Slashdot Mirror
One Laptop Per Child Gets 4 Million Laptop Order
An anonymous reader writes "DesktopLinux.com is reporting that four countries have together ordered 4 million low-cost, Linux-based laptops from the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. The countries of Nigeria, Brazil, Argentina, and Thailand have each placed the 1 million unit orders."
"The countries of Nigeria, Brazil, Argentina, and Thailand have each placed the 1 million unit orders."
Dear Mike,
Thank you once again for finalizing the order. You will know that this transaction is 100% Guaranteed.
We will send our certified funds after the customs are paid by you. Please send the customs fee of $37,000,000 ($37*1 Million Units) via wire transfer to:
Barrister MUGO Gy PAN Oguami
419 Scam DEC
Lagos, Nigeria
>>Hi Mugo,
>>We have approved your order and are ready to ship. You mentioned a custom's fee that we are very ready to pay. Please let me know how much per unit we will need to send.
>>Thanks again for the business!!!
>>Mike Undundrum
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
...the feelings of the OLPC project owners right now:
Cha-Ching!!!
Sigs are for the weak.
I really like that these countries have the determination to use linux laptops to help increase there education levels, it will benifit everyone. In the short term the production lines get busy making the laptops ready to be uses, and it will promote using open source software and Linux which could mean more and better tools out there for us eventually. But it could also breed us more scammers, damn them wasting so much of out time.
What's next? Outsource to malnourished kids. All they get is a little cookie (or several, depending on their privacy settings.) You can pay them even less than the Indian & Chinese programmers since these kids don't need money for food. They can just eat the cookies without getting any cache.
Bill Gates has just announced a whirlwind 4 nation third-world tour. Currently in Africa, supposedly on a safari . . . . .
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
I have a lot of respect for this project and I'm glad to see it's working out seemingly well.
Random Thought:
Wonder if any of the large PC vendors are paying attention, When was the last time Dell or HP sold 1 million+ Windows boxes in one shot?
Ubuntu: If at first you don't succeed, blindly slap a sudo in front of it
Of course, the real gadget freaks don't care about that.. what they want to know is..
When can i buy one?
No, seriously - they are freeking neat! i want one!
So we can slice laptop price for southeast Asian Contries but can't manage to do this with space flight? Am I missing something here or do we need to brain was the masses in to wanting they're own space fleet?
When we were their age we installed Ubuntu just to look at Goatse, and we were glad to get it!
Is it just me or won't this mean Linux gains a significant user base that basically never have used anything else than Linux and will never have any reason for using anything else? This must be a big thorn in both Microsoft and Apple's (remember they offered to give away software for this project) side...
Does anyone else doubt these laptops won't be given to kids? Perhaps all of these countries government computers need updating.
Error 2101: all your sig are belong to us
Each of those countries has more than 1 million children. In order to fit their "one laptop per child" criteria, there will be a lottery. The winners get the laptops. The losers get to choose a method of execution.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
Well this follows the /. story on skepticism for OLPC in India. Brazil, Argentina, Thailand, and Nigeria are all substantially more wealthy than India on a per capita basis. India (with a lot more help from the industrialized world than it is presently getting) needs to focus on providing things like basic vaccines for all children. Laptops don't help children who are dieing from measels for lack of vaccination. Brazil, Argentina, Thailand, and Nigeria all have enough money to provide some basics like vaccines. These are not countries where large scale famine is a great threat. These four countries have a substantial level of economic development and government services. This is not to say the implementation of public health strategies and other much-needed services in these four countries is ideal.
What I don't understand about these programs is...what good is a laptop without internet access?
Do these laptops come standard with modems and free internet access? If not, what's the point?
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
Actully, most the targeted countries have water and food already. its a sterotype that too many people buy into.
the real reason for this laptop is to turn a second world country into one that interacts economically with the rest of the world. i really wish people would look closer before condemning the whole project, such ignorance.
In Mexico all textbooks are free of charge and provided by law by the government at elementary and secondary levels (thats years 1-6 and 7-9). There is never a single, simple fix-it-all solution to anything: you get the books and the education for free (in fact attendance is mandatory by law) yet extra-curricular problems prevent thousands of children from attending to school.
+Raider of the lost BBS
Now this would be a nice toy for my own daughters (says father, who wouldn't mind taking this thing apart). Too bad they don't take orders below one million pieces.
Considering the low specs of this thing how about releasing the distribution and libraries that will run on this? It should be trivial to build a VM that allows you to play with developing software to run in this kind of environment.
To ensure that this project doesn't flop right from the start -- I presume that they would like people to develop some software for it.... (visions of US$ 100 doorstops all over Asia)
Last time cheap laptops went on sale/given away there were so many rioting and fighting people that several were hospitalized. I wonder how a 3rd world country would deal with giving away these laptops, and how long they'll stay in the hands they are given to.
I think most of them really need materials in their own language.
...please....
You make certain assumptions that make me chuckle - these children don't have ANY reading or writing skills (which is why they are not considered 'literate', yet)...how the hell is it going to make any difference what language they start with, when they can't even read?
English may be the language of higher education
I think they will be very happy with their new ANUS laptops. http://www.anuslaptops.com/
To recap the responses to this kind of argument when it came up the last three or four times stories about the $100 laptop appeared on
Also, did you notice the part where the governments of not one, but four poor nations are buying the computers? That would seem to indicate somebody thinks they will be useful.
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
That is good news but there are still lots of challenges to this. I remember reading that they need 10 million to even be able to produce them. They are still a long way off.
Now I am usually an optimist and i do believe that the OLPC project is at its core a good project but the competition is heating up with China, AMD and Intel with their own programs and china's project being almost competitive on price. Also the OLPC project relies on AMD and indirectly china's production capabilities to make it a reality.
Also in my opinion (and mine only - don't want to start a flameware) it is too much of a one man crusade. I think that there is way too much emphasis and publicity surrounding Negroponte and what he thinks that people (like me) will start to wonder if this is really a group effort or just one man's dream. There are times that the distinction between non-profit and corporation are blurred and the line between philanthropy and publicity are not clear.
However I think idea is sound and I think that the OLPC project has served notice to corporations that there is a very underserved market that can further the adoption of computers and thus overall help everyone out (like the Intel's and AMD's of the world). I think that a few years from now the lasting legacy of the OLPC project may be the fact that it spurred companies to serve this market.
And regardless of what people may say about computers and learning it does let me slack off and post on slashdot all day so they can't be so bad.
Software Defined RFID - The Rifidi Emulator
your guess is wrong, because you are looking at the picture from too close.
it's true that what *those* children need is food and water. it's also true that, if the funding were present to set up an enormous school system to teach these children, that would be more effective.
It is not.
This is an attempt at an end-run around the basic problem that sits at the root of the others (lack of education) without the massive funding that such an attempt would ordinarily require.
The plan has plenty of flaws, most of which the founders are certainly aware, and more of which will not be discovered until they are visible in the implementation.
But until you have sat and seriously thought about what could be done that would ameliorate the problems those kids face, and done enough research to defend your position (which will likely be that there is no good solution that doesnt require either massive funding or massive manpower, but you might reach a different conclusion than i), your guess is worth less than nothing.
this is not about providing 'relief'. that is transient, and solves nothing at all.
these men and women have imagined a way to nibble at the problem's base.
I'm glad they have had the will to make their vision real.
Nigeria can't feed its own people and now they are wasting $100M on something so that white men in the west can feel good about spreading "information" or something. Bah.
^^This is what gets me.
This whole 'foreign countries are mud holes' theory that people like you in the US (you're in Cali, i did a little digging) share.
I am from Nigeria, and sorry to dismay your lively opinion of Nigeria and the other countries, but I did not live in a tent, hut, nor was my house supported with bamboo sticks.
I have been to Brazil and Argentina and it is the same as it is here in America, several cities bursting with industrial, urban life, and yes like a few places here in America (Central plains, deep south) ther are places that missed the technology bandwagon and could use all the cheap technology they can get (there are a lot of elementary school in the south that have no computers). My point being these are not third world countries, they are first world.
But back to the thread's main focus, this will be an ideal kick in these countries behind to help them catch up to European and Western countries. If 4 million computers can produce just one more person who can go to college and stand on his feet, then everyone wins.
Since when does being a Socialist mean 'someone who has a different opinion than me'?
i wonder if those will be able to run vista? also i am wondering if chairs are going to be thrown at M$ because that is 4 million less PC with windows installed. then again that is 4 million more with linux. oh well.
(yes i know i suck at spelling fell free to correct my grammar and/or spellin i dont care, im still not going to change
Gosh, I wasn't aware that poverty was endemic in Argentina and Brazil. I know it's too much to expect people to RTFA, but you could at least finish the summary before going into knee-jerk response mode.
