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Quote From OLPC WIKI http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Home

"A recent article in DesktopLinux reported that four countries have each committed to buy 1 million laptops. The OLPC spokesperson was misquoted: no agreement had been signed. We continue to cooperate with Thailand, Brasil, Argentina, and Nigeria, but no one has committed to purchase laptops nor has OLPC asked anyone to sign a purchase agreement yet. We apologize for any confusion."

I guess the kids in third world countries that were assembling the laptops will now have to go back to the NIKE factory.

According to Laptop.org, the OLPC spokesthingie was misquoted: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Talk:News

And it is worth adding that education, nutrition and all the other factors that go toward a good educational environment vary across the country. So there are going to be areas where the children are adequately fed and literate and others where they simply aren't.

Let me make a few prediction:
      * The laptops will come out and there will be a flurry of positive articles.
      * A few months down the track there will be a spate of articles arguing it has been a failure because the laptops are breaking, being stolen, not used and the software isn't translated or culturally appropriate. It will conclude with estimates about how many laptops are actually still functional and being used.
      * Some years down the track after people have really come to terms with what is useful some hard nosed analysis will demonstrate a worth while positive return for those countries but probably not vastly overwhelming.

I do think the project is worthwhile: but it isn't easy. At least they are realistic:

The success of the project in the face of overwhelming global diversity will only be possible by embracing openness and by providing the laptop's users and developers a profound level of freedom.

Big projects like this aren't usually about a single given result: "Look! A million laptops! Our work here is done.". It is about changing how things happen- a change in processes. Ideally this will allow more effective distribution of good educational ideas (write the software and distribute), a tighter feedback loop on what works (because distribution is easier and it is possible to get feedback through software), more sharing between countries (both recipient and wealthy countries) and a huge number of 'niche' education opportunities- beyond a certain point users can go and find resources wherever they happen to be on the Internet. None of this is a panacea but hopefully it will make more effective use of scarce educational resources.

The nice thing about stuff like this is that it allows many different approaches to be taken. Most will fail, some will work. That experimentation will take some time but shows promise compared to the traditional education system which is good- but how much better could it be? That isn't a slam dunk: it is hard to beat face to face education. But if you can't afford the best face to face education this looks like a worthwhile approach to try.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Home
"no one has committed to purchase laptops nor has OLPC asked anyone to sign a purchase agreement yet. "

You people should OLPC website more.

  The laptop will only have 500mb flash drive, 128mb dram, 500mhz amd processor, wireless network, and linux. It probaly uses DSL or some form of it since it only needs 50mb flash drive and 128mb of ram. The screen on it is similar to cheap dvd players. So, how much could something like that cost?

Read more at their site.

You may have seen others say it by now, but I'll give you the link to the olpc environment, sugar, again (on a website with lots of potential contributors, this link cannot be pasted too many times): http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar

The enviornment is Python not Squeak.

The distribution and libraries are all open source, published and out there - and there's already a simulator which can do things like the dual-mode screen. Have a hunt around their Wiki - particularly the software section for you, I'd guess, and you should find everything you want. People to develop software for it is exactly what they want and need from us - go ahead, jump in!

The distribution and libraries are all open source, published and out there - and there's already a simulator which can do things like the dual-mode screen. Have a hunt around their Wiki - particularly the software section for you, I'd guess, and you should find everything you want. People to develop software for it is exactly what they want and need from us - go ahead, jump in!

It should be mentioned that a common criticism of the project is to say, "What poor people need is food and shelter, not laptops." This comment, however, is ignorant of conditions in improvished nations around the world. While it is true there are many people in the world who definitely need food and shelter, there are multitudes of people who live in rural or sub-urban areas and have plenty to eat and reasonable accommodations. What these people don't have is a decent shot at a good education.

The proposed $100 machine will be a Linux-based, with a dual-mode display--both a full-color, transmissive DVD mode, and a second display option that is black and white reflective and sunlight-readable at 3× the resolution. The laptop will have a 500MHz processor and 128MB of DRAM, with 500MB of Flash memory; it will not have a hard disk, but it will have four USB ports. The laptops will have wireless broadband that, among other things, allows them to work as a mesh network; each laptop will be able to talk to its nearest neighbors, creating an ad hoc, local area network. The laptops will use innovative power (including wind-up) and will be able to do most everything except store huge amounts of data.

