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Read the FAQ:

http://laptop.media.mit.edu/faq.html

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.

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.

I can't believe this repeatedly comes up like it's some mysterious question that needs to be worked out. Just like every other artform in existence, they range from commercial work that would be considered "craft" and definitely not "fine art", they have a middle point of indie games that are more arty and experimental but still accessible (maybe Katamari or Colossus), and there are extremely experimental games that are more about expression or defining the nature of video games.

I think the problem with the articles about this subject is that the writers don't know much about current new media art, and aren't aware of the purely conceptual game art going on, like this or this or this.

"...This will allow power to be transmitted to supporting devices through microwaves inside your house. Initial tests have been successfull, however there seam to be some safety concerns. ;)"

No problem, just wear a Tin Hat.

Well, wait, perhaps that's not such a good idea:
http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/

Now start distributing $100 laptops to poor ppl.
http://laptop.media.mit.edu/

A very, very long time ago, the (then single) Mindstorm brick appeared as almost a co-design between Lego, MIT*, and famous companies like e. g. Apple co-sponsored computer interface kits that were shown in Legoland (the one in Billund).
That was almost 10 years ago, and Mindstorm was brilliant, technologically off-the-shelf, and very costly.
Since then, Lego, a dane company that tried to keep all its production within Denmark, has lost money years after years maybe because of this (when Denmark voted about joining Euroland, I remember Lego as a key national industrial announcing in the press they *had* to join, and this announcement being given a key impact).
They have lost so much, they have sold this year all their amusement parks ("Legolands", in all countries). It seems now a matter of survival.

They have lost so much, at least, that they never could *upgrade* the Mindstorms core brick.

Which is now an old, dull, and unefficient thing -let's face it.

I'd bet anyone in this discussion finding it nice must be over 40.

What else could they have done I don't know (just provide I/O interfaces for existing PDAs? miniaturize the same thing? add a touchscreen that'd have suppressed the need for a PC?), but the fact is, they did nothing at all for 10 years.

And *that*, went wrong...

Hervé

(*) http://llk.media.mit.edu/projects/cricket/ -1997, mind you.

Kerberos is most definitely NOT a Windows technology, at least not an original one anyway. Kerberos started at MIT and was used for their Project Athena initiative (the one that also resulted in X11). Microsoft only started to use Kerberos in Windows 2000.

How much published in this journal (and other journals) is actually based on the scientific method versus "notions"? Having all journals online - free of charge would enable millions to scan articles in journal and decide what's bullshit and what's not.

As well, if the journals were free online - then people would see the advertising - for example drug companies advertising in "medical" journals - which may surprise consumers.

If the M.I.T. can put all of its 10,000 courses online free of charge - it's hard to rationalize that "It Can't Be Done" by journals (which are likely subsizided by tax money) ! By the way M.I.T. puts it all up for free use - videos, manuals, projects, lectures and so forth. http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html

This is exactly what PgpFone was supposed to provide. AFAIK, PgpFone was written by Phil Zimmerman, and the project was hosted at MIT. As you can see, not much happening here. However, the rights apparently went to NAI, but I don't think they currently offer the product.

I was able to find this link to pgpi.org where it looks like you can find old source and binaries for PgpFone. I don't know what the copyright status of these are.

In the face of the Patriot Act,etc, it would be great if someone started up, and modernized this project again.

It looks like there were some ethical violations -- where the current ethical system means no possibility of coercion (e.g. no eggs from within the team) and no payment for eggs.

Here is something on the ethics of donations (from some free market fans).

One thing seems obvious: if they'd had been able to easily buy eggs, it wouldn't have been a hassle: they'd never have gotten eggs from staff, and the problem would have been solved. The lack of trading in eggs prevented these guys from doing the research and complying with the ethical restrictions.

Here's a nice piece from the sadly discredited NY Times author, Martin Finkel (he lied a story and got fired), talking about a Kidney market in pre-GWII Iraq.

