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Ok, found one:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Image:AP1_38.jpg

But, is that Opera running on the system or another browser?

It has a dual-mode screen. Color, and B&W. In Black and White mode, it is 200dpi. No one else (in the mainstream) has this style display because it was made, from scratch, for the OLPC. There is a wikiarticle describing it's specs available.

No, it's for the kids. If it weren't, it wouldn't be bright green, have a child-size keyboard with a weird layout, or use software obviously designed for children.

No, it's for the kids. If it weren't, it wouldn't be bright green, have a child-size keyboard with a weird layout, or use software obviously designed for children.

No, it's for the kids. If it weren't, it wouldn't be bright green, have a child-size keyboard with a weird layout, or use software obviously designed for children.

No, it's for the kids. If it weren't, it wouldn't be bright green, have a child-size keyboard with a weird layout, or use software obviously designed for children.

Opera on the green machine

On Friday, I received a call from Opera's accounting department. That normally means trouble. My warning lights starts flashing.

There's a package for you waiting here. I'm looking for the invoice for customs purposes. Can I open it?

Sure, I said, hoping to quickly return to whatever I was doing.

There's no invoice inside. Strange. The value has been declared to be 100 dollars

100 dollars?

Yes. There's a machine inside the package. It's cute. Green.

GREEN? A GREEN MACHINE? 100 DOLLARS?

Yes.

DON'T MOVE. DON'T LET ANYONE ELSE SEE IT. LOCK THE DOORS. I'LL BE RIGHT THERE!

--> -->

As the alert reader has figured out by now, the machine inside the box was a prototype of the $100 laptop from the OLPC project. Since then, I've kept the machine close to me, but lots of people around here have seen it. The Opera geeks gathered around it at the Friday night beer bash. Someone suggested testing to see if the machine could keep running in rough environments. For example, would the rubbery keyboard withstand beer? Better not try.

Invariably, the machine gets attention. It attracts people more than any other unit I've seen. (Only Wii comes close.) People want to see it, touch it, and feel it. They want to know why the USB ports are placed where they are (on both sides of the screen), how the SD card can be inserted (the SD port is under the screen), and where the crank is. The crank, meant to generate power to run the machine, was part of an early design. It has been replaced with a foot pedal which is still under construction. However, it seems that people somehow got emotionally attached to the hand crank and want it back.

Once the machine is turned on, a Linux boot sequence appears. Red Hat is one of the sponsors and the machine comes with a tuned version of Fedora. New boot images are published regularly, and the first thing to do was to install the latest build. All of this is documented at the project's Wiki. The next thing to do was to find a shell. The magical key combination is Alt-Shift-F11. However, the keys don't have function numbers and finding F11 requires counting. When you get it right, a shell appears and you can start typing. Typing would have been easier if my hands were smaller. That's a feature, not a bug.

For me, the next thing to do was to install Opera. This is also the reason why the OLPC people are kind enough to send us an early prototype: we want to make sure the machine has a choice of good browsers. The browser is easily the most important application on the machine. In fact, a modern browser is more than an application — it could be the platform onto which OLPC applications are built, like Opera Platform is for mobile phones. OLPC has decided to only include open source software on the machine. I have discussed this issue at length with Nicholas, Walter and Mako. At Opera, we think that what really counts is open standards. It's less important what runs inside the box as long as what crosses the wire is standards-compliant. They argue that, in an education project, students must be allowed to peek inside the box. That's nice, I say, but if Opera makes the difference between a usable or an unusable machine, perhaps you will reconsider?

Getting Opera to run was quite simp

Opera on the green machine

On Friday, I received a call from Opera's accounting department. That normally means trouble. My warning lights starts flashing.

There's a package for you waiting here. I'm looking for the invoice for customs purposes. Can I open it?

Sure, I said, hoping to quickly return to whatever I was doing.

There's no invoice inside. Strange. The value has been declared to be 100 dollars

100 dollars?

Yes. There's a machine inside the package. It's cute. Green.

GREEN? A GREEN MACHINE? 100 DOLLARS?

Yes.

DON'T MOVE. DON'T LET ANYONE ELSE SEE IT. LOCK THE DOORS. I'LL BE RIGHT THERE!