But, let's assume that by 99% you mean 25% and we're just discussing Nigeria. It still doesn't make the OLPC program "totally useless". The thing to understand here is that just because the news channels only show you pictures from Africa when there's a drought or a famine, that doesn't mean that the entire continent is in a permenant, continuou state of starvation.
And yes, clean water and better educational facilities are sadly lacking in many parts of Africa. But that doesn't mean that clean water should be the only problem anyone is allowed to address. We can do things in parallel.
Four million kids, some of whom might never get a chance to see a computer, are going to grow up with marketable skills for the 21st century. They're going to get a chance to bring some money into their countries, and maybe get a chance to fix some of the other problems themselves.
And that can't be a bad thing
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Even if we assume that the corruption which normally gets in the way of everything in countries such as this will not be a factor this time, I don't think these computers will make a bit of difference in these countries. Computers require both infrastructure and previous basic education to make them worth anything. Just handing a computer to somebody who doesn't have the background to understand the tool's context isn't going to make any difference. Some people seem to think that computers somehow make people smarter and better-educated all of a sudden, but real education can happen far cheaper with much more basic and traditional tools. I love technology and I'm all in favor of progress, but I see zero evidence that computers in U.S. classrooms are making education better. I see even less likelihood of it making education better in Nigeria. Of course, as I said, I'm in the minority with this opinion. Since it runs Linux, most geeks think it's cool enough for them to want one, so it MUST be good for impoverished kids in mud huts. David
The laptops are part of Nigeria's "leave no scammer behind" initiative.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
You talk like most people in these countries (Nigeria, Brazil, Argentina, and Thailand) have never seen food in their life or something like that. What these (and other) countries need is not food sent from industrialised countries (which often hurts the local economy more than anything), its means to improve their own economy. This is done (partly) through improved education and that's where OLPC can help. There's no single solution to complex problems. You can focus only on food, just as you can't focus only on computers. But saying OLPC is unnecessary because there are other (possibly more important) problems is missing the point.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
We don't need to count on future Einsteins, that's a plus. Don't underestimated the power of normal people with access to information. It's empowering. See the two USA Today articles below to understand my point (the ones with cell phones). A network is a useful thing indeed.
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geo
Nigeria:
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 68%
male: 75.7%
female: 60.6% (2003 est.)
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geo
Brazil:
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 86.4%
male: 86.1%
female: 86.6% (2003 est.)
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geo
Thailand:
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 92.6%
male: 94.9%
female: 90.5% (2002)
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geo
Argentina:
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 97.1%
male: 97.1%
female: 97.1% (2003 est.)
See also:
"Africa's cell phone boom creates a base for low-cost banking"
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/gear/2005-0
"Africa's cellphone explosion changes economics, society"
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/gear/2005-1
Do you even realize just which ones "these countries" are?
Nigeria, Brazil, Argentina, and Thailand. Not Somalia, Bolivia, and Laos.
These are among the most economically developed countries on their respective continents. Hell, Brazil is a country that manufactures jet airliners that are operated by major U.S. airlines.
The computers are not going to naked starving kids in mud huts! These countries' governments know full well what it is that people in such circumstances (which all of the countries probably do have nonetheless) really need. They are likely going to cities which are relatively poor, but with a minimally sufficient economies, and working-class children (boys and girls) who would benefit most from education and the economic mobility it provides. And they've decided that cheap computers are the way to implement that.
These kids can't afford computers, and that's a problem. Because in the very cities they live in, people use computers every day.
Sorry but no, Steve Jobs offering OS-X for free was nothing but a kind gesture. His product is so out of range of the audience who would have gotten these machines it would be very hard to imagine any generated sales. Unless the project is super succesfull and instantly gives these kids western style incomes. Upper western style incomes.
Windows is an entirely different matter. MS has near dominance of the computer OS and 4 million new users who use non-ms software is nasty. Not horribly nasty but MS is often claimed to keep its dominance because it is dominant. In short you have to use windows, because everyone else uses windows. If everyone else doesn't use windows. Neither do you have to use windows.
It is the reason MS doesn't come down all that hard on piracy and is so willing to offer cheap (by western standards) versions of its OS in high piracy areas. MS rather loose a billion in sales then loose its dominance. Munich showed that MS is basically willing to give its software and services not just away for free but actually offer money on top of it just to make sure some other OS is not used.
Apple competes on quality, MS competes by being the only game in town. Oh and don't forget that linux users will have little difficulty switching to OS-X wich is after all based on that linux wannabe BSD. /me runs for it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
From the FAQ:
It will also be interesting to see if free textbooks ever really get going in languages other than English. If they do, then it could really start being cost-effective to distribute them to kids on a computer rather than by dead trees.
It's not a question of "when"; in many towns in third world nations, a room with a bunch of old PCs and CD-ROM drives in it is the library, and there is a lot of open content available for them.
They are giving away the laptops for FREE, not selling them.
Now how long before someone starts a "be the first to install Mac OS x86 on this machine" competition?
That's not what "first world" means. I hate when people are like, "we're totally first world now!" First world is a referencce to the Cold War: The Allies were first world, the Communists were second world, everyone else was third world. It's an accident of history that all the third worlders were poor as hell, but that's why they weren't involved. Get your terminology right.
Also, one should point out that without economic development in these countries, the problems of hunger and poverty will never be solved. And without some form of education and entree into the high tech world, that economic development will never happen. The ONPC project is aimed at breaking the cycle of poverty over the long term.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
the corruption which normally gets in the way of everything in countries such as this ... Just handing a computer to somebody who doesn't have the background to understand the tool's context isn't going to make any difference. ... impoverished kids in mud huts.
translation: don't waste yer time tryin' to help brown people. they ain't like you and me.
Wow! Overt racism from Alabama. Whodathunkit?
For the hundredth time....
They are not going to STARVING KIDS IN MUD HUTS!!!
Please, scroll up and read the responses to the post by bcrowell.
Not all Americans have such a narrow vision of the world. A few of us have been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to travel (as opposed to vacation in tourist areas).
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Four million kids, some of whom might never get a chance to see a computer, are going to grow up with marketable skills for the 21st century.
What are you talking about? They will probably be forced to use OO.o and the Gimp.
Joke! Joke! I'm totally kidding!
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
the "world" terminology is largely irrelevant in the first place, its a purely social construct. In this case, I fully agree with Wittengenstein, meaning is how a word is used. The origin of "first world," "second world," "third world" as a descriptor for groups in the cold war is only significant in a historical context, it has come to refer to the relative economic strength of Nations. Generally, it refers to the value of GDP/(nation's population), those with a high value are "first world," those with a lower one, "third world," with occasional references to borderline "second world" nations. That these groupings largely line up with their cold war counterparts is again only of historical significance.
I really think they should pass out birth control rather than laptops. With less starving kids around, less problems we have. Or set up a plan to have them Spade or neuter and have Bob Barker be the spokesperson.
You're an idiot. I wouldn't normally be so blunt, but your stupidity, rudeness and prejudice justify it in this case.
Good intentions don't necessarily mean results. And you're truly a moron if you believe that my judgment that this project won't help people means that I am a racist. For your information, I've been on trips to a couple of places with "brown people" to actually work for improvement in their lives. But you're dumb enough to think that it's racism if I think a project doesn't make rational sense.
The funny thing is that YOU are the prejudiced one in this case who makes assumptions which aren't justified by the reality of the what I said.
David
trivia fact: the term "second world country" actually refers to the members (now ex-members) of the Soviet Union. The first/second/third world terminology was popular during the cold war as a way to divide the entire planet into Us (god-fearing democracies), Them (god-hating commies), and All Those Really Poor Fuckers (most of africa, south america and the middle-east). So, actually, I guess most of the laptops are going to the third world, though they're certainly not going to the most utterly impoverished third world areas.
That phrase was intended as hyperbole. I'm sorry if it wasn't obvious enough.
David
I don't have a handy link from the CIA Factbook, but (using the time honored tradition of pulling a number out of my ass), I'd say that the literacy rate here on slashdot was around 47%.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Also, did you notice the part where the governments of not one, but four poor nations are buying the computers? That would seem to indicate somebody thinks they will be useful.
I'm sure they will be useful - for resale on the grey market.
If I see what 99% of the US people think of other countries, I would say they are in need of education as well. As it seems we must start with the people who teach others, you.
For somebody who teaches physics at Fullerton College you have clearly no grasp at what 99% means, nor what these countries are in real live.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
If the laptops can just run hot enough.
Just because we're outside the US doesn't mean we aren't enough intelligent to operate a computer. Well, they have food, a clean source of water, a chance to go to school, they only need a teacher.
Hi.