You're assuming a "as it commonly is used" use of computers in the classroom. That's not what OLPC is about at all. It's not just about putting laptops in schools, is about changing the teaching methods by using them for what computers were made for: programming simulations, controlling systems, etc. Check out http://www.squeakersfilm.org/>this movie and especially http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php/Learning_Learning >Papert's section on OLPC website

As some of us may know there is a project named One-Laptop-Per-Child that wants to "evolutionize how we educate the world's children".
They chose Redhat OS for their system after offers from MS and Apple to prevent monopoly and restrictions they will imply, and to protect children to be dependent to one company even for a charity like job like this.
I hope they spend some amounts for this project if they want to make some benefit for humanity.

As some of us may know there is a project named One-Laptop-Per-Child that wants to "evolutionize how we educate the world's children".
They chose Redhat OS for their system after offers from MS and Apple to prevent monopoly and restrictions they will imply, and to protect children to be dependent to one company even for a charity like job like this.
But transferring so much money to a monopoly established charity foundation like gate's does not sounds good.
They can simply offer too much charity to poor people of their own products and just make them dependent to some companies.
Offering that amount of money as charity is not simply a good thing to do. The way you will spend it shows the real value of it not the amount of it.

to retrofit it to work without the crank, which nobody in this country will want to use.

Power: 2-pin DC-input, 10 to 25 V, -23 to -10 V

What is the flash memory? Is it just a CF card? If so can it fit CF Type II cards?

Don't keep it in your car. High temperatures degrade Li-ion batteries.

Just look at the map

Interest seems worldwide.

I've looked through all their websites, and they don't clearly indicate if these laptops are for the dirt poor or for the middle class.

They are fairly clear that they are looking for national ministries of education to purchase them in bulk and distribute them nationally through schools on the basis of "one laptop per child", not only is this goal reflected in the name of the project (One Laptop Per Child), but detailed more specifically in the FAQ:

How will these be marketed? The laptops will be sold to governments and issued to children by schools on a basis of one laptop per child. Initial discussions have been held with China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria, and Thailand. An additional, modest allocation of machines will be used to seed developer communities in a number of other countries. A commercial version of the machine will be explored in parallel.

Another way of thinking about is that a 1GB MP3 player has RAM, flash RAM, CPU, circuit board, and external jacks, and can be had for under $100 retail, with a tidy profit for the manufacturer. Adding a keyboard and a touchpad would be only a few dollars; a wireless chip is a few dollars; add a $35 display and a plastic case and again, you're there under $200, retail. So I think this is believable. I've gone over it a number of times in my head, and I'm convinced the reason we don't all have one is that the manufacturers know the vast majority of current customers spending $1000 on a laptop wouldn't bother if they had one of these. And THAT is the reason, I believe, why Negroponte keeps telling us that we won't be able to buy one. It isn't because it wouldn't be profitable, it isn't because the factory couldn't build out enough capacity (are you kidding?). It's because it would be like GE selling light bulbs that last 100 years, or Gillette selling razors that never get dull.
"Killing the goose that laid the golden egg", as they say. For this project to succeed, the only real hurdle is convincing the developed world that they have to (or at least should) keep paying high prices for consumer electronics while the developing world gets the same thing for cheap (well, better, really -- who wouldn't want a laptop that doesn't break when you drop it and doesn't run out of power on the plane?)

They have. http://www.laptop.org/map.en_US.html Most countries in the world have already expressed interest in this education project.

About your chat extension. No extensions needed. The planned default is a UI based on chat. http://www.eschoolnews.com/eti/2006/05/001414.php

Manufacturing will begin when 5 to 10 million machines have been ordered and paid for in advance.

Looks like a lot of room for corruption to creep into the system. They also said their primary target for customers are governments; when have governments ever paid in advance? :)

Did they modify the design of the green model ?? They design at the homepage of olpc shows the screen standing on a standard that can fold nicely into the back, thus enabling it for e-book use. A video showed the laptop to be detached from the screen (usb I guess) .... I serliously wand that model (INCLUDING sling windup option !) However, seeing the pics at the link from slashdot it seems to be very different.

all modes are still available in this prototype, see the pictures page of the OLPC site:
http://www.laptop.org/download.en_US.html

from what ive read, its a SEVEN inch screen. just look at the pictures, this computer is almost a pda, its very very small. look at this picture here, this is a little kids hands and the thing still looks small compared to them.

http://www.laptop.org/en_US/laptop-handside.jpg

The USD 100 laptop hardware specs can be found here for the sake of completeness.

There are actually at least four different design concepts for this marvelous project.
So the one shown by Peter is just one.
I think that the crank operated recharger is an important feature that the orange design is missing.

Odd, if you look at picture http://www.laptop.org/en_US/blue-front.jpg
you can obviously see the crank handle on the side tucked in.