--> -->

As the alert reader has figured out by now, the machine inside the box was a prototype of the $100 laptop from the OLPC project. Since then, I've kept the machine close to me, but lots of people around here have seen it. The Opera geeks gathered around it at the Friday night beer bash. Someone suggested testing to see if the machine could keep running in rough environments. For example, would the rubbery keyboard withstand beer? Better not try.

Invariably, the machine gets attention. It attracts people more than any other unit I've seen. (Only Wii comes close.) People want to see it, touch it, and feel it. They want to know why the USB ports are placed where they are (on both sides of the screen), how the SD card can be inserted (the SD port is under the screen), and where the crank is. The crank, meant to generate power to run the machine, was part of an early design. It has been replaced with a foot pedal which is still under construction. However, it seems that people somehow got emotionally attached to the hand crank and want it back.

Once the machine is turned on, a Linux boot sequence appears. Red Hat is one of the sponsors and the machine comes with a tuned version of Fedora. New boot images are published regularly, and the first thing to do was to install the latest build. All of this is documented at the project's Wiki. The next thing to do was to find a shell. The magical key combination is Alt-Shift-F11. However, the keys don't have function numbers and finding F11 requires counting. When you get it right, a shell appears and you can start typing. Typing would have been easier if my hands were smaller. That's a feature, not a bug.

For me, the next thing to do was to install Opera. This is also the reason why the OLPC people are kind enough to send us an early prototype: we want to make sure the machine has a choice of good browsers. The browser is easily the most important application on the machine. In fact, a modern browser is more than an application — it could be the platform onto which OLPC applications are built, like Opera Platform is for mobile phones. OLPC has decided to only include open source software on the machine. I have discussed this issue at length with Nicholas, Walter and Mako. At Opera, we think that what really counts is open standards. It's less important what runs inside the box as long as what crosses the wire is standards-compliant. They argue that, in an education project, students must be allowed to peek inside the box. That's nice, I say, but if Opera makes the difference between a usable or an unusable machine, perhaps you will reconsider?

Getting Opera to run was quite simp

Opera on the green machine

On Friday, I received a call from Opera's accounting department. That normally means trouble. My warning lights starts flashing.

There's a package for you waiting here. I'm looking for the invoice for customs purposes. Can I open it?

Sure, I said, hoping to quickly return to whatever I was doing.

There's no invoice inside. Strange. The value has been declared to be 100 dollars

100 dollars?

Yes. There's a machine inside the package. It's cute. Green.

GREEN? A GREEN MACHINE? 100 DOLLARS?

Yes.

DON'T MOVE. DON'T LET ANYONE ELSE SEE IT. LOCK THE DOORS. I'LL BE RIGHT THERE!

--> -->

As the alert reader has figured out by now, the machine inside the box was a prototype of the $100 laptop from the OLPC project. Since then, I've kept the machine close to me, but lots of people around here have seen it. The Opera geeks gathered around it at the Friday night beer bash. Someone suggested testing to see if the machine could keep running in rough environments. For example, would the rubbery keyboard withstand beer? Better not try.

Invariably, the machine gets attention. It attracts people more than any other unit I've seen. (Only Wii comes close.) People want to see it, touch it, and feel it. They want to know why the USB ports are placed where they are (on both sides of the screen), how the SD card can be inserted (the SD port is under the screen), and where the crank is. The crank, meant to generate power to run the machine, was part of an early design. It has been replaced with a foot pedal which is still under construction. However, it seems that people somehow got emotionally attached to the hand crank and want it back.

Once the machine is turned on, a Linux boot sequence appears. Red Hat is one of the sponsors and the machine comes with a tuned version of Fedora. New boot images are published regularly, and the first thing to do was to install the latest build. All of this is documented at the project's Wiki. The next thing to do was to find a shell. The magical key combination is Alt-Shift-F11. However, the keys don't have function numbers and finding F11 requires counting. When you get it right, a shell appears and you can start typing. Typing would have been easier if my hands were smaller. That's a feature, not a bug.