Still nothing on the $100 in food, clean water, shelter, and clothing per child project.
Right, because all possibly avenues for relief and charity dropped what they were doing to work on the laptop project.
Oh, and last I checked, Bob Geldof and Sally Struthers weren't making the world a better place-- and that $1 a day to "feed the children" doesn't seem to be doing much to provide for their future. Maybe a combination of current huminatarian efforts, with the access to education and knowledge that the laptop project will make possible could help some of these kids grow up to make their societies a better place.
You know, "teach a man to fish" and all that.
Btw, Argentina isn't particularly a poor country. They had a nasty financial crisis a few years back, but have been recovering steadily. Nor is Brazil for that matter. Of course poor people are poor just about everywhere, including here in the states. Perhaps this program might do some good here as well.
Anyway, you put a right kibosh on those whiney do-nothing nay-sayers.
"MUST be good for impoverished kids in mud huts"
You must be American, because you are so ignorant.
Just joking to make you sit up, one terrible stereotype deserves another....
I'd suggest you visit some of these countries to open your eyes and learn a little more about them, or if this is not possible, at least go to Wikipedia and read a little about them. It's a shame you make this comment because it devaluates the quite reasonable statement you make about querying the value of computers in education.
- you sponsor a village
- they set up correspondence with a child of a family in the village
- they send reports on how the community is doing
- the kid sends you some drawings and pictures
If you did this, you wouldn't say things like 'all they need is food and water'.8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
someone needs a "How to be funny and not just stupid" guide book. Oh! Here's one lying around. Should keep you amused for ages. Cheerio.
'tis but a scratch.
Maybe it is redundant to suggest this, but it does need to be said. Computing is secondary to these things. It's a lovely idea, but it's only a distraction from the main issue. I'd rather be alive (and hopefully secure in the knowledge that I would remain so) than computer (read internet) educated or literate.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Yeah, but when the Soviet Union and its bloc disappeared, the Third World moved up to second place.
And what perfect country are you from pray tell?
And so the designers designed it to be self container, there for needing NO infrastucture.
So you're saying that none of these countries can find 1 million children with said level of education?
Some people do think that, however this is not the driving premise of the OLPC project.
I would like to hear your suggestions on this.
I agree here. However you see computers as the failing parameter. I happen to think that in this case the average American is the failing parameter. If you don't believe me, go to a university with a good, but fairly priced Computer program and compare the ration of Americans to non-Americans. Then go to MySpace and do the same.Although the fact is computers are not a cure all. But one such laptop can potentially replace thousands of textbooks.
Why? If I had to guess I would say that the average Nigerian child has more raw potential than the average American child.
If you take a close look at Slashdot for example, you will notice that most geeks are still slaves to Windows and other shinny things. This $100 laptop fails to meet the more shallow "cool" requirements of the average "geek". Of coure real Linux geeks will truly be drooling for one.
No one is saying that it MUST be good. A few of us just seem to think it is worth a shot. There are non impoverished kids outside of "the West" just as there are impoverished kids IN the "the West". Throwing the "mud huts" in there was simply ignorant and anal.
David, I agreed with you on this but I post but I can't agree with you here. Makes it seem like you've never stepped outside of Alabama.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Like others said, these countries aren't third world and starved, but quite prosperous. The project is not aimed at helping only starving impoverished countries, but also helping countries that need to take the next technological step.
They have food and water (ever been to thailand? Food's the last thing they need help with), but they don't have access to technology.
A day's eating in Thailand can cost around $1. A good salary is anything over $200/month. Not much to you and me, but it's plenty for all of life's (biological) essentials there, including health care.
But $200/month limits people's access to technology. Sure, you can get broadband access and they seem to have more mobile phone shops than the rest of the world combined, Bangkok even has one of the world's largest computer shoping centres...but outside the cities, technology and salaries are more limited.
Therefore the OLPC project will help bridge this gap.
Sparks:Gadget:Beer Maker
Well seeing at this tired, narrow minded point has already been made in this discussion and that it gets carted out and parroted on every discussion on this subject I think the redundant mod is perfectly apt. Least the last person making the point was funny rather than patronising.
So... when can I order it for myself? I'd love to have such a nice little laptop.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Yes! Everyone who has a salary should donate some money to charity... I just donated 1000 DKK (danish crowns), and it's not like I'll miss them a lot... After all it's what I spent just a few weeks ago in a weekend of vacation.
You're right. There are many people that with international aid are not starving and dying of disease and now they want to improve on their situation by learning enough to build a real national economy in the third world.
Basic computer skills are important for outsourcing jobs. Whether or not oyu like outsourcing doens't matter however because it is the way the world is going.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
My guess is that for 99% ...what those kids really need is food, a clean source of water
And we don't care what your guess is. You know nothing about it, as evidenced by the fact that your guess is wrong. So why are you posting?
I am glad that this opens up opportunities for many children to learn about computers and grow up using them. All my life, I've had a computer around, and since everything is run by computers these days, it will do a couple things for those nations. Education of such a powerful tool will help them to get better jobs, and hopefully it will increase the market power for the countries.
I for one welcome these laptop weilding children of the world!
Child sponsorship programs are more about giving the donor a warm fuzzy feeling than actually helping. Do you really want your money going on administering all these reports and photos and letters? Why exactly do you want these things? If it's because you want to monitor where the money is going, bear in mind that there is no obligation on the part of the charity to spend your donation on schemes that directly benefit that child. They may publish reassuring figures saying that "only 20% of our budget is spent on administration", but that figure only includes admin spent at head office. The costs of administering the photos, letters etc are not included. Nor are the salaries and expenses of the aid workers who go out finding these kids. Nor any other expenditure 'in the field'. The 80% spent on the projects also includes ring-fenced payments given by governments and other organisations to carry out specific projects.
The kids don't all live in mud huts. Their entire education systems are not without hope. Perhaps one might be ordering a million laptops for one's "third world" country so that one can distribute them -initially- on a targeted basis to high school students who show aptitude, putting tools into the very hands that *can* use them.
The OLPC website says they will only be available to schools and governments. How will anyone ever develop software for it? Why can't I pay $200 for one and have $100 of that go towards subsidizing a laptop for some other kid?
I presume that they would like people to develop some software for it.... (visions of US$ 100 doorstops all over Asia)
Clue 1: more software comes with a Linux distro than comes with Windows.
Clue 2: Brazil and Argentina are not in Asia.
The National School Lunch Program Background and Development
http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Lunch/AboutLunch/Prog
To summarize: mal/undernourished children don't learn for shit. Since they will only learn a minority of what you teach them, the majority of the money spent on teaching them is wasted.
"Few of us sufficiently realize the powerful effect upon life of adequate nutritious food. Few of us ever think of how much it is responsible for our physical and mental advancement or what a force it has been in forwarding our civilized life." - Robert Hunter (author of Poverty in 1904) wrote that in the introduction to John Spargo's 1905 book The Bitter Cry of the Children
You can read more history here.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
That would make a damn good folding team.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Try to calculate it as a percentage of your monthly earnings. You'll see it's not that much :)
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
"Jesus would have used a Durex!"
Well, actually, he would probably have used a cat gut. or a kitten's if he was in the XXSmall category.
That's the problem with reading too much about history, you learn too much you would have been happy to ignore. As a happy side
bonus, you feel very happy living now, instead of then...
Sorry, slow day here too.
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
The thing is, "teaching a man to fish" often is used as an excuse to sell expensive proprietary bait ..... which is why Microsoft were so keen to get in there and give away cheap Windows software, and why Negroponte and co. were right to flat-out refuse them.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
See my comment in 2000 to Doug Engelbart's Bootstrap List at:
... Available in four translucent colors, Cybiko has a full QWERTY keyboard to compose messages, LCD display, .5 MB memory (expandable to 16MB), a high frequency transmitter and Vibration Alert feature. The unit measures 4.8 x 2.8-inches and weighs under four ounces making it light, thin and small enough to carry in a book bag, purse or shirt pocket. ... With Cybiko, kids and teens can communicate instantly with others within a radius of 150 to 300 feet, depending on the environment, creating their very own virtual community.
m 050399.htm
http://www.bootstrap.org/dkr/discussion/0754.html
From there [with some outdated links removed]:
I'd love to make a souped up version of this for OHS/DKR use: (Read about in May 2000 Popular Mechanics) "Cybiko Introduces First Handheld Internet Wireless Entertainment System At Toy Fair 2000"
US $149.00 The Cybiko system combines instant messaging, interactive gaming, email and personal information manager (PIM) capabilities in an all-in-one device.
Wow!