At http://www.flickr.com/photos/pete/152018285/in/set -72057594143224765/
it looks like the handle is broken off..

http://www.laptop.org/map.en_US.html gives a colour coded map of planned distribution areas

and from the FAQ (laptop.org/faq.en_US.html):

The proposed $100 machine will be a Linux-based, with a dual-mode display--both a full-color, transmissive DVD mode, and a second display option that is black and white reflective and sunlight-readable at 3× the resolution. The laptop will have a 500MHz processor and 128MB of DRAM, with 500MB of Flash memory; it will not have a hard disk, but it will have four USB ports. The laptops will have wireless broadband that, among other things, allows them to work as a mesh network; each laptop will be able to talk to its nearest neighbors, creating an ad hoc, local area network. The laptops will use innovative power (including wind-up) and will be able to do most everything except store huge amounts of data.

Check this for better pictures of these:

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

Still not sure what the "ears" are for.

does it run with a sling?

He refused to sell his notebooks to private citizens and corporations because as we know doing business is *evil*.

I was criticizing his management, not the idea at the base.

You attitude towards the "weight and complexity" of Java is also out of date. Early versions of Java had a reputation (deserved, alas) for being bloated and slow. But nowadays, the Java runtime isn't any heavier or more complex than most of the runtimes you need to run most of the software out there. Even a C++ program, if it has any features had all, has a heavy-duty runtime. Besides which, the optimizing features of Sun's Java VM adds power, it doesn't take it away.

In any case, the specs of the $100 laptop are not that bad. Aside from lacking a hard disk, it's not much less powerful than a typical laptop sold in the US about 5 years ago.

The $100 laptop project is being developed by a non-profit organization and is not intended to make a profit. That cuts out some percentage of markup--admittedly not a huge difference, since hardware tends to have slim margins, but still a difference. It is also innovative technically; they are using a dramatically less expensive LCD display.

"Realistic" is a fairly arbitrary term that means little in the context of an altruistic project like the $100 laptop initiative. If you want to be realistic, stop giving food to starving people, and Darwinian principles will prevail. However, compassionate people are not "realistic" in that sense.

I think the Chinese $150 PC is a nice idea, although it's certainly neither original nor all that attractively priced; you still need to buy a display, or have a very clear, sharp TV set that won't ruin your eyesight.

Walmart marketed a $199 linux PC for a while, though they seem to have discontinued it. Some people mentioned a similar Tigerdirect model, but I haven't found it on their site. You have to really look for these deals.

I suspect that as Linux matures and especially as Wine improves, the cheap Linux PC will make a comeback, though it's awfully hard to sell the public on something that works with about 50% of the stuff out there--devices, software, peripherals--when for another $50 you can get something that works with 90% or 100%. I just did my taxes using Turbotax 2005 running in Crossover/Wine on my fedora workstation, and while it basically worked, a few features such as help pop-ups were broken and I had to do a lot of manual data entry because the stock investments download feature didn't work perfectly. Would I pay $50 more to avoid this kind of aggravation? Of course and so would everyone else.

The other thing I would worry about is compatibility. Is it worth paying $150 for a machine that uses a non-Intel compatible CPU? Especially when slower Intel/AMD cpus can be had for quite cheap these days. If it's just a matter of national pride--it has to be all Chinese-built--well, come on, almost all computer parts are made in China already, so just go buy any PC you like--Lenovo, Dell, Toshiba--and chances are it'll be 80-90% Chinese content.

I get your point, but "How often do most people get to change the whole goddamn world? is a little over the top.

Jobs has changed an incredibly tiny piece of the world. He didn't revoke gravity or overthrow Batista or map the genome or teach Indonesian children to hate the USA and embrace terrorism. He browbeat some programmers into making some blinky lights arguably prettier and some interesting noises arguably more commonplace.

I'm betting Nick Negroponte will change the world more than Jobs, and I think that would be so even if computers had never been invented.

I work with embedded Linux, and we spend a fair amount of time stripping down the kernel and supporting applications to fit in a small space (usually 4mb of compressed memory). That's still pretty big, but the performance is nice. The AMD Geode GX2-533 that is in the first gen design is a relatively fast chip, I would have probably used an 200MHz Xscale if it were up to me. 512Mb of flash and 128Mb of RAM is a pretty serious amount of resources, which you'd want to use things like swap and file backed paging to make the best use of. (allows your shared libraries to actually be shared). If he wanted small perhaps L4 or if that was too light on features, NetBSD would have been a better choice. Personally I think the laptop is too powerful, it's almost as powerful as my own laptop. (plus it has a crank, which is cool)
Hardware specs for the initial OLPC

The $100 laptop doesn't have a hard disk. It'll initially have 512 MB flash storage.