For me, the next thing to do was to install Opera. This is also the reason why the OLPC people are kind enough to send us an early prototype: we want to make sure the machine has a choice of good browsers. The browser is easily the most important application on the machine. In fact, a modern browser is more than an application — it could be the platform onto which OLPC applications are built, like Opera Platform is for mobile phones. OLPC has decided to only include open source software on the machine. I have discussed this issue at length with Nicholas, Walter and Mako. At Opera, we think that what really counts is open standards. It's less important what runs inside the box as long as what crosses the wire is standards-compliant. They argue that, in an education project, students must be allowed to peek inside the box. That's nice, I say, but if Opera makes the difference between a usable or an unusable machine, perhaps you will reconsider?

Getting Opera to run was quite simp

Opera on the green machine

On Friday, I received a call from Opera's accounting department. That normally means trouble. My warning lights starts flashing.

There's a package for you waiting here. I'm looking for the invoice for customs purposes. Can I open it?

Sure, I said, hoping to quickly return to whatever I was doing.

There's no invoice inside. Strange. The value has been declared to be 100 dollars

100 dollars?

Yes. There's a machine inside the package. It's cute. Green.

GREEN? A GREEN MACHINE? 100 DOLLARS?

Yes.

DON'T MOVE. DON'T LET ANYONE ELSE SEE IT. LOCK THE DOORS. I'LL BE RIGHT THERE!

--> -->

As the alert reader has figured out by now, the machine inside the box was a prototype of the $100 laptop from the OLPC project. Since then, I've kept the machine close to me, but lots of people around here have seen it. The Opera geeks gathered around it at the Friday night beer bash. Someone suggested testing to see if the machine could keep running in rough environments. For example, would the rubbery keyboard withstand beer? Better not try.

Invariably, the machine gets attention. It attracts people more than any other unit I've seen. (Only Wii comes close.) People want to see it, touch it, and feel it. They want to know why the USB ports are placed where they are (on both sides of the screen), how the SD card can be inserted (the SD port is under the screen), and where the crank is. The crank, meant to generate power to run the machine, was part of an early design. It has been replaced with a foot pedal which is still under construction. However, it seems that people somehow got emotionally attached to the hand crank and want it back.

Once the machine is turned on, a Linux boot sequence appears. Red Hat is one of the sponsors and the machine comes with a tuned version of Fedora. New boot images are published regularly, and the first thing to do was to install the latest build. All of this is documented at the project's Wiki. The next thing to do was to find a shell. The magical key combination is Alt-Shift-F11. However, the keys don't have function numbers and finding F11 requires counting. When you get it right, a shell appears and you can start typing. Typing would have been easier if my hands were smaller. That's a feature, not a bug.

For me, the next thing to do was to install Opera. This is also the reason why the OLPC people are kind enough to send us an early prototype: we want to make sure the machine has a choice of good browsers. The browser is easily the most important application on the machine. In fact, a modern browser is more than an application — it could be the platform onto which OLPC applications are built, like Opera Platform is for mobile phones. OLPC has decided to only include open source software on the machine. I have discussed this issue at length with Nicholas, Walter and Mako. At Opera, we think that what really counts is open standards. It's less important what runs inside the box as long as what crosses the wire is standards-compliant. They argue that, in an education project, students must be allowed to peek inside the box. That's nice, I say, but if Opera makes the difference between a usable or an unusable machine, perhaps you will reconsider?

Getting Opera to run was quite simp

On any Mediawiki site, you can simply go to the page Special:Version and you'll see the licence, the version and any extensions that have been installed

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Special:Version Doesn't seem to be promising, so you can then check the code of the page to see if there's some kind of tag that they're using, alas, in this case it seems that they've disabled the standard TOC with a __NOTOC__ and manually built this one: http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php?title=OLPC_Human_ Interface_Guidelines&action=edit

I do agree though, the horizontal TOC representation looks like a better use of whitespace

On any Mediawiki site, you can simply go to the page Special:Version and you'll see the licence, the version and any extensions that have been installed

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Special:Version Doesn't seem to be promising, so you can then check the code of the page to see if there's some kind of tag that they're using, alas, in this case it seems that they've disabled the standard TOC with a __NOTOC__ and manually built this one: http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php?title=OLPC_Human_ Interface_Guidelines&action=edit

