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How in the world do hackers get their hands on these

http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/index.php

db

I chose something similar.

Loaded Ubuntu, made everything work just right and gave them to a local shelter as ready to go network browsers. They were happy, no shipping charges and helps my community.

I know you were trying to be funny, but it's quite sad that these things are taken for granted and put to waste. Please visit the following link for what I think to be the best use of your laptops: http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/index.php

My only disappointment with the G1G1 program is that it wasn't G2G1, Give 2 Get 1. That could have resulted in more laptops in the hands of children, and fewer laptops in the hands of these complainers.
There's a G1G0 program.

If you received an email confirming your order, and you have not received a Fedex Tracking Number, we recommend:

1) Try the Order Tracker at http://laptopgiving.org/ using your original email address, OR your 10-digit reference number.

2) If that fails to clarify, please send:

        * Your 10-digit Reference / Order Number

(or PayPal confirmation number if you have no such records)

        * Order Date
        * Order Method (PayPal/Phone)
        * Shipping Address
        * Day and Evening Phone numbers

to Help [at] laptop [dot] org with SHIPPING and your Reference/Confirmation Number in the subject line of your email

Microsoft does hire bright minds. It's a pity what they do to them. And with them.

As for poorly trying to attack the NT platform for multi-tasking,...

The "NT platform" didn't invent multitasking. They cribbed it from the Mach kernel with the help of Dave Cutler. That's what they meant by "Unix underpinnings". Unfortunately, like a psychotic french chef, they'll adopt the best recipe for bouillabaisse but they don't like the flavor until they pee in it. The result was so hideously insecure it nearly broke the Internet - and that's saying something. The Internet was designed to survive nuclear war, but Code Red nearly broke it. I will concede that NT was the first useful Windows platform - but not that better alternatives didn't exist even then.

You evade the point that by the time NT came out in 1992, Unix had had multitasking for more than 20 years. Let's not forget your statement, shall we?:

assuming Windows users were like Mac users and were only capable of running one application at a time...

... As if .mac were the only alternative. Lovely. Say what you want about .mac and nobody cares. OS X is Unix. When Windows is a Unix, get back to me, k? Did you know OS X server has drag and drop clustering, and network imaging built right in? I didn't think so.

Disparage Apple's video playback all you want. I don't care for any DRM'd format so you're not going to bother me. I would bet a week's pay you couldn't decode a token string into a framebuffer using only the specification and C between now and the end of your pitiful existence, but I can and you miss the point: iTunes users care enough to avoid Vista, and that's the only thing saving this post from being off topic.

If you want to further try to argue the multi-tasking issue as a Windows Vista issue, go look up BeOS...

Cute. You're bringing up BeOS. You don't even do your homework well enough to check my slashdot user page where my favorite quote sits:

"I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense -- I deserve it." Jean-Louis Gassée, former CEO, BeOS

And you have the gall to call me semi-retarded.

Then go look up a little fact that Vista is the only major consumer OS....

You know, if you narrow the scope of that statement any more it's going to disappear entirely. Who decides "major"? Who decides "consumer"? I'm asking because Shuttle has just announced a box that's going to clean your clock, the eee is sweeping the world, the olpc is selling in the millions of units and for years you have been able to buy a Linux PC at Wal-Mart, including the $200 PC I'm typing this on (but I got it from zareason and it works just fine, thanks, and no it's not my only one).

Then go look up a little fact that Vista is the only major consumer OS that uses realtime scheduling for multi-media, something OS X just can't do.

OK, let's talk about the Vista scheduler a little bit. You've got some insight into this you would like to share. It's completely fa

Reading this article made my blood boil. Intel very clearly acted in bad faith, and their actions against OLPC will no doubt result in poor kids being deprived of access to technology. Immediately, my thoughts turned to the business I've given Intel and whether I could ever buy from them again.

But my second, more constructive thought was "what can I do to help OLPC?" and I easily found two great answers.