Here's the problem:

http://wiki.laptop.org/wiki/One_Laptop_per_Child#T he_software

Their software partner is RedHat. I have much respect for RedHat - they have done amazing things for enterprise grade support of our beloved Penguin. But they are not lightweight. RedHat hasn't ever been about lightweight. That's not a condemnation, it's just not their area of expertise. I don't know if it's possible to break that tie to RedHat, or to get RedHat to agree to base the distro on something other than RedHat, but as long as square one is RedHat/Fedora, it is not going to work.

The project isn't aimed at starving kids in Africa.

DSL means Damn Small Linux.

The source code for the OLPC software is at: http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/proje cts/olpc/ This is the specific software that they will be using, not just a generic Red Hat distribution

Developers conference: "We are planning an international-developers conference to be held most probably in Singapore at the end of the year. As presently envisioned, the invitation-only meeting of a thousand or more developers would last from three to five days and focus on open-source, localization and educational-software issues." I'm sure if you were interested and contacted some people (check the "Contacts" page on the wiki and the "Getting Involved" page below) and had a genuine interest in helping that you could receive an invitation.

What work to do?: The wiki page "Getting involved in OLPC" http://wiki.laptop.org/wiki/Getting_involved_in_OL PC has lots of ways to help. If you can't find something here, I don't know what to say...

Best wishes and I hope it works out for you.

Here's my quick summary of the bios posted by this global education project at http://laptop.org/

Out of 19 people, apparently 4 were educated outside of the United States (3 in Europe, 1 in Middle East, 0 in Africa, 0 in Asia)
Not a single educator among them. (But several professors and researchers interested in education)
Not even somebody trained as an educator who now works in technology.

Principals
Technologist (media)- Negroponte
Technologist (displays) - Jepsen
Technologist (media/human interaction) - Bender
Technologist (network) - Bletsas
Technologist (hardware) - Foster
Technologist (software) - Gettys
Technologist (distributed multinational systems including IM) - Hassounah
Finance/Administration/Management - Fadel

Advisors
Artist - Allen
Technologist (displays and visual studies) - Bove
Technologist (technology/education intersection) - Cavallo
Technologist (open source software) - Mako Hill
Technologist (micro displays and imaging) - Jacobsen
Technologist (OOP and GUI design) - Kay
Musician (technology/music/education intersection) - Machover
Mathematician (AI, technology/pedagogy intersection) - Papert
Technologist (technology/education intersection) - Resnick
Technologist (ergonomics, design) - Selker
Technologist (audio, music) - Vercoe

There is a web site http://laptop.org/ with a wiki and links to the sourcecode (Red Hat servers). I'm sure they would appreciate your help. They are even have jobs available. (Try Google... it's great for finding out this type of information.)

It will? Where does it say that?

In the Hardware specification. This may increase by a factor of 4 the area covered by a machine in the mesh over the typical commercial laptop. Of course it's hard to know until a working prototype is built, but current laptop antennas are far from as efficient as they could be with better design. You know, for someone who likes to mock people for being uninformed, you sure get a lot of facts wrong.

Why not a desktop computer, or--even better--a recycled desktop machine?
Desktops are cheaper, but mobility is important, especially with regard to taking the computer home at night. Kids in the developing world need the newest technology, especially really rugged hardware and innovative software. 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.

Finally, regarding recycled machines: if we estimate 100 million available used desktops, and each one requires only one hour of human attention to refurbish, reload, and handle, that is forty-five thousand work years. Thus, while we definitely encourage the recycling of used computers, it is not the solution for One Laptop per Child.

Why not just give children cell phones?

While cell phones are inexpensive and there is growing convergence between the technologies of telephony and computing, there are some differences that make the distribution of cell phones the wrong path to follow. Remember, this is not just a connectivity project; it is a learning project. The display is tiny. Even if the information is beamed to a TV set, their are still two major problems: (1) half of the children in the world don't have electricity at home (and thus no TV); and (2) standard TV resolution is too low for reading books or looking at webpages for an extended period of time. It's possible with HDTV, but HD has very limited presence in the Third World and it is too expensive.
Cell phones are very limited in terms of their ability to foster a wide range of express and, unlike computing culture, which is as much about creating as consuming, phone culture is service oriented: you use a phone, you do not transform it. It is not a "thing to think with."

Maybe Mr Gates thinks that everyone is able to buy an IBM laptop, or even an SGI one, but even for second hand laptops, 100 is lots less that what it would cost you a P100 machine.