Imagine what we could have for $1000 by the end of this year by integrating technology that already exists:
Develop a beefed up version supporting a distributed file system like Freenet...
http://freenet.sourceforge.net/
Using technology like this 6GB in 14 ounces $500 portable audio player/recorder: [nomad Jukebox]:
And a two mile radio range: [Motorola walky talky]
Maybe with a next generation StrongARM 600Mhz processor:
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/e
Like a faster version of: [BossaNova mobile processor]
Running Squeak (and maybe Linux) as an open source OS/Development environment:
http://www.squeak.org/
Using Bootstrap OHS/DKR type ideas for the interface...
Powered by solar energy and/or Baygen radio windup technology and/or fuel cells.
And with a digital camera for fun and creation of educational how-to tutorials... (And on the spot news reporting...)
And remember that in five years this entire thing will cost US$100 each.
As an alternative, this could be a set of HandSpring modules instead: [Springboard]
Consider a couple of these souped up devices given to each village in Africa. Anyone with $1 billion for true development aid to 500,000 African villages? (This is just the cost of one unfinished dam or one shut down nuclear plant.)
Consider millions of these devices airdropped into Iraq and Yugoslavia -- instead of more expensive cruise missiles! Anybody got $1 billion to spend on ensuring democracy with a true defense against tyranny in those places? (This is probably what the U.S. military's spends on gas/oil for a month cruising the area...)
This is like a system I wanted to develop and deploy pre-Y2K just in case... But it still has much value in preparing for any potential (natural, political, economic, biological) disaster, as well as aiding the development of democracy.
It's somewhat like the wearable crystals described in The Skills of Xanadu" by Theodore Sturgeon (available in his book The Golden Helix), although the one thing it lacks is easy self-repliaction...
Developing and then deploying this sort of device is the sort of thing the UN or a major foundation should fund (if they were on the ball). But luckily, there is hope from toymakers!
====
Anyway, glad to see six years later this is going ahead at that $100 price point (and developed by other than toymakers). My hat goes off to the dedicated people making this happen.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I can't believe how many of you downplay the significance of this. Many say "simply giving these people computers will not educate them". I disagree. I think placing these machines in the hands of those who could benefit from them will have an enormous impact, even if they just magically appeared on 4 million computerless peoples' doorsteps.
Here's the anecdotal support for my opinion here... I am an example of someone who learned to master computers at a young age, and who now makes a good living programming them. My dad had an interest in computers so he set aside enough money to get some for our family, but he really didn't have the time, motivation, and ability to figure out how to do much with them. Didn't matter, me just being a curious and geeky kid, merely having access to a computer was all it took to get me started down my path to success. My dad didn't teach me, I taught myself dialing BBSes with our 2400 baud modem after reading in the newspaper that such activities were possible.
There ARE millions of kids in these countries who would respond to having a computer around very similarly to how I did. In many cases, if they can't use it, someone else they know will. Computer skills are so heavily linked to financial success these days, it seems quite foolish to think exposing more people to computers will not be a huge boon to any country that manages to do it.
Yes, many recepients will sell their laptops on ebay, but they will be cheap. Most of them will remain in the countries that bought them. The people who buy them will make good use of them and likely would not have been able to afford a comparable machine otherwise.
... is figure out how on Earth you use them!
Is that the same CIA (so-called) fact book that says that cyclists have the right of way over pedestrians in Denmark? And that you should watch out for pick-pockets at all times while being in that country? Yeah, right...
but I see zero evidence that computers in U.S. classrooms are making education better.
As much as it pains me, I have to agree on this point (but make it Australia, not USA). I've been involved in studies looking at "flexible delivery" and "online learning" methodology, and I'm in no way convinced that we've identified effective methods for using computers in education yet. In my experience they can provide some benifits, but in the roles of self-testing and reference. I've yet to see any real evidence for effective teaching as such.
If you already have the basics of a subject, then it does appear that a computer can be a useful tool for expanding skills (i.e. if you know PASCAL, then you can learn a lot of C using computers and the network). But there's a real limit to what can be taught in that manner (have you seen the C Code a completely self-taught programmer who has mainly used online C "tutorials" to learn writes?), and I do not think that real fundamentals can be taught terribly well without face-to-face contact (includes 2-way radio) and books (real dead trees) to work from.
I believe that some day someone will crack a way of doing real interactive remote teaching over the web, and then we'll start to see computers delivering real teaching. Until then we should look at "computer based education" as research in progress.
I felt a great disturbance in the Net, as if millions of laptops were cranked up and suddenly started dowloading pr0n...
I agree. Brazil, for example, has a history of investing wisely in its development. They turned down President Bush's megamilliondolllar abstinence^W AIDS funding because it tied their hands on how to spend money to fight the HIV epidemic.
And Argentina may be an otherwise "rich" country, but with a ~30% unemployment rate brought about by World Bank/IMF policies, it will definitely be a while before it gets back on the wagon.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
It wasn't hyperbole, it was hyper-bollocks.
Do you think the children should not be tought in school because they are starving? They could be working on the land, making food, couldn't they.
Or do you agree that teaching them will make them better able to lift themselves out of the gutter?
If so, why not with a laptop? One small laptop can hold an awful lot of tectbooks, copied for practically free, unlike paper copies...
* how easy is it for geeks meet women? Were trying to spread geekdom, right?
* how much longer will it take these people to meet the opposite sex if they are laptop obsessed ?
* now we just need some really involved mesh network games.
* if they get educated, they will want to stay in school longer, and again delay reproductive activity.
ITs win, win, win...
Even if 80% of your "donation" goes to "administration", that still means 20% is going to the person it should be going to.
And keep in mind that this money is usually helping an entire community - $20 spent proving a well and pump that gets water from the uphill side of the village is a hell of a lot of benefit to a village that previously drank from the river on the downhill side of the latrines and cess pits. That money is preventing disease, and improving the health of the entire village. This in turn enables people to be more productive and as such the diet of everyone improves. This in turn improves the effectiveness of the education the kids in that village get.
I get kinda cranky when I hear this "I won't give to because x% of the donations never gets to the people that need it" as it means that the people that need it miss out on the (100-x)% they might have got. And we say this as we sit in our nice houses, drinking our triply-treated water, and throwing our food scaps out to be used in industrial land-fill, watching "Rock Idol" and debating whether video games might encourage violence in kids.
Now we just need to get all the poor in THIS country free education with cheap laptops. While we're at it, why don't we go ahead and fix the voting scandal situations by making them all voting terminals with thumbprint security. It seems like getting something like the OLPC campaign connected with real and legitimate democracy and voting is a good idea. Hell, we're spending 177 MILLION a day to be at war in Iraq, maybe we can take 150 days off (or a hell of a lot more), and have these laptops made for every citizen in the country, particularly those eligible to vote ($177M * 150days = ~$27B, 250Mpeople * $100Laptop = $25B (a little extra to hire a good open source programmer and implement the peer verifiable voting security system). Maybe then promoting democracy in other countries wouldn't seem so god damned hypocritical.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
And most learning is wasted in the West, too. How much Maths have you used? Woordworking? Geography? English Literature? Biology? Music?
Beyond reading and writing (hopefully), you've learned everything else you use after you left school.
In an attempt to give a positive spin to this new development, Steve Ballmer will soon propose a new "$100-laptop-throwing"-competition.
since these laptops don't run Windows I'm wondering if the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would also support something like this, as it would conflict with Bill's business interests.
In the mean time the pentagon announced promising results from the one Guided Bomb Unit per child program ...
http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view. php?StoryID=20060731-043823-6313r
4 Million Laptops? Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those!
These devices have new technology and even new concepts.
Consider mesh networking. Fast forward 10 years, consider everyone has such a device. Who needs an isp anymore? The mesh is giving everybody access to everyone else without an isp. Naturally host which are close-by are much faster then host farther away; so maybe some may need a isp, but most communication with friends and colleges will go over the mesh network...
These machines will get cheaper over time. They can not continue to upgrade the system because of power constraints so the upgrade cycles we have seen in pc's are unlikely; All the development will result in more features and lower production prices. These systems are the next step after the PC.
This is the beginning of the post-PC era.
What I cannot create, I do not understand
Every person who sits in a coffee shop browsing the web, or in a lecture hall taking notes, or in cramped economy class with just a clip tray, or is on a weekend away with hand luggage would give their right arm for an ultra cheap, ultra rugged and ultra usable laptop for 200-300 dollars. That is why Microsoft & Bill Gates hates these things - they cost a fraction of his Origami concept boxes and just as usable. In fact I would say they are more usable since they are proper laptops and not some crappy pen computing device shoehorned into working with XP. These things are proper laptops with a mouse, keyboard and screen in a small form factor. You could give them a beating because they are designed to be kid proof. Their solid state design means you sling them into a backpack, drop them, or toss them onto a bed and they would still work. There would be a huge market for a commercial version of these things. If OLPC were too busy producing a kids version, I am sure their OEM partners would love to give it a shot.