I do agree though, the horizontal TOC representation looks like a better use of whitespace

The link to the OLPC Human Interface Guidelines shows a horizontally oriented graphical table of contents - colored table cells to contain links to each section. And then whole page is rendered with with all of the editable sections rendered to show visual containment inside a bunch of DIVs, w/forward/backward nav, etc. Does anyone know if that is core, or some type of mediawiki extension? I'd like to experiment with it further. Can someone point me to the source of that extension for mediawiki? Its very interesting.

is the one that hasn't been usability tested yet.

from http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Ask_OLPC_a_Question
"There is very little public information about requirements gathering, usability and user testing. In other words, how do you know whether the OLPC (i) will meet your users' needs and (ii) is easy enough for them to use? Have the target user groups been characterized? What ongoing plans do you have for this? I`d Like test the OLPC in Argentina, Please contct with me to know how. Thanks.

        As far as I know, there are two local groups in Argentina with test boards (don't know if anybody has the 2B1/XO prototypes though). They are Ututo and Tuquito. I know Ututo had some explicit arrangements to let other people use/test the boards. If anybody knows about other groups (or about any local XOs) please let me know (or post in the OLPC Argentina pages. --Xavi 07:23, 6 December 2006 (EST)"

Before you go off spouting that you've designed a radical new UI that's better than anything else you might want to usability test it. Now I couldn't find anything on the link to Ututo and the link to Tuquito doesn't seem to have any English content but from the answer to the question it doesn't sound like there's a real plan for user testing a radical new UI that will be given to people who, according to the HIG are young and inexperienced.

To the designer's credit both of those criteria (young and inexperienced) give you the best possible scenario for introducing a new UI since children are more willing to play around and experiment and inexperienced computer users don't have the legacy of using an OS that worked any different from what you're giving them. Even with those advantages I'd hope that a project that is intended for a global audience would have more substantial usability testing plans than "lets give a couple to some people in Argentina and see what they think". I'm certainly not going to go all gaga over an untested UI that starts by throwing out decades of learning about how people interact with software.

You say you've been hearing about the project for a long time, but that's not the same as knowing a lot about it. A few reasons these laptops won't be stolen:

1) There isn't much first world demand for them, since first worlders will be able to get a lot more computer for a couple hundred dollars more.

2) The computers are somewhat underpowered for many uses, so people in the third world who have money won't want them much either.

3) Have you seen them? Built for tiny hands, with a very distinctive profile. You see one of these suckers at the flea market, everyone around you will know that somewhere along the line it was stolen from a child.

4) The project itself is working on security features that will disable the computer if it goes too long without being in range of the school.

It sounds like you think "they haven't put a lot of thought into it" because you haven't been reading the thinking they *have* been putting into it.

the $100.00 laptop project might be of some interest to you. It sounds like you may be just the sort of project they are working with these days. http://wiki.laptop.org/ http://www.laptop.org/ I beleive there is a prodgram here as well... but i think it is mostly old/recycled hardware. http://www.marketvelocity.com/

the $100.00 laptop project might be of some interest to you. It sounds like you may be just the sort of project they are working with these days. http://wiki.laptop.org/ http://www.laptop.org/ I beleive there is a prodgram here as well... but i think it is mostly old/recycled hardware. http://www.marketvelocity.com/

map of countries that are considering support: http://www.laptop.org/map.en_US.html The United States is listed as "currently seeking government support". I am from the United States. I am complaining. What is your point, again?

I think that's great, but I don't believe they, or any one organization has the resources to assess and meet application needs of users.

If there are answers beyond what you posted above, I would love to see the link.

Even on the One Laptop Per Child site there is a creepy anecdote -- related as if it exemplified a positive benefit -- about how some poor family in Cambodia used the hand-cranked laptop's screen as a source of light for their abode.

Note that in many locations in the world, the backlight will be the first artificial illumination many families will have (besides a fire). How people will use these systems will fascinate us all.

...you can look up stuff.