1. Donate. For just $200, you can give an XO laptop to a child in a developing nation. It immediately makes a difference in the life of one child, and it's an opportunity for the XO to prove itself. Our donations no doubt will drive future sales for OLPC. Donations are entirely tax-deductible (Question: does anyone know they're tax-deductible for Canadians?).

2. Develop. If you're a programmer, you can donate some of your time and work on an XO Activity. There's already a pretty impressive array of available software, but there's lots of room for work, and this is one way that OLPC can really differentiate itself. Think about it: thousands of passionate hackers contributing quality free software, all targeted at this machine. That's something that Intel and Microsoft will never be able to compete with because no one else is ever going to be passionate about Classmate & Windows.

Let's make a difference!

You are failing to understand how the program works. Any government -- rich or poor -- can participate in the OLPC program. If your government participated in the program, you would not need to buy two laptops to get one; you would only have to pay for one to get one, but it would be mandatory, paid through taxes. The laptops would have technical support and your child's teacher would be trained to teach with it, again paid by taxes. If you think this is a good idea, you should lobby your government to participate in the program.

You should consider it a privilege to be able to get a laptop outside of the program, even unsupported and at a premium. The OLPC is not equipped for retail sales and didn't want to sell the laptop to consumers. But people begged and pleaded... "We'll pay three times as much, with no warranty or support -- just please let us have them." OLPC acceded, and now it is at least possible to get one. If you don't like the terms, tough. But don't go complaining about how other countries are getting preferential treatment. The Give-One-Get-One program is currently only helping in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Haiti, Mongolia and Rwanda; other countries like Peru or Uruguay are paying for theirs outright -- which is what American states could do if they wanted to.

Wow. Persecution complex much?

Yeah, poor kid of yours, who is discriminated against because her parents have the resources to buy her an OLPC themselves, or any of the competing ubercheap laptops. My heart weeps for the poor girl, it really does.

I suppose your child has earned herself an OLPC, by having the self-discipline and foresight to be born to comparatively rich parents.

If you think a kid-friendly laptop would benefit her, buy her one. The G1G1 program is still open. Oh, wait, you don't want any of your hard-earned money going to one of those undeserving kids. You'd rather wait until somebody mugs a Nigerian slum kid for you and puts it up on eBay.

Regarding the technical support thing: Nobody gets technical support from the OLPC. Not G1G1 donors, not nobody. Hell, even spare parts won't be available for another month or so. Purchasing government agencies bear the burden of handling repairs, which is why the designers worked so hard to make repairs easy.

P.S.: Peru is in South America, not Africa.

P.P.S: Yeah, I've been trolled. We've both proven that we have no lives, so I don't see how that makes you the winner here.

I don't see why no one else has noticed this, but how about the XO laptop (a.k.a. the OLPC)? Besides being the same price as the kindle, (including giving one to a child in need with a $200 tax deductible donation) with a dual-mode display: one a conventional color LED laptop screen, the other a sunlight-readable, black-and-white e-book The software interface is truly incredible. The color display only uses 1 watt, and the e-book monochrome display only consumes 0.2 watts. It's rugged, has built-in wifi... It runs linux, there's python, collaborative music-making and writing...

I have been reading ebooks for years using whatever PDA I have been carrying around (currently: a Palm TX). I have a large library of non-DRM ebooks: a bunch of stuff that's so old it is out of copyright (for example, the Sherlock Holmes stories), and a bunch of Baen ebooks.

I plug Baen every chance I get: they give away some ebooks for free, they sell the others at good prices, they offer multiple formats, and they don't wrap the books in DRM.

Baen Free Library (free ebooks)

Baen books for sale

Most of my reading is ebooks on my PDA now. Any time I have a few minutes to spend (sitting in a waiting room, for example) I can pull out my PDA and read a few more pages. I always have my book with me and it's always at the last page I was reading.

For long airplane trips (like flying to Japan) I still use my old Handspring Visor. The Palm TX is good for maybe four hours on a charge; the Visor is good for dozens of hours with a pair of good AAA cells.