Millions of little Malaysian children chained to their PC's hammering out PHP code for pennies a day.
Computers require both infrastructure and previous basic education to make them worth anything.
Wrong... these computers are designed to be their own infrastructure... and computers require the ability to read (something that should be encouraged). Actually... you are right in one sense. These OLPC systems are only a tiny part of the problem -- they will allow third-world countries to jump themselves into the first-world economy without massive investment. They aren't *the* solution, but they are part of it, though obviously the basics (food, water, home) come first.
It's a logical fallacy to assert that the government where I live has to be perfect for me to point out a problem that is going to be a serious potential issue for this project. (I don't like ANY government. I think they're all lousy. Some are just worse than others about overt corruption on such big projects.)
5 189779?v=glance
Just because the planners for this project SAY it requires no infrastructure to make it work other than what's available doesn't make it true. Just shoving a piece of hardware at someone isn't going to magically make him learn something. The goal of this project is allegedly to bring the people on the bottom up to par technologically with people in more developed countries. All it will really do is create bigger gaps between the small minority in those countries who are already educated and the majority who don't have the basics.
Better education comes from the interaction of a decent teacher with a student, not from throwing a piece of hardware at them. We haven't even figured out how to make computers improve education in places where we have all the money in the world to throw at education. What evidence is there to think it's going to work some kind of magic in other places that have even less developed education systems? It's all pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking. It's the evidence of an irrational trust in technology to fix problems -- when the problem isn't the technology. (Hint: The educated people of the past -- before computers were even thought of -- were somehow able to become educated despite the lack of comptuers.) The problems limited these Third World countries are economic and government-imposed. Although I don't agree with this author's economic conclusions about everything, he does make a strong case for why Third World governments are causing the poverty their own people face:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/019
People who think "it is worth a shot" haven't thought this thing through, IMO. Governments are going to divert millions upon millions of dollars to a project that is more likely to produce a bunch of expensive doorstops, IMO. The ones that ARE used will most likely be used by people who would have had computers anyway. The ones who it's allegedly supposed to help aren't going to see any benefit to it.
You and others who lash out at those who think this is a bad idea seem to see this as having something to do with evil racist attitudes of people who don't like "other people," but that misses the point entirely. To me, it's merely that computers don't fix education the way people assume they do -- not here in the West or in any place. If you want to be dumb enough and insulting enough to think my opinion is wrong because I live in Alabama, you're terribly prejudiced. My opinion is based on my judgment concerning the efficacy of computers in learning, not judgment about the people targeted. But you'd apparently rather make prejudiced assumptions instead of understand the reasons behind why I think it will fail.
David
Since people are arguing over subjective impressions on both sides, I decided to pull in some harder numbers.
_ literacy_rate )
.863 (High Human Development) .778 (Medium Human Development) .792 (Medium Human Development) .453 (Low Human Development)_ HDI.pdf )
WRT education hear are some stats on the literacy rate:
Argentina: 97.2%
Thailand: 92.6%
Brazil: 88.4%
Nigeria: 66.8%
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by
Okay, so except for Nigeria, most people in these countries seem to have a decent (though not necessarily high tech) education.
WRT general human development, here are some stats:
Argentina:
Thailand:
Brazil:
Nigeria:
(Source: http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005/pdf/HDR05
Okay, so except for Nigeria, most of these countries seem to be decent places to live (even though life is likely much harder than what north americans and europeans are used to)
Hence the rough seperation between sciences & humanities. A physics test and a critical literary paper require two entirely different modes of thought.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
If he was from New Zealand, he would have used a sheep's. While it was still in the sheep.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
These computers help give the ability for children to get an education. In many countries having a pencil or pen is a requirement for a child to go to school at the lowest level. Now imagine several million kids can now go to school because they have a way to write, do math and more. It goes further; these kids will now have a requisite skill for higher education, word processing. Many a smart kid has been blocked from college success because they cannot type or do computer research. OLPC will give children a chance to have a chance for higher education. It is a brilliant idea. Sure a few hackers may be created but America's public schools create plenty of those anyway, one of the OLPC children may even create useful security software someday.
Hey, I am from Argentina, we have food but not money. That machines gonna be very useful here. And I dont think anybody would steal and sell them, the things are made like toys for kids. ,simulator or something so I can start making software for that things?
I am a programmer and can program in linux and embeddedd devices, where can I find a SDK
I've read several articles on this OLPC. I haven't seen "Number Munchers", "Math Blaster", or "Oregon Trail" mentioned once, and I wonder, "why?"
If there are no working prototypes, how did Kofi Annan present one at the World Summit on Information Society?
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
"Computers require both infrastructure and previous basic education to make them worth anything."
m l
In general I agree with your statement. However, you'll be interested to read about this experiment:
http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet20/inamdar.ht
where children with no computer experience at all managed to learn a lot about using a PC and the Internet, just by trial and error.
Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.
This is a pretty interesting idea, I think.
If you're going to turn out a few million identical machines to people who don't have a whole lot of backwards-compatibility requirements, you can suddenly do a lot of things that mainstream PC manufacturers can't. I'd really like to see them blank-slate design the architecture, within the requirements of cost (i.e. using off-the-shelf parts).
I guess the only problem is that you don't want to stray too far from 'conventional' PCs, because you want the experience that kids get working on these machines to be easily translatable to what the rest of the world uses; however, maybe using a slightly different architecture will teach a valuable lesson about the benefits of writing agnostic code for standard toolsets.
I'll be perfectly honest here: I'm rather cynical about the OLPC project ever actually accomplishing its goals. But despite that, I think it's a noble effort and I wish them well, if just because it's a hell of a technical question, and the engineer in me thinks that any project that really puts a lot of minds to work on a problem like that is pretty neat. Even if the majority of the laptops end up getting sold to us First Worlders on eBay, the fact that they will have designed such a machine and produced it -- provided they can do it, naturally -- will keep me from calling it a total failure. Regardless of the outcome, OLPC is going to be a case study for anyone thinking big in technology.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I'd like to point out for the casual reader that the stats you presented also mean most people in Nigeria are literate.
I hope laptops don't care if a child must redone a school year. The fact is, kids learn (or worse, don't learn) at 14 the kind of things were taught at 9 when I was to elementary school.
The "reason" behind this (besides our evil governments like controllable masses) is that higher grades teachers lose its job if not enough kids reach their grades.
And of course, our government will put this as a grand achievement of their own, like the "My 1st PC" program (Government backed program for selling Wintel computers for first time users through the biggest stores in the country. Lots of retail computer shops and FOSS activists whined with little result).
Sorry for the rant, I'm angry. The only good thing is they don't have the "toys" GWB have at hand.
Got Pike?
..others are noticing how (un)funny the level of humour has gotten at this place. good job i wasn't actually after any insightful comments about the status of the OLPC project, or informed views on the subject. instead the insightfully modded post is the parent, saying how shit your jokes are! /.'s a fuckin joke now...
It's even funnier that when I quickly scanned through that page (the idea is funny) that the jokes there weren't funny either. I shall suggest a name change to "How to be stupid and not just stupid" or maybe I missed the funny bits. Oddly enough if you hold that article up to a mirror it reads like "How to post on Slashdot" ;-)
So which American cities in particular have half the population living in favelas that make trailer parks look like Beverly Hills in comparison? Many Brazilians don't have electricity at all, they live in houses that are literally six foot across and made out of cardboard.
And considering the endemic corruption in Brazil, this scheme is likely to do no more than line the pockets of the local politicans as they sell the laptops on to the wealthy half of the country.
build and sell? I understand that they are losing money on every one of those too. ;)
That CIA fact book's a sack of shit. How do you test the literacy of a population where most people don't go to school and live in areas where even the police are scared to go?
Perhaps they walk into a favella in Rio and ask the local crack dealer if he wants to do a literacy test.
Kofi broke the prototype
My government spends 100 million dollars in notebooks and there isn't even a mention in the newspaper? WTF?
Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.
witchcraft
But back to the thread's main focus, this will be an ideal kick in these countries behind to help them catch up to European and Western countries. If 4 million computers can produce just one more person who can go to college and stand on his feet, then everyone wins.
You want those governments to spend $400 million just for the chance that a child will "go to college?" I would actually hope a more than 1 in out of 4,000,000 gets a "higher education" because of these things. Aim for 10% or something. 400,000 getting either a HS or basic college general ed sounds alot better. What really threw me was the whole "go to college" part of your comment. If this thing is actually really successful, then these kids should be able to achieve a full college education right where they are at rather than moving else just for educational needs. That educational concept is too radical for the teacher's unions/colleges to accpet in any first world country. I'm curious at how it'll turn out in the future and hopeful about it, but if only 1 in a million benefit from these then it was wasted government money.