Might I recommend the OLPC home page for starters - which is where you end up if you type "one laptop per child" in pretty much any search engine (or your browser's search bar, if you have one)?

Take ten seconds to learn about something before commenting on it, and you will look like a genius compared to most people around here. Your question is answered in the WIKI, and probably about ten thousand other places already.

...you can look up stuff.

Might I recommend the OLPC home page for starters - which is where you end up if you type "one laptop per child" in pretty much any search engine (or your browser's search bar, if you have one)?

Take ten seconds to learn about something before commenting on it, and you will look like a genius compared to most people around here. Your question is answered in the WIKI, and probably about ten thousand other places already.

Point and click is intuitive. There is no reason to gimp their experiance by giving them a "custom" UI that isn't mainstream (non-Windows/OSX/KDE/Gnome). A touchpad directly translates to a screen. A press directly translates to an action. This isn't difficult. It mirrors real life. Kids are smart, don't underestimate their capabilities to figure things out quickly. By giving them a UI thats almost toylike and doesn't translate to any mainstream OS they will (hopefully) be using by the time they are adults in a more modern society (that is the goal, yes?) they are a step behind where they should be ...

As to the commit level, it doesn't matter. Any additional cost is unwanted and detrimental. Especially when there is no added value over what currently exists.

Maybe, maybe not. The official Wiki says that Windows will be an option: OLPC is working with Red Hat on a Linux kernel for the machine, but we are opening up the design; it is inevitable that there will be several variants of Linux to choose from, as well as some version of Windows, and perhaps an OS X offering. reference And check out GNUWINCE for a POSIX environment for Windows CE.

Again, CE will run blazing fast on this device, it runs on cell phones and blackberries, and already has Word/Excel/Powerpoint/Paint. For $3 I would think a lot of governments would give it some serious thought, and Microsoft would give it some serious discounts.

There is no point in putting Windows just for the sake of putting Windows if there are no apps that would fit on it. Such as http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Software_components#Appl ications_.28and_ports.29_under_development_for_B2

Agreed.

MSFT will have a fun time selling it to the governments. "For only $300 you can have a copy of Vista CE on it!" "But, the laptop only costs $100!!!"

Not only that but I doubt OLPC will support machines running Windows. They're spending quite a bit of time porting applications to the OLPC look-and-feel (as well as making it literally fit on the device) see this for the entire tree. So what happens when in the field WinCE locks up and the device won't reboot or whatever. Does MSFT send a field agent to some remote third world nation to re-flash a schools worth of laptops?

Tom

As a OLPC contributor (see this) and as a friend of an OLPC staffer, I have to say this is a pointless endeavour. The OLPC staff won't use Windows because it's too insecure, and isn't free.

Remember, they want to send MILLIONS of laptops into the field and avoid downtime caused by viruses, bugs, overflows, etc. The laptops are going to be hardened down quite a bit so even if a user app is exploited the laptop as a whole is still ok. They're using GNU/Linux for more reasons than the fact it costs $0 to license. They have to be able to recover from flaws in the field, of which they want to have precious few of.

And besides, even if Windows were secure, they would have to give away fully functional copies for FREE to make the budget. Even charging OLPC $1 for the license would hurt the budget ($1 * millions of laptops == no good). In short, there isn't really a "market" here other than trying to expose another generation to inferior software.

Tom

Whatever I might think of the technical and design features of MS software it does get the job done not to mention it's extreme ubiquity means that knowing how to use windows is a more useful skill than knowing how to use some random other interface.

So you're suggesting that the under-developed world should similarly spawn generations of clueless lusers who "know" the interface (to the degree any interface today is substantively different from another) and measure their knowledge in terms of how fast they can can click and point, or memorising what, by default, is listed on the menus?

Hopefully more companies start taking a long term view of things and donating their products to the third world to prepare for when they become consumers.

Indeed. So the goal of the potent learning tool [designed so that] the emerging world can leapfrog decades of development--immediately transforming the content and quality of their children's learning is to enable them to become consumers? Dunno about you, but I tend to be optimistic when it comes to kids, and trust in the belief that, given the chance, they could grow up to become anything. My guess is that if you asked a randomly-selected child targetted by this program what they want to be when they grow up, they might say something like astronaut, or scientist. Aspiring to become an office drone, or a consumer, happens only at a later age, when you've forgotten your own potential or settled for something less.