I'm planning to buy an XO mini-laptop, and that should make an excellent ebook reader. Like the Visor, it will be readable in direct sunlight, and will have long battery life. It should be excellent for long airplane flights. It's a lot bigger than a Palm PDA, but it is smaller and lighter than most hard-cover novels.

http://laptopgiving.org/en/index.php

steveha

Nokia N810
and/or
ASUS Eee PC
and/or
OLPC Give One Get One

Pleo

Arduino
iPod Touch 16GB (jailbroken)
Apple Tablet (will have to wait for January. Or when hell freezes over.)

You can still buy one, get one but it's unlikely you'll get one before Christmas, and it's only open to US and Canadian citizens. Still, it makes the perfect gift, as every one sold is another one in the hands of kids around the world.

A kill switch? Controlled by the secret Illuminati cell at the MPA?

Anyone can buy one right now:

http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/index.php

I can't possibly imagine a black market in these thing developing in Africa! Shocking!

So the OLPC does have a kill switch; if the one you pick up in Africa somehow "escaped" from some school's inventory, you might get bricked.

Not being in North America, the author is not eligible to participate in the Buy One, Get One program.

If I live outside of the US or Canada, may I participate in Give One Get One?

Yes, but only if you provide a shipping address within the US or Canada. To participate, please call 1-949-608-2865. International calling charges will apply.

It's still available till Dec 31st: http://www.laptopgiving.org/

The program was extended to Dec 31, according to the web site.

http://www.laptopgiving.org/

Its still going on. It was extended untill December 31st, 2007.

http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/index.php

Much of the technology in the XO is developed using open source technology licenses that make it difficult for engineers employed by commercial software companies like Microsoft to work directly on the project. For this reason, we also had to follow a complicated process to figure out interfaces for many of the XO's hardware components and to deal with some of the hardware bugs they were reporting in their design process in order to make progress on our port. All of this slows us down, but that's OK given our overall shared mission here.

If the OLPC project succeeds, it shifts from being a competitor to kill to a platform to run on.

From the OLPC website http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/explore.php:
 

OLPC's commitment to software freedom gives children the opportunity to use their laptops on their own terms. The children--and their teachers--have the freedom to reshape, reinvent, and reapply their software, hardware, and content. There's even a button located on the keyboard that allows children to view the programming behind certain applications.

OLPC's commitment to software freedom gives children the opportunity to use their laptops on their own terms. The children--and their teachers--have the freedom to reshape, reinvent, and reapply their software, hardware, and content. There's even a button located on the keyboard that allows children to view the programming behind certain applications.

OLPC's commitment to software freedom gives children the opportunity to use their laptops on their own terms. The children--and their teachers--have the freedom to reshape, reinvent, and reapply their software, hardware, and content. There's even a button located on the keyboard that allows children to view the programming behind certain applications.

the fundamentals of the idea are good, but i think the XO isn't the right vehicle (for this; i'm a big supporter generally and encourage everyone to check out the Give One Get One program).

your idea is based on two points: first, do something constructive instead of destructive, and second, encourage communication. both are excellent.
the military is actually doing some of the former, but not nearly enough. we did a lot of damage to infrastructure in Iraq during the invasion, and the standards there were never all that high. the army's sole purpose at this point (really since the "Mission Accomplished" nonsense) should be building infrastructure (water, sewage, housing, power, transportation, and telecommunications) and defense of those assets. if the brass needs to feel like they're doing something more "active", let the marines (who're more "surgical" in their actions, and a lot smaller) go after only confirmed foreign military units acting in Iraq; better yet, though, stick 'em on border patrol and training. the key point here is let the Iraqi military and police forces go after Iraqi terrorists; the US needs to stop killing Iraqis if we're going to stop generating new terrorists.
the second point is trickier. the poster below who noted the huge cultural issues is right: direct communication isn't likely to do much in many cases. i don't have a good answer for fixing the American side of the equation, but the Iraqi side is much easier. Iraq is still a resource-rich country; fix the infrastructure so that business can work normally and normal trade will shortly resume. it's not quite as direct as letter writing, but international trade with close neighbors does a good job of helping people get along better. this has been true for at least a millennium (contrast the attitudes of eastern and western Christians towards their Muslim neighbors around the time of the crusades, for example), and has only increased with the industrial and then technological revolutions.