EOM
Words matter as much as bandwidth; this too was a publicity stunt:
THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
But read to freezing volunteers on the banks of an ice-cold river, on the eve of the first victory in the American revolution, these words mattered as much as technology, as much as bullets and powder.
For example I ask if you believe that virtually everyone in America has a cell phone? CBS reports that 43% do not--while neglected pay phones vanish from the hands of people who need them most.
The measure of our civilization is our treatment of the poor, the weak, and the friendless. Technology without conscience is a rusting bucket of scrap iron.
Shame on you and others for mocking the goals of this idealistic project.
Curious to know why we are sending laptops when a good percentage of the population in these countries are in poverty. How about we try improving their living conditions before we sit back with a smile on our faces thinking that technology will somehow turn someone's makeshift hut into a real living quarters. I read somewhere that 25 million people in Brazil don't even have access to electricty. Bolster living conditions first...Throw gratuitous technology in their faces later.
"One day your going to wake up and realize that your not as witty as you think you are." -Me.
for how long it takes these things to pop up on ebay? I bet those kids in Nigeria would MUCH rather have my $200 US than some laptop.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
You have absolutely no clue about those programs then. Reputable programs make sure 90% get to the people they are trying to help. Just like any reputable charity. If you took the 8 seconds to look that up, you would know those programs are far from worthless. Any donation should be preceeded with checking what the overhead is, many charities abuse that portion of the budget, many do not. Hell even the children sponsorship programs that advertise on tv still make sure as much as possible gets where it should.
You are pretty much making things up...If the charity says "we make sure 90% gets to the child" then no, that money does not go to salaries.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
I wish they would do something more practical ...
instead of giving laptops to poor people.
Coz chances are they would probably appreciate good food, water, housing, schools much more.
And chances are, these laptops will be sold for 1 or more of the above.
Or rarely used.
It is a pity when people think the way to help poor people in 3rd World country is to give them a Laptop.
Reminds of that Russian queen "If the people don't have bread to eat, why don't they eat cake?"
Why not eh?
jester
Jose Thompson, the Argentinian lawyer currently foaming at the mouth at the prospect of millions of kids being exposed to the internet for the first time at once.
945,342 search results for ebay listing subject of "New linux laptops cheap".
*** Brand New Linux Laptop, only $150 BIN ***
I bet the guys without jobs in America would like to interact with the world economy too. If my neighbors had jobs I would feel better about exporting technology and skills to the rest of the world. As it is, most unemployed guys out there are considered chumps by the employed...much less the corporate/government leaders.
Are you sure about that?
And even so, you can give each family 100$ and they can eat for a month from that. That's what organisations have been doing for decades now and keep on doing. But there will be new children, uneducated, unable to provide for themselves, in need for medical care, food, clean water, shelter.
Are you going to give another 100$ for the next generation or a factor of that cause the past generation is still starving? OR would you ensure education for all, so they can build their own economy and provide for themselves, create solutions and have the next generation being independant?
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
"If 4 million computers can produce just one more person who can go to college and stand on his feet, then everyone wins"
That would be 400 million dollars just to get someone into college - hardly a victory.
What the laptops need to do is help a significant number of the children who use them develop some skills that they can use to improve their lives in some way.
Maybe one child builds a cooler air conditioner, another uses the computer to expose her abuse, another learns mathematics and becomes an accountant, another makes a web site and shares his poetry, etc.
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
Is it just me?
Or does anyone think exactly where in the mud hut do they expect to find an electrical outlet to recharge the laptop? I know, I know...not everyone on the list is in a mud hut...but really, do they expect everyone to have eletricity? I hope their sending Solar Panels as well. And how about access to the internet? or a printer?
Really, sending something more practical like the parts to build a power plant, or tractors to grow food...might just be a better idea than a laptop.
WTF? Over?
It's election year in Brazil, and Lula is going for four more. So I guess that says a lot about the use theses "computers" will have...
This is the total expenditure for 2005. Sure, a lot of these things are technically part of project costs, and I'm not saying that they're unnecessary, but you are very naive if you think 90% is "going to the child". Hell, 30% goes just on staff and consultants. NGOs that operate sponsorship projects always spend a significant proportion of their income on administering them. I'm not even going to get into the massive flaws in the NGO system in general.
My point is that by giving as part of a sponsorship program, more of your donation goes on admin than if you gave to an NGO that doesn't use child sponsorship.
I disagree. There is a chicken and egg problem to economic development. Bringing laptops to third world countries will benefit them in the short-run, but it is completely dependent on the low-cost nature of the gift. Whether the children become new hopes to the poverty in these countries remains to be seen in another ten years, but the OLPC benevolence may not last ten years.
China is also a growing third-world country, and I have never heard of anyone wanting to supply China with those $100 laptops. By producing the laptops themselves, the Chinese can probably offer even cheaper products, whether by counterfeiting or other forms of business espionage - the market is thus fully capable of supplying the children with machines that they need to learn computer skills, plus the discretion to purchase the most cost-effective computer, not just the ones donated by the humanitarians of the west. In fact, Chinese customers are often more picky than typical Americans who are easily satisfied with the Dells and HPs, since a computer is no small investment with respect to their income, and there is more incentive to make the investment count most. This in turn provides incentives for engineering excellence and production improvements, factors critical to both short-term and long-term developments.
The true growth in economy thus comes from the heavy competition, not from the idealists who believe in the inalienable rights of owning a computer, or even a diploma. It's the people of a nation that determine their own future, and the charity of the west sometimes does more harm by sapping the incentives of improvement.
I'm glad India chose not to order a million laptops from OLPC. India, with such a vibrant IT tech base, ought to be able to supply the need internally. Self-confidence is the first sign of strength.
Pretty clueless. One of the key points of the OLPC is the manually operated power supply.Original designs features a hand crank on the side of the case which was moved to the power cord so that it could be replaced easily. finally, a foot powered design on the power cord was settled upon.
So, actually yes these are perfect for adobe homes with no power. And I'm sure you would be surprised how nice an abobe home is compared to the piece of crap stick homes that Americans are fooled into thinking are superior to adobe. There's simply no question that adobe homes are not only far more environmentally friendly, but also far more attractive than stick houses.
In fact, once these places install wireless networks thes people in their adobe homes in rural Nigeria are probably going to have a faster Internet connection than you because in American where people are proud to fight for the right to be screwed by major corporations the Internet just doesn't really fit in to the grand scheme of things.
Why buy $100 laptops when you can buy UMPCs? They do twice as much at six times the cost!!!
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Assuming this is the same project mentioned in last month's Wired magazine, the laptops can be recharged using (among other things) physical labor (i.e. pulling a string, similar to how you start a lawnmower).
Really, sending something more practical like the parts to build a power plant, or tractors to grow food...might just be a better idea than a laptop
Seems like the World Bank has been trying things like that since the 1960's, and in many cases they didn't improve the situation much for anyone other than the government in power and their cronies. So why not try something new? Perhaps the problem has been that the things that would seem practical to a naive westerner aren't so practical after all.
We'll see what happens -- either these laptops will make a difference, or they won't. But don't be so quick to cast judgement on a program you don't know very much about. It's not like MIT is just jumping into this on a whim... they've given it several years of thought, and consulted with many people familiar with the areas they are trying to help.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
thats 100% false. go find something to back that up instead of pulling facts out of your ass.
Since when does being a Socialist mean 'someone who has a different opinion than me'?
There are still a billion people in the world living on "a dollar a day," and at that rate of resource consumption, you're not exactly "living" so much as "dying slowly." These people can't be taught to fish, because they have no fishing poles, no bait, no nearby fishing holes, and too little time and strength to invest in any skills that would improve their long-term prospects. Such people can't be said to be on the ladder of economic development at all. In order to be on the ladder, they need to have enough for their day-to-day needs, so that they can make long-term investments in things like new technologies and new skills.
What these people need: food assistance, mosquito netting, access to clean water, vaccines.
How we can give it to them: direct assistance, debt forgiveness (so the governments can spend some money on infrastructure, rather than blowing it all servicing past debt), unilaterally dropping all tarriffs on goods from countries with the lowest GDPs, programs to promote good governance. Oh, and nuke the IMF from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
The laptops are headed for a different class of people: people whose daily nutritional and shelter needs are being met, and who are ready to take the next step. Giving fish and teaching fishing are two different strategies that are best suited to different groups.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Sorry, i meant 1 student per computer. not 1 student for 4 million.
Since when does being a Socialist mean 'someone who has a different opinion than me'?
First, let's assume that the laptop really offers nothing in terms of helping kids program or learn anything that they couldn't before. While I don't believe this is true, I'll grant you that for the sake of argument.