Sorry to sound so critical, but your argument has taken Teach a Man to Fish, and reduced it to Teach a Man to Recognise a Fish, and then reduced even further to Teach a Man How to Buy a Fish with his Credit Card. Computers are an increasingly large part of our daily lives. Maybe we should be encouraging people to actually learn something about them and the world they're creating around us, to say nothing of what else is freely available? Or at least give them the opportunity.

As for the article, I'm not surprised, but that doesn't mean I'm any less disturbed by a monopoly with a living history of crushing anything and everything that threatens its bottom line becoming involved with a project that offers freedom and knowledge. Then, again, that monopoly is chaired by a philanthropist, so now worries, right?

How do you know the OLPC program is a failure? What criteria were set for it to be a success that it hasn't met yet?

Why do children in developing nations need laptops?
Laptops are both a window and a tool: a window into the world and a tool with which to think. They are a wonderful way for all children to learn learning through independent interaction and exploration.

Why is it important for each child to have a computer? What's wrong with community-access centers?
One does not think of community pencils--kids have their own. They are tools to think with, sufficiently inexpensive to be used for work and play, drawing, writing, and mathematics. A computer can be the same, but far more powerful. Furthermore, there are many reasons it is important for a child to own something--like a football, doll, or book--not the least of which being that these belongings will be well-maintained through love and care.

The OLPC may fail, but it hasn't failed yet and it is silly to describe it as having failed before it's even been tried.

How do you know the OLPC program is a failure? What criteria were set for it to be a success that it hasn't met yet?

Why do children in developing nations need laptops?
Laptops are both a window and a tool: a window into the world and a tool with which to think. They are a wonderful way for all children to learn learning through independent interaction and exploration.

Why is it important for each child to have a computer? What's wrong with community-access centers?
One does not think of community pencils--kids have their own. They are tools to think with, sufficiently inexpensive to be used for work and play, drawing, writing, and mathematics. A computer can be the same, but far more powerful. Furthermore, there are many reasons it is important for a child to own something--like a football, doll, or book--not the least of which being that these belongings will be well-maintained through love and care.

The OLPC may fail, but it hasn't failed yet and it is silly to describe it as having failed before it's even been tried.

According to the OLPC wiki the concept is more than simply giving computers to children "to somehow make them learn more." Instead they write: "While the technical aspects create a platform for change, the real benefits will come from improved educational practice enabled by immersive access to connected laptops." So, no claim that simply giving children laptops lets schools off the hook.

The OLPC advances an idea (to me somewhat orthogonal to basic educational practice) that connecting laptops connects the students together in ways that gives rise to other beneficial effects. Since we're all sitting here reading Slashdot it's an easy analogy -- Slashdot creates a community with a shared common interest, but with diverse opinions on those interests, and at the end of the day it's that diversity that is of interest. We read to learn what others think. So OLPC (ought to) create a means for children to interact with other children with the same effect, but on many other topics besides "news for nerds." And that sounds like a fine idea to me.

Mesh networking and activities.

That's why.

To elaborate - OLPC are not trying to simply ship cheap PC laptops. They're trying to provide a completely new platform of usability. It's not just about window manager, it's about how OLPCs should be used.

Basically, OLPC laptops have low-powered high-range WLAN cards which automatically configure network in a peer-to-peer mesh. Most features of Sugar interface are directly built with mesh networking and shared activities in mind, and most applications are encouraged to be able to work the same way.

Other reasons are technological, but other way around than you mentioned. For example, the Home screen (one of the optional views on Sugar, mostly equivalent to desktop as most of us would know it) has built-in task manager (called activity ring), represented in a circle around the XO human figure. It's also a visual feedback of memory constraints (128 MB RAM), and it provides means for resource management that doesn't require knowledge of the underlying architecture.

For more information about its interface, http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Human_Interface_Gui delines is a nice read.

Text processor is AbiWord. It's not consistent with the rest of OLPC interface, but don't forget that the entire interface is still in testing and development phase.