Read the slides (PDF), they acknowledge photosynthesis. Yes, it's just college students engineering new functionality as part of a competition, but that itself is pretty cool. I didn't know there is already a registry of standard biological parts for this sort of hacking. They add photosensitivity to the bacterium membrane, add pigmentation change, and hook them up.

The same UCSF lab is also working on an AND gate to combine two sensors, which gets us closer to bacteria delivering lethal payloads to tumors.

Read the slides (PDF), they acknowledge photosynthesis. Yes, it's just college students engineering new functionality as part of a competition, but that itself is pretty cool. I didn't know there is already a registry of standard biological parts for this sort of hacking. They add photosensitivity to the bacterium membrane, add pigmentation change, and hook them up.

The same UCSF lab is also working on an AND gate to combine two sensors, which gets us closer to bacteria delivering lethal payloads to tumors.

The photosensitive E.coli were just one of several entries in last year's Intercollegiate Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition, which is an annual synthetic biology contest that takes place over the summer at participating institutions. With the help of a few professors and TAs, small teams of students propose, design, and "implement" actual genetically modified organisms.

Check out this week's Nature as well as the iGEM wiki for more information about synthetic biology and iGEM, respectively. Biology is definitely getting more and more interesting for engineering-minded students.

I highly recommend taking some biology, bioinformatics, or biotechnology classes if you are an undergraduate in CS/EE... exciting times, especially compared to the regular "IT" universe.

Scheme doesn't really have pointers, though it does have references (don't worry about what this means too much for now). Structure and Interpreation of Computer Programs, which I mentioned, is a book which you can buy or access online for free; see http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/. It's also a course at MIT, from which you can download the lecture videos for free at http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/classes/6.001/abelson-s ussman-lectures/.

Scheme doesn't really have pointers, though it does have references (don't worry about what this means too much for now). Structure and Interpreation of Computer Programs, which I mentioned, is a book which you can buy or access online for free; see http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/. It's also a course at MIT, from which you can download the lecture videos for free at http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/classes/6.001/abelson-s ussman-lectures/.

These cagey science students disagree.

[Thrasymachus is tied up in a chair. Socrates is brandishing a gun in his face]
 
Thrasymachus: Don't kill me, man!
 
Socrates: Are you finished, fucker?
 
Thrasymachus: Don't do it, Socrates. Be fair.
 
Socrates: Well, I'm just a dull, wandering street philosopher, so I don't understand quite where you're headed with this particular line of reasoning. Perhaps [motions with gun] you could further elucidate your theory of justice.

Found it! http://web.mit.edu/2.009/www/lectures/10_Mythbuste rs.html

I haven't seen your show in much depth, but I have yet to know of an episode where a Myth was confirmed. After reading about the MIT confirmation (http://web.mit.edu/2.009/www/lectures/10_Archimed esResult.html/) of the Archimedes' Death Ray, would you at least be willing to either A) Attempt to reproduce the MIT experiment to the letter or B) concede?

Mit did a study this year on this: http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/ Turns out the bad guys have found ways to use the hats against us.

Personally Mythbusters lost all credibility with me when one of the myths they "busted", the Archimedes Death Ray, was later proved by MIT to be possible (see http://web.mit.edu/2.009/www/lectures/10_Archimede sResult.html). For a show that boldly claims to "bust" myths, the fact that they were wrong about something due to their own incompetence just makes the whole thing somewhat pointless.

I recently read (Fall 2005) an interesting article in Dissent magazine from Gary T. Marx on this issue called: "Soft Surveillance Mandatory Voluntarism and the Collection of Personal Data."

He makes a number of interesting observations on how DNA as a soft means for the collection of personal data - for example, where police go in and ask everyone in a community for a mouth swab "in order to solve a crime" or in airports as the poster suggests. Marx argues for a system based on clearly defined rules based on meaningful consent. These rules could center around questions like: Would the information collector be comfortable being the subject, rather than the agent, of surveillance if the situation were reversed?