This being the case, you can think of the laptop as a dynamic textbook and nothing more. Over time, with most of the material that children need to learn available online for free, you've saved money on textbook purchases. They can work the same way as textbooks always have in education where the teacher says "read bla bla bla and come back to me and we'll talk about it." Is that really such a bad thing considering the possible other benefits of the system?
But what are the other benefits of the system? People say that it'll enable kids to do new things like program and whatnot. Others say that they'll draw ascii porn, share it, and jerk off all day. I think, though, that while some of these kids will likely be exchanging porn or other equally uninspiring material, there will be many who will actually use them for do something really interesting.
And about your comment about how the kids who would actually do something useful probably have a computer already anyway, I think is simply false. I like to think of this whole process as bootstrapping. They're investing in the intellectual capital of their youth and hoping that something good comes of it. In all likelihood, there will at least be one or two hundred people who really benefitted and end up contributing back into their communities to get more and more people motivated and capable to contribute and compete in the global information economy.
These things don't happen over night. I don't think you're giving these people enough credit.
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.
\
Please stop guessing. You're not very good at it...
From the CiA fact book:
Nigeria:
-Literacy: 68%
-Population below poverty line: 60%
Argentina:
-Literacy: 97.1%
-Population below poverty line: 38.5%
Brazil:
-Literacy: 86.4%
-Population below poverty line: 22%
Thailand:
-Literacy: 92.6%
-Population below poverty line: 10%
For reference purposes:
USA:
-Literacy: 99%
-Population below poverty line: 12%
While some of you imagine a million people learning to program Squeak smalltalk whatever, I'm imagining 4 million little hackers who are TYPING WITH THEIR TOES and putting the laptops on their HEADS!!!
www.das-fotoarchiv.com/portfolio/gordon/page17.ht
you can read the comments: "Two children eat rotten organges in the shanty town slum (called a 'villa'). Their parents collect trash to find food, and cardboard to sell to recyclers, in order to survive" That's in Argentina sir, you sure all they need is access to technology?
moron.
Few of us (apparently) sufficiently realize the powerful effect upon having the skills to pay the bills of adequate education. Giving people food results in a class of dependents living in a culture of dependence just as giving people welfare money does. Teaching them how to get food for themselves actually solves a problem.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Points about poverty are never funny, they are at most ironic, and at their worst, as bad as it can get.
The main issue is that the tied aspect of aid to the poorer nations of this world needs to come to an end, instead of perpetuating crap that effectively becomes one way "free trade" (oh no I must be one of those commie liberals) which causes economic situations that too many people are simply in no position to do anything with their lives other than be subsistence slaves and that's all they'll ever be. The frequent insane regimes don't help, but those appear to be everywhere now. The difference between them is a matter of degree and of course luck.
The $100 laptop is a noble idea, one of many, hopefully there is many more and certainly it will help many people, it won't save the world just yet though it won't make it worse.
Of course, the easiest thing to do is autodump on the naughty man saying bad words, he has to be put in his place.
So Mod -1 this to oblivion for all I care.
Well, all that money went to fund Tydirium Junkers with positronic tractor beams...
but really, do they expect everyone to have eletricity? I hope their sending Solar Panels as well.
Assuming this is the same project mentioned in last month's Wired magazine, the laptops can be recharged using (among other things) physical labor (i.e. pulling a string, similar to how you start a lawnmower).
One thing the OLPC people have written is that they gave up on the original design with a builtin hand-cranked charger. They realized that many of the young children they're planning for just don't have arm strength or coordination to use such a crank. So they went with a rechargeable battery, with several kinds of external chargers available depending on the environment. One possibility is a muscle-powered dynamo that could be operated by an older child to recharge the younger ones' laptops. Another is a solar charger. Or the usual transformer dongle for places where there's electricity. But usually you'd only need one such charger for N laptops.
In most cases, these gadgets will need an infrastructure that includes more than power. To be really useful for the intended purposes, they're working on a "mesh" wireless network, but somewhere in the area a flock of laptops will need to be able to reach a machine with an Internet connection. This implies a server machine of some sort that can talk to the laptops and also to whatever Net link is available locally. There are a lot of ways this connectivity could happen, and it generally implies a job for at least one person tending the local server/router/gateway. Probably whatever kids have the best local "nerd" reputations.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
WHY CAN'T I ORDER ONE! Seriously! I'd pay up to 400 for one.
Gorkman
How do you expect to have people, say, grow their own food when they literally don't have the strength to pull a small weed? Plant the garden/orchard for them? What happens when they eat everything? You expect them to magically make a new one with no knowelge or experience? Foundations for feeding people exist, so other foundations can teach them to live on their own.
Please put some pants on before you post again.
Bah, by using developers and letting them in on the platform, you cede control. Who needs that?
Sincerely-
The UN
I know the intent of this program is to help these children to have better opportunities, but what other infrastructure is being set up in these countries for this program besides just the act of buying the laptops?
Meanwhile, Argentina's population are absolutely nuts over linux. I was there about a year ago, and you can see the visage of tux everyehwer.
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
...will it run Windows??
How much do you want to bet that 3.5 million of these are on ebay tomorrow? If they fetch $150 a piece on average that's a significant sum to a lot of the people these are destined for (or for the corrupt members of those governments who "lose" a truckload or three) and it's still well below retail for customers in this country that think it's a neat toy.
100,000,000 machines, all identical, all connected together in a huge mesh can be a security problem if a worm that can exploit one of the machines is made. It will quickly spread to all of the machines.
Care needs to be taken so that the machines can be restored to their default configurations and that they are carefully fire walled and only pass along validly formed packets.
This would impair the development of alternative services that run on a particular machine.
Of course a billion machines spread over the globe all in a mesh with sensors at each location could make an awesome AI simulation, or a great weather sampling and detecting station.
There is a lot of discussion about how these machines are going to connect to the Internet. That is simple. You just need one of the computers in each community to connect to a cell phone that supports packet data protocols. This machine could be beefier with a proxy to locally store dns answers and images. Updates could be handled the same way.
Yeah, well...
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
It all comes down to human nature they will be bought and sold for greed and profit. Yes, they may all end up as doorstops true but if they are capable of reading a form of ebook they may also become some childs most treasured item. One that grants access to new worlds and horizons as books did for me as a child.
They will be used for the same 'pointless' or not so pointless tasks as we use technology chatting, making money, entertainment playing music etc but it allready may be seen even for 'developing 'cultures mobile phones enabling mass communication really do change society. The mesh may be slower but it will still proprogate communication without the infrastructure needed to support more complex technologies.
Finally hardly any technology is used in the way it was originally envisioned, a large roll out of these machines in different cultures at different tech. levels could lead to the developement and creation of ways of using them no one forsaw. After all my first computer was a new magic box the challenge was what could I make it do. Not the attitude it needs to do a,b and c and thats all I want it to do.
Food, health care , and access to education / information all are needed for change not trying because its one mans dream or because you cant supply all the criteria at once guarantees failure. Its easy to be cynical when you have access to all of them as we do, Small success can and do change lives.
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Home
"no one has committed to purchase laptops nor has OLPC asked anyone to sign a purchase agreement yet. "
Brazil is, in fact, the worlds 9th largest economy.
No he didn't.
He only withdrew funding from clinics that advocated or performed abortions, but did nothing against more humane forms of birth control.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Nigeria is not a first-world country, nor is it second-world. It allied itself to neither the United States/NATO, nor the USSR/Warsaw Treaty. That makes them (you) solidly third-world.
No company has agreed to make them yet at any price.
You're right, Quanta hasn't agreed to make them yet for about $140. Have you considered checking the truthfulness of what you post, or is it easier to just make up shit?
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Some people seem to think that computers somehow make people smarter and better-educated all of a sudden,
It sure didn't work for you, did it?
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I live in Argentina and the only news I've seen about this was a very very early article in the moderate left wing newspaper "Pagina/12" www.pagina12.com.ar I don't have the link but, anyway, it was very early. I think that if there hasn't been any news it's probably because it's still on an early stage.
I see zero evidence that computers in U.S. classrooms are making education better.
You're mistaking teaching and learning. Teaching is something that teachers do in spite of what the children are doing. Learning is something that children do in spite of what the teachers are doing.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
And among the editors .... about 40%. At least judging at the dupe rate.
I've always wondered why Cmdr Taco has never implemented a pre-posting check which looked at all the quoted URLs to see if they've been included in a recent article.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
How the hell do you create a thumbprint verification system for voting whe the Voting Rights Act doesn't even allow poll workers to ask for a *drivers license*!
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.
