want to get them to the real target audience as soon as possible.

Software developers can send email to the project describing what software they want to port to it, and if you qualify they will send you one right away for free. I applied for one around christmas, to port SimCity, and it arrived by fedex in just a few days. I don't believe they will ask for them back, since the beta units will soon be obsolete anyway, after they make the next run of them.

They are however putting a lot of effort into making the software development environment available to external developers, so you can develop software without having the actual laptop. You can install the software on a Linux system and run it much faster than it runs on the OLPC, because the "emulation" does not slow it down signifigantly, and your Linux box probably has a much faster processor and lots more memory than the actual machine. There is nothing special about the screen from a software point of view -- it's just a 1200x900 16 bit display from X11's point of view. Get your software running in the development environment on a regular Linux laptop, then make it run as fast as possible, and consume as few resources as possible. Once you can demonstrate a working application on the OLPC under emulation, and need to test it against the actual hardware, you chances of receiving an actual unit to test it on are much higher.

Here is why they are not for individual sale, and here is information about where the Retail Sales Model fits into the whole concept of a $100 laptop. This article describes why One Laptop per Child Has No Plans to Commercialize XO Computer.

"The bottom line is that our mission is learning, not laptops. While we will be working with a commercial partner at some point for both machines and interesting parts--we've been looking at models where by the commercial side can help drive down the cost for the kids--our immediate priority is the non-commercial machine." -Walter Bender

-Don

It would be a great idea to sell the OLPC retail to software developers and people in developed countries at a premium price to subsidize them for kids in developing countries. That was the most commonly request people made at the OLPC booth at the game developer's conference.

But the reason they aren't currently selling the OLPC retail yet is that it takes a huge amount of effort and overhead to manage something like that, and the OLPC organization is small and focused on delivering them to the target countries by the millions, at no margin. Managing retail sales would distract from the more important goal of rolling out the laptop to children.

Eventually some other organization might buy a million or so of them and sell them retail, but nothing like that is planned or announced yet, as far as I know.

It's not because they want to keep the laptop away from us, it's because they want to get them to the real target audience as soon as possible.

Software developers can send email to the project describing what software they want to port to it, and if you qualify they will send you one right away for free. I applied for one around christmas, to port SimCity, and it arrived by fedex in just a few days. I don't believe they will ask for them back, since the beta units will soon be obsolete anyway, after they make the next run of them.

They are however putting a lot of effort into making the software development environment available to external developers, so you can develop software without having the actual laptop. You can install the software on a Linux system and run it much faster than it runs on the OLPC, because the "emulation" does not slow it down signifigantly, and your Linux box probably has a much faster processor and lots more memory than the actual machine. There is nothing special about the screen from a software point of view -- it's just a 1200x900 16 bit display from X11's point of view. Get your software running in the development environment on a regular Linux laptop, then make it run as fast as possible, and consume as few resources as possible. Once you can demonstrate a working application on the OLPC under emulation, and need to test it against the actual hardware, you chances of receiving an actual unit to test it on are much higher.

Here is why they are not for individual sale, and here is information about where the Retail Sales Model fits into the whole concept of a $100 laptop. This article describes why One Laptop per Child Has No Plans to Commercialize XO Computer.

"The bottom line is that our mission is learning, not laptops. While we will be working with a commercial partner at some point for both machines and interesting parts--we've been looking at models where by the commercial side can help drive down the cost for the kids--our immediate priority is the non-commercial machine." -Walter Bender

-Don

Google sez: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Pygame

And: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.laptop.olpc .sugar/1568

So I believe the answer is "yes" and there's also some cool software to run under it.

I'd love to develop games for the OLPC, if only there was a way for us (especially the indie developers, which is what GDC is supposed to be about) to get access to the machine.

Oh, but there is. They are not selling the laptops to the public at large, but they are willing to make them available to contributing developers who are working on projects that require access to the actual hardware. If you are genuinely interested in developing for the OLPC and require a machine, you can read more here:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Developers_program#How_t o_apply

I don't know the details of the exchange, but it's my impression that they provide the laptops for free, but ask for them back when you are done. I'd be surprised if they send them to anyone who doesn't already have working code, though.

I don't disagree with you about letting developers have access to the machine, but have you tried virtualizing the olpc desktop in qemu, vmware et al? http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OS_images_for_emulation has some links of interest.

Is a virtual olpc not enough to get your games on a real olpc? I ask out of ignorance so please don't take offense.