And how does this relate to the Asus Eee laptop and GPL concerns?

As for your moaning - grow up! I applaud your directness in admitting you are too cheap to give OLPC a cash donation. As for the Buy 1 Get 1 offer, first off it would cost you $400 - $200 for the laptop you get and $200 for the one you donated. As for not living in either the US or Canada that is your own fault, we've left our borders to the US wide open for hundreds of years, that neither you nor your ancestors couldn't find time to make it over hear before we close the borders is your own fault.

The buy 1 get 1 deal is way to get some much-needed cash into their coffers ASAP (as their 1 million unit minimum is really cutting down on potential sales), and they really weren't looking to set up repair depots and support services around the globe.

Your problem is your ancestors didn't make it into US/Canada, and you happen to live in the developed world - this effort should really be called One Laptop Per Non-White Child...

As for your coding skills, I guess OLPC will have to get by with an infinite number of monkeys minus one (you) to craft their software...

There is a lot of happy news with this story. People in the least developed countries get xo machines paid for by those in the US and Canada more able to pay. Classmate PCs provide cheap laptops to (possible) less advantaged students in Mexico and Brazil, paid for by the IMF.

Intel and Microsoft both face a challenge. For many years available computers have been inadequate to the tasks at hand. As the computers become more agile, and their markets more broad, there has been increasing demand for premium computers and software. The two companies have built great brands by offering increasingly effective platforms. Moore's law marches us persistently into the future however, and the premium price earned by these brands no longer equates to a better experience because the underlying technology has improved so much that the premium brands offer little advantage over the commodities.

Of the two, Microsoft has the bigger challenge.

Intel can push for rationalization of IP laws. This will free up a great deal of high-density video data that will drive a renaissance of mashups that let the common geek produce content in HD for GooTube and stroke his ego. Content creation can be the driver for a new generation of demand in processing that will tide Intel over until they find a new reason to sell their high end 32 core 17nm chips. Resolution will continue to increase until we all have photo-realistic 90" displays, and then maybe hologram tech will come out. Intel will do fine.

Microsoft, OTOH, hasn't put out decent code in over a decade. They've been exploiting their monopoly to force their product down peoples throats for so long they think that's their mission. They have forgotten that people choose them because their software helps people use their computers to do stuff. Now that the basic problems of document management and data mangling are solved, they have nothing left but branding. Their brands are increasingly associated with bloat, DRM and nagware. Every software package they sell is a hook to drag you deeper into a relationship where they provide all the software and have all the control. They are terrified of choice, and they should be.

As the emerging markets come online they'll choose piracy or open source -- they will not consider paying full rate for commercial apps. Like Ballmer said, "Developers!" (Repeat until you pass out).

The standard percentage of these folks will have the wiring and desire for programming. I think they'll like gcc and Eclipse. Those of us in the developed world find it easy to forget that intelligence is a Bell curve and those coming online lack the distraction of learning a hundred misbegotten failed technologies like .net 1.0. These systems are the battleground for ownership of the global IT market of 2020, and from where I sit it looks like change. Change can be good, no?

I saw an XO up close and personal at Pycon 2007. Ivan Krstic gave some very interesting talks about the device. It is very well engineered and they put a lot of thought into it. I can see why Intel and Microsoft are up in arms over it. The XO is the opposite of bloat. It is intended to operate in a very decentralized environment and with minimal support.

One of my complaints was that we could not buy them here, but now thanks to the Give One Get One program that is no longer a problem. They originally only intended to sell them to governments in large lots. I didn't think that was the best business model. There are other models for NGO's they could follow. Modeling it after the BOGO light was a smart move.

I gotta admit I'm tempted to order an XO. If I do, it'll be the first time I've ever bought the first version of anything electronic.

Yeah, I know it'll probably have some problems. But it'd be fun to get into this thing on the ground floor.