With $100 laptops and a Nigerian Mesh network, we are sure to see an increase in the amount of Bank of Nigeria SPAM looking for people to help share the $30 million that has to be transfered to your US bank account. Even with a "Mesh" network, if there are no phones, no internet, what are you going to "Mesh" to? Remember in Nigeria you have to trade your 12 year old daughter for 10 minutes of Internet access. Peer to peer file sharing will be cool accept the fact that 1 movie will fill your flash drive and no more lessons can fit there. These will make great $100 hacking boxes for Linux hacker geeks. If you cannot read and write a computer does you no good, what they need is $100 teachers. Besides that if you live in a straw house with no electricity wouldn't a $100 solar inverter be a better idea or how about $100 running water or $100 sewer. I agree with Bill Gates on this one, cash in 10 of these for a REAL PC and let 10 kids share. Why does each kid need one anyway? Each kid does not have their own school, their own teacher, their own playground, so why do they need their own PC? This is not really going to be a computer because it does not have the components a computer needs such as a hard disk and and Windows. It is more like a Leap Frog learning system than a PC, but at least Leap Frog was smart enough to use a battery. But I guess if you have no electricity a battery will not do you any good. And if they don't run Windows they don't really teach kids the most important computer skill as 90% of desktops run Windows. Like the phone companies are going to let mesh networks happen. Read your phone company or cable company broadband agreement you cannot resale or share your signal with another house it is a violation of the user agreement. If a free network drives the phone companies out of the Internet business, where will the first of the mesh network node hook to? If there are no ISPs what are you going to connect to, your neighbor's virus infected PC? They would be better off buying 50,000 good Dell PC's and making computer labs that all the students can use, this way they can learn Windows, which is what 90% of computers run in the work environment plus the labs can have security so the devices don't end up on eBay. They would also need the infrastructure to repair and replace these PCs no matter what the pricepoint is. To ship them in for repair may cost $120 to fix the $100 PC, because some guy in a straw hut in Nigeria is not going to be fixing PCs. Laptop failures are quite high ~20% and this is why a Dell computer lab makes a lot more sense than handing out $100 "Palm Pilots" to kids. When that kid's breaks there will not be another one and he will need to share anyway. Teach them linux and they will be lost when they go to get a real job at a real company. I like free enterprise and somehow government purchased $100 laptops sounds like a very socialistic almost communist idea. Why don't they just ask Dell or Gateway to make them instead of heading down the non-profit communist road? These devices will hopefully become the Apple Newtons of the future.
If (God help us) one allows the concept of a socialist PC for learning to exsist, the following premise is a requirement: make sure the devices are a standard, either ISO, IANA, etc. Not just the OS, and the hardware, but all programs licensed to run in the machine as well. Reason being, that if anything like this gets out (a successful $100 PC retailer) the big laptop companies are going to CRUSH you with a $50 and $25 model that has 2 times the features of yours. Then 1 month after you go bankrupt, they pull the $50 model from the market. Just like the electric car! Presto the $100/laptop business is out of business. The way you prevent this is to use a standards based interface and software execution environment. With all 3, the hardware, software and licensed programs, based on open standards the giant PC makers can't squash you as much. You are set to a standard so that a bunch of bells and wistles, extra, violates the standard. So a $50 unit that does more is no more. This secures the environment somewhat. Another issue: By using linux you don't get open source by default. Use a standard that prevents propriatary software from running on the boxes. You want a standard open source linux/windows browser environment as your medium to allow the creation of the school lessons independent of the hardware type. As part of the software license for the environment you forbid creation of commercial software to be run on the device and all software ran on the device needs to be according to a pre-specified open license. **** After all if the learning software cost $1000 what the hell good does a $100 laptop do ya? **** I feel Microsoft would be willing to make a $25 lite version of Windows for this box as well if it takes off, and this would open the programming oportunities by a million fold for the device as one could use the visual studio for programs.
Some other point...
At least for argentina:
1) Export of choice: Food
2) Food: Electricty: Among the cheapest in the world, very reliable
Please don't send them more trucks nor equipment to build power plants (by the way, the problem is having good rivers or generating enough income to be able to pay for the coal or gas).
I am now living in Mexico, they have a program called Enciclomedia, they will spend USD 1600 in 5 years, in a setup that involves 1 desktop per class, and electric board and a projector, for two grades (I believe 6th and 1st secondary). I think it's increadibly expensive (like 5USD per child per month!) and incredible inneficient. But I it's better than nothing. Make kids will learn about computers and get interested in the field, applications, etc. Kids are very curious. The program will produce an impact.
Of course, they could have bought 16 million computers, nealy one per child for ages between 10 to 18...instead of one per class for two grades. Who needs an electronic board and a projector if you have 1 computers per student?
Anyway, the point is we'll have to wait and see, but i suspect underestimating people, and trying to give them food is not the way. Showing them a future they can reach if they make an effort, just knowing you have an opportunity and that there is more in the world than your town, or your newspaper, is what can change societies.
(By the way, Mexico is a poor country, and there are a lot of people living below the poverty line, but famine is really uncommon. Again, the problem is education, not food. What do you do with a 40 year old honest guy that has very limited knoledge and can only do very manual, simple tasks? Starting with kids is the only hope.
unfinished: (adj.)
Can we please stop having discussions about how these people would be better served by giving them $100 of food?
I'm sure many slashdotters have great ideas about how these laptops could be used.
Example, in Thailand on a long bus ride we stopped for lunch and the tourists were swarmed by little girls who had pineapple in clear plastic bags.
The pineapples were obviously from the same source because of identical packaging and were all of a similar size but the girls were selling them at drastically diffrent prices, the tourists being familiar with basic economics walked through the crowd and got the higher priced girls to lower their prices first and slowly bought up the pineapples as the girls became increasingly desperate thinking they would be left out.
Average sale was approximately 10 baht while the tourists would have easily paid 20 baht (50c) immediately I thought it would be great if the girls had some form of stock exchange or some way to track the prices of pineapple, not only would it have taught them something they could have made more money.
Now also they'll be able to track how many tourists will be on those busses and exploit the tourist stupidity better.
Another example is the millions of coffee and chocolate growers who are buried under dozens of middlemen so they get almost no profit.
References:
Original Article: http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7131519895.htm
Correction from OLPC: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Home
(void) signal(SIGALRM, (alarm_fired=1)); if (alarm_fired) printf("Revoke is clueless!\n");
Really the key thing about this is you're going to be having 1,000,000 users learning to use Linux SIMULTANEOUSLY.
Their experiences won't be perfectly identical but they will be similar, the linux community needs to LISTEN as these 1,000,000 users stumble in unison over a whole bunch of crap.
I use the number 1,000,000 because that's the number of people likely to speak each language, where are the projects to check that there is enough documentation in each language and to port education software and guides for these users.
100 commited educators could add 1,000,000 linux users to the community in a few months, users who could become technically sufficient and work with each other.
But it will take a level of management that Linux never seems to be able to muster, get some Spanish speakers, Nigerian speakers and others get one laptop and start from scratch to really prepare for what seems likely to be the biggest tech support disaster in the history of mankind.
Cluless noobs on IRC, "Dude Lol check init.d, NOOB!".
Uh huh, OK. So, I'm assuming that only literate children are going to get the laptops, right? Otherwise, what's the point other than to make someone at MIT feel good...doing something isn't the same as doing something useful.
I agree, sending over aid with no auditing of how it's being used/applied is wasteful. Maybe MIT should spend a few brain cycles thinking through the solution to that problem instead.
Honestly, if I had a dollar for every dollar wasted by good intentions, I'd be Bill Gates.
WTF? Over?
No kidding if they think these things are not going to be a huge target for virus writers, they have another thing coming. By the way, to defend off viruses you need a company of 100 people that does not sleep. Somehow this will impact the $100 price tag. Here are some things they forgot: Virus Protection software $19.95 (only a fool would go in the buff) CD/DVD ROM drive $30 (remember the patent fee) AC Power adaptor $20 (for people WITH electricity) External Hard disk $50 (for people with a brain) Windows Lite $35 (for people that actually want to use the damn thing) Learning Software server $40,000 (need a server to connect to, like Blackboard) Training ($50/student) Training ($1000 per teacher) Internet connection ($20/month, in case your mesh provider get cut off by the telcom) Reapair budget ($20 = 20% cost of laptop) Learning software maintenance ($100/year/student) carrying case ($20) wow we are WAAAAYYYYY over the $100/unit man, and I have just started thinking about it for 5 minutes. This idea, as it sits right now, is the most assinine idea I have ever heard of. The main reason for this is that the Pocket PC can do all of the things this wind up toy PC can do and they sell on Ebay for about $25 cheaper. Yes that is right the OLPC could just use the Pocket PC and save us the headache of trying to help a bunch of non computer using teachers try to figure out Linux and a powerless PC.