I liked very much the project and the designs, first the Green one, and on the website, I also like the blue one http://laptop.org/download.es.html

First thing I liked was screen based on eInk, allowing low power consuption crank-alternative power, and the power cord on the strap for carrying it, I will not enter to consider if computers is the thing they most need to improve their status, but having cheap computers, will allow to get lot's of e-books for stuying, getting more from the internet, and thus, enabling further knowledge adquisition than if they would need a book from a local library (supposing they have one).

At least, everytime I see some charity asking for books, they ask normally for used books, they may be not all equal, but at least, they have some contents that renders profitable for education.... having those computers, e-books for all childs and wireless communications would make easier access to education and to get peace.

And so, if Mr Gates consider they're useless, there's no problem on that, give us the $100 laptop, and buy $1000 Laptos for all children in need for one... (and some way to get electricity also...)

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

The only thing that helps others is letting them find or create their own opportunities to better their futures. Taking care of people today is counter-productive and can destroy opportunities in the future.

how is giving someone an otherwise useless hunk of metal, plastic, and silicon even remotely "taking care of them"? it becomes useful only if used to learn, and to communicate. is enabling people to learn and communicate "taking care of them"?

Computers don't make opportunities. Teachers don't make opportunities. Public funding of projects, businesses and markets doesn't make opportunities. Opportunities come when a given community finds that is can accomplish something that others in a market want.

computers, teachers, and public funding can ENABLE people to sieze opportunities that would otherwise be lost.

While I think Gates is right to mock these laptops,

no, he's wrong to mock these laptops. he mocks them because they run linux, and they follow a very logical design philosophy that gates's products aren't suitable for; and all this in emerging markets.

The Internet won't help here -- it isn't here to educate, it is here to help people meet each other's needs. The people using the Internet to better themselves are already living in an economy that enables them to find opportunities to better themselves. That realization is enough to give the average person the desire to make their lives better.

that paragraph is factually incorrect, conceptually vague, and barely coherent. the internet is here to do a lot of things, and one of them is to educate.

Many of the world's poor live under the thumb of a small group of elitists who think they can help the poor through force.

ah, i see the problem. you're reflexively looking at this issue through the distorting prism of your fierce libertarian and/or anarchist beliefs. this is just an opportunity for you to regale us with your political philosophy. why didn't you say so?

I hate helping others through tax-and-spend wealth redistribution: there is no accountability in how the money is spent.

see above.

I would never fund anyone in another country, never again. When I was younger I funded some Ehtiopian charity group, and a few years later had the opportunity to visit Ethiopia. The charity group's office was luxurious and the people working for it lived a very nice life. They found an opportunity: take advantage of idiots in other countries who can't hold the charity accountable.

so your anecdote proves that all foreign charities are shams.

The people the charity was meant to help received very little of the finance and support promised, and what little they did receive did not give them any hope for the future.

someone who is starving generally gets more hope for the future from a bag of grain than some motivational seminars on VHS.

It is this hope that creates opporunities. I've seen poor people climb out of poverty with no help from anyone, just because a simple opportunity opened up near them.

like, say, opening up to them a world of information, education, and communication for a hundred bucks?

I just visited Europe and Asia, and I saw thousands of very poor people taking advantage of opportunities that we in the U.S. would never consider doing. Many of these people realized their time investment could offer them the chance to save for the future, to give their children a better chance, to even save some money so they can better their own lives -- in the future. I would never give a homeless person a home, a car and a credit card. I would never give an uneducated person a computer or an education. I would never give a hungry person money to buy food. I would never fund health care of people who don'

This is not private citizens electing to fund a private charity. This is the United Nations
No, it IS NOT the UN.

http://laptop.org/faq.en_US.html
The $100 laptop is being developed by One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a Delaware-based, non-profit organization created by faculty members from the MIT Media Lab to design, manufacture, and distribute laptops that are sufficiently inexpensive to provide every child in the world access to knowledge and modern forms of education. OLPC is based on constructionist theories of learning pioneered by Seymour Papert and later Alan Kay, as well as the principles expressed in Nicholas Negroponte's book Being Digital. The founding corporate members are Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Brightstar, Google, News Corporation, Nortel, and Red Hat.

The majority of users of this laptop will NOT be in ultrapoor countries. I've heard China and Massachusetts.

Of course not. People who are actually starving have more urgent needs.

We're not being told exactly what support hardware, technology and support will be needed

The ideal is none. Thus the crank on some models (not all) to charge the battery, that Gates thought was for losers.
Otherwise, connectivity, "When these machines pop out of the box, they will make a mesh network of their own, peer-to-peer."

It is funny when you look at the "photos" on the official site and you notice (when you click the image) that the keyboard used on the mock-up has a Windows key.

It is funny when you look at the "photos" on the official site and you notice (when you click the image) that the keyboard used on the mock-up has a Windows key.