I don't understand the reason for the new user interface? It can't be due to resource limits...

It can, and in part it is. Flash space and RAM are limited, but the biggest UI resource limit is the display. It's a solid 1200x900 in monochrome mode, but the color resolution is more complicated. I haven't heard a number. Let's say it's in the neighborhood of 600x450. Existing Linux user interfaces don't scale down very well.

I don't agree it must be dumbed down - I started programming on a VIC-20 where almost anything remotely interesting required lots of PEEK/POKE. I was 5 at the time, and didn't know a word of English. By the time I was 7 we got a C64, and I could program it better than my dad (who wrote programs for it as part of work) within months. I was an exception among my friends, but even the ones that didn't take up programming had no problems picking up whatever they needed to do what they wanted to with the machine.

It's adults without computer experience that needs dumbed down interfaces, not children. All you need is some examples they can copy and modify to get them started.

Actually, although the youtube demo shows mostly everything, you can try it yourself using emulation (it runs on a x86 after all).
Intructions are here. It uses QEMU and a special 100Mb system image.

Happy slashdotting...

Even further out I see computers very much becoming small grid computers unto themselves,

Yeah, these Fusion chips will make the second-generation OLPC kick serious ass !

The hardware design has been finalised (modulo minor bug fixes, I suppose) and working samples have been delivered. The laptops are not meant to be subsidised; they're supposed to be sold for production cost plus a small %age for the manufacturer. The production cost will depend on the spot price of memory and probably on the size of the order, hence the lack of a precise price.

Applications for the program had to be submitted by senior government officials, e.g., Minister of Education, with the expectation that up to 1 million laptops would be deployed in each country that was accepted. As others have noted, the countries selected for the initial round are not the world's poorest countries, but rather developing countries that are able to support the project in a meaningful way. These countries include Brazil, Argentina, Thailand, Libya, and Nigeria. There's a lot of information about the project, including a Wiki, at http://www.laptop.org/

There's some interesting technology in these machines, including the wind-up battery and the mesh network capability. It's also notable that the operating system is a variant of RedHat Linux. Millions of children will see a Linux desktop in their first exposure to a computer. That also means Firefox rather than IE as a browser.

I'm very anxious to see how this project works in its first deployments. I can think of some areas of the US that would also benefit from this project. If OLPC is a big success elsewhere, it could push the US Department of Education to put the US in the same category as these developing countries so that American kids in impoverished areas can also benefit from this project.

Here's why we should all stop and think about how we intend technology to be put to use. This is a quote from the project's home page:

"Recent work with schools in Maine has shown the huge value of using a laptop across all of one's studies, as well as for play. Bringing the laptop home engages the family. In one Cambodian village where we have been working, there is no electricity, thus the laptop is, among other things, the brightest light source in the home."

There's so many flaws in their reasoning I'll just let that speak for itself. Maybe they should just go back to developing computers for schools in Maine.

http://www.laptop.org/faq.en_US.html

a family using the glow from the laptop's screen as the only source of light in their hut.

I wonder if this writer has ever been to the third world. This is simply disgusting. Yes sure, everyone in Africa still lives in huts, and Eskimos live in igloos, etc. Careful, you may be eaten by cannibals while you're out there, too! While there still are some few extremely poor indiginous communities who lack even electricity, I doubt they would have any use for a laptop - even as a source of light.

You seem to have missed the fact that it is the OLPC program, not MSN, that originated that reference: "In one Cambodian village where we have been working, there is no electricity, thus the laptop is, among other things, the brightest light source in the home." - http://www.laptop.org/faq.en_US.html

>> a family using the glow from the laptop's screen as the only source of light in their hut.
> I wonder if this writer has ever been to the third world.

Er, the quote above came from the OLPC web site itself.
http://www.laptop.org/faq.en_US.html

"And in today's world the real value of a computer is it being networked," says Zachary. "Finding a network in the poor areas is either impossible or very expensive."

What about connectivity? Aren't telecommunications services expensive in the developing world?

When these machines pop out of the box, they will make a mesh network of their own, peer-to-peer. This is something initially developed at MIT and the Media Lab. We are also exploring ways to connect them to the backbone of the Internet at very low cost.