Imagine for a moment a community database of DNA information and the potential for abuse. For example, a criminal might collect hair from a hair brush and plant it at the scene of a crime. Perhaps a swab might be a precondition for health insurance? Etc.

There are many potential problems with the widespread availability of DNA technology. It is also an issue many of us have not given a great deal of thought. Gary Marx has some material available online like Technology and Social Control: The Search for the Illusive Silver Bullet.

If you know of other people addressing this issue that would be worth reading, please reply with a citation or link.

I recently read (Fall 2005) an interesting article in Dissent magazine from Gary T. Marx on this issue called: "Soft Surveillance Mandatory Voluntarism and the Collection of Personal Data."

He makes a number of interesting observations on how DNA as a soft means for the collection of personal data - for example, where police go in and ask everyone in a community for a mouth swab "in order to solve a crime" or in airports as the poster suggests. Marx argues for a system based on clearly defined rules based on meaningful consent. These rules could center around questions like: Would the information collector be comfortable being the subject, rather than the agent, of surveillance if the situation were reversed?

Imagine for a moment a community database of DNA information and the potential for abuse. For example, a criminal might collect hair from a hair brush and plant it at the scene of a crime. Perhaps a swab might be a precondition for health insurance? Etc.

There are many potential problems with the widespread availability of DNA technology. It is also an issue many of us have not given a great deal of thought. Gary Marx has some material available online like Technology and Social Control: The Search for the Illusive Silver Bullet.

If you know of other people addressing this issue that would be worth reading, please reply with a citation or link.

can be found here

"Now if they could make a program to build very cheap computers and give one to each child it would be even better. But that's a start."

FYI - http://laptop.media.mit.edu/

BTW: Anybody else who has posted have to type "CROTCH" to verify they are human??? Gotta be a conspiracy in there somewhere.....

Weiner was a classic prodigy; spoke Greek and Latin by age 5; he graduated Tufts at age 14, had his PhD from Harvard by 19. Weiner said that the Prodigy syndrome is something a parent, frequently the father, does to a child. It involves bing very demanding, and vary very sparing of praise. Weiner said it got him a 5-year head start in his research, but cost him his whole childhood. He said he would never do that to his own child (though apparently he was a relatively demanding father). Weiner also said he believed the prodigy syndrome could be worked on most kids; that there was nothing exceptional about himself. He also mentions some tragic prodigies he knew personally who burned out and stopped trying.

My first point is this: don't confuse having a pushy parent with being really smart. The difference will not show up until one gets beyond regurgitating book learning and into original research. My second point is this: don't steal anyone's childhood; they are irreplaceable.

Precisely! Technology extends the range of options, but does not have to do away with the old options. Most of my gaming is via computer, but that doesn't make card night with old friends any less valuable.

>I have about 10 copies of the Rubiyat of Omar Kayyan - none any less than 80 years old. Something about the different artwork, leather covers, hand-written notes that conveys a continuity, a chain of humanity to them.

I share the feeling (... and covet your collection, twice the size of mine.)

The Rubiyat is an especially suitable example of the enduring value of physical books, for its poetry is far more than the bare text freely available on the web. Its commentary on the human condition is all the more poignant and effective when spoken in a variety of books of varying conditions, each of whose original owner "... indeed is gone with all his Rose" (V). The various book designs and scars of time make each volume like one of the Pots (verses LXXXII+) that comment on the Maker: "They sneer at me for leaning all awry; Why? did the Hand of the Great Maker Err?" Web-pages can be made perfect and enduring; physical books can only decay.

The physical experience of leafing through the poetry, on the gress, with a loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and a "Thou" beside you in the wilderness ... that's what Omar is talkin' about!

If everybody and their mother could download atom bombs from the Internet

Isn't that what fab lab is supposed to ultimately do?

I think you're misunderstanding me. I never professed any desire to respect all cultures equally. Female circumcision, not allowing women to go to school, slavery, etc... all these things are objectively wrong and indefensible. You'll here no cultural relativism from me.