.. you could use an OLPC for $100:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/The_Children's_Machine

Have you checked the one laptop per child project ??
http://www.olpc.com/
http://www.laptop.org/

Or else try a search for
tablet thin client

SOC 2007 idea for OLPC http://wiki.laptop.org/go/wixi.. wixi is a wiki-based multilingual language learning interface.. can work w/ OLPC, MediaWiki, OmegaWiki, etc.. looking for CS students to apply.. win $4500 and a billion users.. SUERTE!

I don't know when we'll be able to get our hands on them, but these ones already exist.

More details about this are available in the Bitfrost Security Specification posted to slashdot a couple weeks ago. In short - yes the firmware will only boot a signed BIOS/OS, and the OS will only load signed kernel modules. However, the students may request a developer key from the OLPC project, which they can use to sign bios / kernel code (for their their laptop only, I believe). The only reason that a request will be denied is if the laptop is reported stolen within the small (2 week?) delay time between requesting a key and it being issued.

I don't know if this would be incompatible with GPLv3. Do the keys have to be provided with the binary distribution, or is it okay for them to be requested seperately like you can with the source? Does the fact that the key only works on their personal machine matter? Is the fact they won't give keys to someone accused of being a theif an issue? It is an interesting question.

"But pushing the envelope on both security and usability is a tall order, and as we state in the concluding chapter of this document, we have neither tried to create, nor do we believe we have created, a "perfectly secure" system. Notions of perfect security are foolish, and we distance ourselves up front from any such claims."

When this (old) news first came out, I posted this gloom and doom comment, but after reading the spec, I realized that the picture was more complicated than my comment, or the summary above, indicates.

FTF Spec:

My earlier concerns were that this funcitonality was the same type of call-home spying and TPM kill-switch control that MSFT in its most evil moments would love to have over all of its users and that OLPC had totally screwed the pooch.

The spec makes it seem a bit more like a maximally secure default setting, whose override is difficult but still accessible. They are simply storing the lock (the laptop) and the key (the developer key) in different places. The keys won't be given out if the lock has been reported stolen, but if not, they are available to the machine's owner.

Something about this still worries me, though. The developer key makes this system radically different from something like the WGA's phone-home spyware "feature" in that it can be disabled by the machine's owner, but given that the default setting is so hard to override, is the effect really all that different? Is this going to screw over less techical users who make a mistake and somehow manage not to "renew their lease" frequently enough? Worst of all, if something goes wrong with the centrally-managed key distribution system, millions of kids will be left with fully locked down, unhackable, TPM machines that will brick in an instant if they wait too long to phone home to the server of a government that may be more interested in censoring them than empowering them.

I'd be curious to hear what Stallman has to say about this project, especially this aspect of the security system. I think everything else about this project would suit even his lofty standards to a tee, but I think OLPC is walking a fine line with this anti-theft system.

Several people, myself included, specifically pointed this out during the last story on OLPC's BitFrost system..

And can we please remember that it's One Laptop Per Child, and not One Laptop Per Slashdot-reading Guerilla Geek? Any abuse regarding deactivation of the laptops is more likely to be carried out by confiscation of the laptop by school personal.

Also, the feature can be disabled with a Developer Key from OLPC:

1018 The anti-theft system cannot be bypassed as long as P_SF_CORE is enabled (and
1019 disabling it requires a developer key). This, in effect, means that a child is
1020 free to do any modification to her machine's userspace (by disabling P_SF_RUN
1021 without a developer key), but cannot change the running kernel without
1022 requesting the key. The key-issuing process incorporates a 14-day delay to
1023 allow for a slow theft report to percolate up through the system, and is only
1024 issued if the machine is not reported stolen at the end of that period of time.

plug: if you know any CS students looking for an idea to win Google SOC 2007, check out a multilingual wiki app for the OLPC: http:/wiki.laptop.org/go/WiXi .. project has OLPC approval if student provides qualified mentor.. languages: python, javascript..

plug: if you know any CS students looking for an idea to win Google SOC 2007, check out a multilingual wiki app for the OLPC: http:/wiki.laptop.org/go/WiXi .. project has OLPC approval if student provides qualified mentor.. languages: python, javascript..

Sounds to me like you're describing an OLPC

BTW, I would suggest that you contact the olpc folks and ask them about their computers as well as what software. The laptops are designed to handle punishment and are cheap.

Information on the laptop will be replicated to some centralized storage place so that the student can recover it in the event that the laptop is lost, stolen or destroyed.

Generally, a nice idea - automated backups. However, the overall design (no passwords, etc.) seems to imply that this information will all be stored in the clear. That means the centralized repository can be regularly scanned by any party with access.

Maybe if they added functionality to allow for encrypted directories (or "drives", ala TrueCrypt), and ensured that any virtual-memory/swap-partition was always scrambled with a boot-specific randomized key...