The hand crank was there in early prototypes but the actual shipping units will use an off-board human-power system, connected to the power brick. Candidates include a foot-pedal charger similar to the Freecharge portable charger.

A screenshot of the fake color.

Looks pretty real to me. Perhaps you can clarify what you mean by 'faked'.

Wrong.(Don't ya hate it when people correct you this way!)

From http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Our_market

Will OLPC spin-off a commercial subsidiary?

The idea is that a commercial subsidiary could manufacture and sell a variation of the OLPC in the developed world. These units would be marked up so that there would be a significant profit which can be plowed into providing more units in countries who cannot afford the full cost of one million machines.

The discussions around this have talked about a retail price of 3× the cost price of the units.

Found this in the OLPCWiki:

Will OLPC spin-off a commercial subsidiary?
The idea is that a commercial subsidiary could manufacture and sell a variation of the OLPC in the developed world. These units would be marked up so that there would be a significant profit which can be plowed into providing more units in countries who cannot afford the full cost of one million machines.
The discussions around this have talked about a retail price of 3× the cost price of the units.

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

Nice to know I'd be thinking of the children rather that stealing their laptops...

DN

the idea of sufficiently upgrading my current system has been well outside my grasp for some time now.

The OLPC are very low end laptops, not remotely like a full featured one.

They serve a minimal purpose, they are just a first step.

You might read the specs and find the PC your using is better than a OLPC unit.

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

On another note to get PC parts cheap, you might hit Ebay.com and www.pricewatch.com

The target child, who isn't starving, eats his food (that's already there before the laptop ever entered the scene) and pedals his laptop and creates a link in the mesh network that enables children farther from the Internet link to communicate. He looks up the how-to on hydro-from-junk and he and his teenage sister build a microturbine from a 2 liter soda-bottle and then they don't have to pedal anything any more and the mesh is up 24x7.

Some other child, who IS starving, who somehow got a laptop even though there aren't any being distributed to starving children, is now able to link to the Internet even though he's 200 miles from the nearest Internet link. He finds out how to make a solar cooker from trash, reducing deforestation in his area and allowing him to barter the fuel he gathers for more food instead of burning it, or spend his time building cookers for his neighbors instead of gathering fuel. Or he finds out what locally valueless resource he can sell to the next tribe down and becomes the classic Alger rags-to-riches hero. Or he does something we can't anticipate, using local intellectual resources we don't know about, because he's part of the largest free wireless communications network there is, built by and for children who live in conditions we don't have to endure.

You are arguing against a fantasy that you've built up in your mind, where OLPC is about giving computers to people with no food. That's not what's happening, and even if it was it wouldn't hurt anyone because they could sell the technology for food - a generator is worth money everywhere, even where people are starving. There's isn't actually any wind-up laptop, you know - that idea went out the window early in the design stage - these machines come with a separate foot-powered generator that is easily driven from a pulley.

As for the zealotry and demogougery (I like that word, incidentally, though I assume it's a typo) you're the one who started the demagoguery duel we're embroiled in. You started it with the "stop wasting resources we could use to feed the starving children" schtick, and continued it by saying things about OLPC that simply are not true.

This is my opinion, but the One Laptop Per Child Project is making a good fight. Soon we will have a full system that is Linux compatible down to the core of the hardware. I am continually amazed at the boundries that they are breaking. The project may not be totally open right now, but they are feeding back their improvements back to the open source community. One thing that is stronger in my view is the information sharing between the development groups.

I would set more people up with Linux, but I wonder if their printers are supported and I am not good enough to help them with that yet. Also, maybe with AMD buying ATI we can get some more graphic driver support.

Just my $0.02 cents.

Why should the federal government do what is the purview of the local government?

One thing I wonder about OLPC's product, what educational programs do these laptops have installed?

According to one of the official pages on their wiki, they are considering a commercial spin-off that will make the laptops available to buy, but it doesn't seem to have gotten much further than "considering" yet. They are holding off on even dealing with non-government organizations and foundations until after the initial launch, so I doubt they will be spinning anything off before then:

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