And what exactly would you call Imperial Japan before and during WWII? A commune? Anarchy? No, it was just as authortarian, if not as actively repressive, as Saddam's regime.

Yes, but we had a plan when we took over Japan. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2005/rebuilding-iraq -0316.html What I said about the need for civil society and democratic culture isn't earth-shattering by the way, it's a widely accepted view among academics and policy wonks. http://www.policyreview.org/jun03/diamond.html And once again, it has nothig to do with race. Have a purebred american kid grow up in the middle east, and the same problems with lack of experience and faith in the system would arise. We were't planning to prevent museum looting within days of the start of hostilities, we were planning on being able to react to chemical and biologic weapons attacks on our troops. If we'd known that the entire Iraqi army would fall apart again, I think we would have done a better job.
We should have been planning to prevent museum looting, high ranking military planners were saying all along that the invasion itself would be a cakewalk, but that we would need 100,000 more troops to secure the piece and prevent looting. There were also desperate please from the Iraqi National Museum for security and they went unheeded. Also, the iraqi army didn't "fall apart" we intentionally disbanded it, thus depriving thousands of young, healthy men with military training from a living (which adds to the pool of potential terrorist recruits) and undermining Iraq's ability to provide for its own security. There were bad guys in the Iraqi army, many of the higher ups were Baathist idealogues and many prison guards, obviously, engaged in torture, but the vast majority of the soldiers had no ideological bias, or were even pro-democracy and respected the rule of law. By the way, the democrats didn't have the same intelligence as the white house, contrary to the white house spin. They were very selective about what information was released to congress and prevented reports that put much of the intelligence into question from coming to light until it was too late.

Leaked Picture link here!

Yup, that's it. I've heard it's going to retail for $999.

Food, Water, Shelter, Medicine...this ranks with other projects at the Media Lab

Links to more actuall pictures of the announcement (with high-res version - can you recognize used Desktop Enviroment?) and Webcast of the event:
http://laptop.media.mit.edu/news.html

Better pictures can be found here.

Leaked Picture link here!

Maybe you want this?

Your "multidimensional views on the intersections between tags" are called "faceted navigation" for those in the know.

I'm afraid your attempts to use foil hats to 'foil' our mind control attempts
were all a ruse of our making.

Foils hats are wrong.

If you are still wearing your foil hats: The Matrix says Google Base is bueno!

Adi Shamir once proposed the following hash function:

          Let n = p*q be the product of two large primes, such that
          factoring n is believed to be infeasible.

          Let g be an element of maximum order in Z_n^* (i.e. an
          element of order lambda(n) = lcm(p-1,q-1)).

          Assume that n and g are fixed and public; p and q are secret.

          Let x be an input to be hashed, interpreted as a
          non-negative integer. (Of arbitrary length; this may be
          considerably larger than n.)

          Define hash(x) = g^x (mod n).

Then this hash function is provably collision-resistant, since
the ability to find a collision means that you have an x and
an x' such that

          hash(x) = hash(x')

which implies that

          x - x' = k * lambda(n)

for some k. That is a collision implies that you can find a
multiple of lambda(n). Being able to find a multiple of lambda(n)
means that you can factor n.

I would suggest this meets the specs of your query above.

                  Cheers,
                  Ron Rivest

Ronald L. Rivest
Room 324, 200 Technology Square, Cambridge MA 02139
Tel 617-253-5880, Fax 617-258-9738, Email

Oh Canada!
My online spying land!
Telco intercept at CSIS's command

With packet sniff and account info
The True North now South and "free"

From net and mobe,
Oh Canada, we foil(*) our heads for thee.

ISAKMP our tunnels to the free(**)
Oh Canada, we foil our heads for thee

Oh Canada, we foil our heads for thee!

----
*
a) Tin Foil - Aluminum Foil has been shown not to work.

**
a) Patch to avoid DOS
b) Avoid tunneling to the US or China both have stronger anti-communication laws


Canadian Government Information Site

Not that "tinkerable" - I expect that the source code for everything won't come loaded on the machine.