And it could be fun to get my hands on a computer that's designed to work well for non-European languages. You just can't get those here in the US. ("Why does anyone need any language other than English?" ;-)

The ultimate gift of this season: OLPC.

Not only are you giving a great educational device, but you're also helping some child in the developing world. Perhaps a good time to introduce your nephew to philanthropy, too.

Please see http://laptopgiving.org/ .
I don't think you will get voice recognition but who knows once the OSS community gets these. I suspect much of its tech will make it to commercial laptops eventually.

http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/terms-and-conditions.php In connection with your payment of US$399 to OLPC Foundation, OLPC Foundation will provide you with one XO laptop, and a second XO laptop will be given by OLPC Foundation to a child in one of the least developed countries1 in the developing world.

You mean by guaranteeing something like ...

... In connection with your payment of US$399 to OLPC Foundation, OLPC Foundation will provide you with one XO laptop, and a second XO laptop will be given by OLPC Foundation to a child in one of the least developed countries in the developing world....

... from the Terms and Conditions of the Give One Get One program.

You mean by guaranteeing something like ...

... In connection with your payment of US$399 to OLPC Foundation, OLPC Foundation will provide you with one XO laptop, and a second XO laptop will be given by OLPC Foundation to a child in one of the least developed countries in the developing world....

... from the Terms and Conditions of the Give One Get One program.

The website allows you to make a donation to buy a laptop for a kid in the third world without buying one for yourself

I was set on getting one of these for my daughter - but then I saw that they only offer 30 days of warranty That seems really a short period. Is it worth taking that risk ?

Maybe you went to the wrong site, but it's quite obvious here. $399 for two laptops, one is given to a child in a developing nation. The cost of the second laptop is considered a charitable donation and is tax-deductible. The T-Mobile info is on that page, too.

For those interested, here's a link to the actual order page.

The two laptops will cost $399.00 USD, and shipping is $24.95 USD (for a total of $423.95 USD). Open to residents of US and Canada only. Paypal is the default payment option (credit cards are also accepted). Of that, $200 is considered a tax-deductible donation. Your contribution also gets you 1 year of free Wi-Fi access at T-Mobile hotspots.

The website says that they will try to deliver the laptop before the holidays, but that initial supplies are limited (TFA says 40,000 units in this first month, with 20,000 ready before Christmas), so if you're keen to get one of these things, you should order sooner rather than later.

I'm certainly curious to see how many orders get put in. If a large number of geeks buy these things as hacking toys, then they could very well become the best platform for a variety of tasks. For example, maybe this will finally be a viable e-book reader (portable, rugged, long battery life, display that can be used in ambient light, etc.). Should be interesting.

For those interested, here's a link to the actual order page.

The two laptops will cost $399.00 USD, and shipping is $24.95 USD (for a total of $423.95 USD). Open to residents of US and Canada only. Paypal is the default payment option (credit cards are also accepted). Of that, $200 is considered a tax-deductible donation. Your contribution also gets you 1 year of free Wi-Fi access at T-Mobile hotspots.

The website says that they will try to deliver the laptop before the holidays, but that initial supplies are limited (TFA says 40,000 units in this first month, with 20,000 ready before Christmas), so if you're keen to get one of these things, you should order sooner rather than later.

I'm certainly curious to see how many orders get put in. If a large number of geeks buy these things as hacking toys, then they could very well become the best platform for a variety of tasks. For example, maybe this will finally be a viable e-book reader (portable, rugged, long battery life, display that can be used in ambient light, etc.). Should be interesting.

The DS definitely has the most education software. Tons of Brain Training sequels and clones, and a bunch of maths, reading and language training games aimed at younger kids. Some of these are only available in Japan, but a lot make it to the US or Europe (and you can import Europe releases to the US and play them on US DSs).

There are a few brain training clones on the PSP, but they are few and far between.

But maybe the best solution would be a "real" computer like the OLPC box. You can even easily create your own learning tools on the OLPC, and your kids may even learn a bit about programming.