According to several recent articles, the machine has a bunch of USB ports, Wireless mesh-topology networking, 1G of RAM and no hard disk; the storage will all be flash.

See also:

http://laptop.media.mit.edu/faq.html
http://www.nola.com/living/t-p/index.ssf?/base/liv ing-5/113030655622200.xml

-- Terry

The machine is 500MHz, has no disk, a 1 megapixel dual mode display, and 1G of RAM (*not* 128M, as you claim here).

Specifications were gathered from these sources:

http://laptop.media.mit.edu/faq.html
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000120060924/
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003707.html
http://news.com.com/The+100+laptop+moves+closer+to +reality/2100-1044_3-5884683.html

-- Terry

[As Minna Kirai said]

And since Aspect-Oriented programming is a patented technique http://www.pmg.lcs.mit.edu/~chandra/publications/a op.html , basically you can not use it.

So, who really cares if its theoretically any good, when legally it is worthless?

See US patents 6,467,086 and 6,442,750 :

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,467,086.WKU.&OS=PN/6,467,086&RS =PN/6,467,086

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,442,750.WKU.&OS=PN/6,442,750&RS =PN/6,442,750

I've lurked on slashdot for years. I eventually created an account which I used sporadically. I hadn't used it in years, so I figured I might as well make a new one, just to respond to you.

I've read many a rant on this site, both good and bad. But yours is so off-base, that I actually got off my lazy ass to respond. As mentioned in the article and by others in the comments, the Apple offer was rejected specifically because it was not open source.

An open architecture is elemental to the One Laptop Per Child project. Central to their strategy is the capacity for the machines to allow people to help themselves. From a cnet article:

He said a goal of the project is to make the low-cost PC idea a grassroots movement that will spread in popularity, like the Linux operating system or the Wikipedia free online encyclopedia. "This is open-source education. It's a big issue."

Worse yet, is that you were moderated to "5, Insightful" when I started writting this. Your paranoid FUD is totally offtopic for a discussion about One Laptop Per Child and Apple.

Sorry for sounding like a dick about all this, but you've really gotta chill out. Evil isn't all around you; There are rays of hope for humanity. I for one think that One Laptop Per Child is amongst them. If you seek to open your mind and educate yourself rather than randomly react in fear, I hope you'll reach the same conclusion.

"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://laptop.media.mit.edu/faq.html

So this $100 laptop does not necessarily have to be used as a computer.
Heck, if they can overclock it, maybe it can be a hotplate too!

Sure, standard laptops can be fragile, but you seem to have completely missed the fact that these are special custom laptops.

In particular - the laptops will have a crank so you can power them without a constant power supply.

Also, referring to the kids as little monkeys? Come on.

From the FAQ:

"[It] will use innovative power (including wind-up)"
"Kids in the developing world need the newest technology, especially really rugged hardware"
"Desktops are cheaper, but mobility is important, especially with regard to taking the computer home at night."

Which bit goes first of course!.

More information appears in a PDF linked off of Fink's bio page. Apparently they use tin in the coating as the conductor. When that melts, the circuit breaks.

More information appears in a PDF linked off of Fink's bio page. Apparently they use tin in the coating as the conductor. When that melts, the circuit breaks.

Most likely, that's already happening. Law enforcement agencies have set up 'sting' bulletin boards in the Fidonet years, way before the internet became popular.

Read The Hacker Crackdown

Well, considering that the Kikwit ebola outbreak happened in 1995, he's either lying or very confused...

"Insightful"?! Inaccurate is more like it.

Your statement is factually completely incorrect. Read an economic analysis of Iridium here.

Iridium LLC, which set up the service at a cost of nearly $5B, filed Chapter 11 in 1999. In 2000, a private group bought it for $25M. They have a significant DoD contract at this time, sure, but that's not a bail-out. Ask the creditors in that Chap11 how much they got out of this.