OLPC Gets a New Name, New Features

pickyouupatnine writes "According to a story on Ars Technica, the $100 MIT Laptop is now going to cost $140. It has a new name — it'll now be called the Children's Machine 1 (CM1). The added price comes with new features! The laptop will now come with a 400 MHz AMD processor, 512 Megs of Flash storage, an SD card slot, mic and headphone jacks, a built in camera, built-in wireless, and an 8-inch LCD at a 1280x900 resolution." From the article: "Tremendous progress has been made this summer on the Sugar user interface system that will be shipped with the CM1. Funded by Google through the Summer of Code (SoC) initiative, intrepid college student Erik Pukinskis has collaborated with the GNOME development community to adapt AbiWord for use with the portable Linux system. Although still experimental, AbiWord has successfully been integrated into the Sugar environment. Artists and developers continue to work on the evolving Sugar interface, and the fruits of their labor can be seen in demoes, mockups, and design reviews."

Comments

No, try again

[Beuno]

I can see they finally put some marketing behind the project, "Children's Machine 1" doesn't sound old-fashion and too technical at all...

Re:No, try again

[zenhkim]

> I can see they finally put some marketing behind the project, "Children's Machine 1" doesn't sound old-fashion and too technical at all...

Actually, I suspect that the new designation is a nod to project member Seymour Papert, who wrote the book "The Children's Machine: Rethinking School in The Age of The Computer" -- in which he argued (back in 1992) that access to computers and online information networks would be crucial in improving our education systems and preparing our younger generations for dealing with a new and rapidly evolving world.

Re:No, try again

[kfg]

. . . Seymour Papert, who wrote the book "The Children's Machine: Rethinking School in The Age of The Computer"

Counter argued by Cliff Stoll in "Silicon Snake Oil."

KFG

Re:No, try again

[Ruff_ilb]

Given the serious lack of information in the PP, I thought I'd do some research.

Clearly, Stoll is FAR behind the times - his book was written more than a decade ago, and he argued that the concept of e-commerce was "baloney." Clearly, our children need to make good use of the internet today, and e-commerce is thriving more than ever (he's apparently abandoned his original stance in favor of selling Klein Bottles on the internet (http://www.kleinbottle.com/)).

I don't see how it's possible today to argue that our children don't need exposure to computing to succeed.

Re:No, try again

[kfg]

Clearly, Stoll is FAR behind the times - his book was written more than a decade ago. . .

His book is the more recent.

I don't see how it's possible today to argue that our children don't need exposure to computing to succeed.

Actually read both works, then think, before making up your mind.

. . .he's apparently abandoned his original stance in favor of selling Klein Bottles on the internet (http://www.kleinbottle.com/). . .

I've got a Klein coffee mug. At the time it was ordered he answered the phone himself. Perhaps he'd be willing to disucuss his current views with you.

KFG

Re:No, try again

[eikonos]

preparing our younger generations for dealing with a new and rapidly evolving world

Is that another way of saying: won't somebody think of the children!

Re:No, try again

[Germik]

Are you arguing that children don't need exposure to computational ideas or are you just pointing out the counter-argument?

If you're arguing that children don't need exposure to computational ideas at an early age, I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on why, as I am of the belief that when it comes to ways of thinking about the world and approaching problems, granted students have the intellectual capability, the sooner the better for the students to be exposed to the ideas. The main reason being simply that having multiple perspectives and tools at the learner/problem solver's displosal when presented with a problem gives him a much greater ability to tackle it.

I'm just curious where you stand on the issue.

Re:No, try again

[hcob$]

Actually, I suspect that the new designation is a nod to project member Seymour Papert, who wrote the book "The Children's Machine: Rethinking School in The Age of The Computer" -- in which he argued (back in 1992) that access to computers and online information networks would be crucial in improving our education systems and preparing our younger generations for dealing with a new and rapidly evolving world.

Actually, children are better served by a teacher who cares about his/her work and genuinely challanges them to actually exercise the mass of grey matter that is so devoid of thought in current times.

Re:No, try again

[nido]

I don't see how it's possible today to argue that our children don't need exposure to computing to succeed.

Tacking "computers" onto the existing public school system will certainly prevent most children from ever becoming an expert in the field.

*ding* "okay class, time to put down your english books. We're going 'learn computers' now."
50 minutes later:
*ding* "enough computers, time for History! Let's all get excited about History!"

(This is Gatto's third lesson: indifference. "Nothing important is ever finished in my class, nor in any other class I know of. Students never have a complete experience except on the installment plan.")

When you say that children need "exposure" to computers, that seems to indicate to me that you think they some kind of formal introduction. My computer learning experiences were a process of discovery; all the computer "lessons" and "classes" I had in the government's schools were mostly worthless. If all they did was "here's a computer, look what I can do with it, have fun" that'd be one thing. But that's NOT how the government "exposes" topics in their child-prisons. First there are lessons, and then there are tests to grade the student's intake of the material. Then the kids who don't care about the topic are put in remedial classes, and thus begins the downward spiral...

Computers are snake oil, offered by politicians as a fix to the structural problems in their schools. The only fix needed is to restore freedom to the educational process. Let the children pick what they want to learn about, and how they want to learn it.

Re:No, try again

[Anonymous Coward]

who the hell said anything about eliminating the teacher????

Re:No, try again

[kfg]

. . .are you just pointing out the counter-argument?

Bingo.

If you're arguing that children don't need exposure to computational ideas at an early age . . .

No, but I might well argue that the schools aren't doing a very good job of it, while often wasting money that could be better used elsewhere.

KFG

Re:No, try again

[fredrated]

Children absolutely need exposure to "computational ideas", as early as they can understand words, and they will pick up on them quickly.

On the other hand, did you know that many if not most mathematics departments in universities and colleges were among the last to adopt widespread use of pc's at school? The joke was told that they got them after the French dept.

It's because computers != computational ideas.

Children need to grab and hold onto and squeeze and sniff and hit and kick and run around dig in the mud by the creeek and look through the microscope at the creek water go to the science museum and run through the halls and play on the exibits and go to the planetarium and explore the library and go down to the tide pools and camp out at night and experience. Oh yes they should have a computer, but digital knowledge comes after experiencial knowledge and 'looking up' knowledge is a pretender if it thinks it will replace the other.

Re:No, try again

[zenhkim]

> Actually, children are better served by a teacher who cares about his/her work and genuinely challanges them to actually exercise the mass of grey matter that is so devoid of thought in current times.

Believe it or not, that's one of the important points Papert makes in his book! He decried the typical use of the classroom computer as a mere testtaking machine, or as a means to further solidify the status quo of the school lesson plan. Papert argued that, in addition to acquiring more computers and making them more available to students and teachers alike, schools need to find ways of using computers to *change the teaching process itself*.

Sadly, Papert also pointed out that such an educational revolution would be met with resistance by none other than the education system itself. To paraphrase the book, the system must protect its own existence, and it seeks to maintain the state of that existence. It will fight any threat to either one until all avenues have been exhausted.

After all these years, "The Children's Machine" has proven to be uncannily accurate.

Re:No, try again

[Anonymous Coward]

Awww. Everybody knows that politicians are only good at three things: crookery, fraud, and selling snake oil. Don't be too hard on them.

Nobody can fix schools, or the economy. Vote for *nobody*.

(yes, I agree with you)

Re:No, try again

[Bombula]

crucial in improving our education systems and preparing our younger generations

Sounds like he had it right: OUR education sustems and OUR younger generations. But as I understand it, the CM1 is targeting children in developing countries. While that's grand, I'm nevertheless a firm believer that when it comes to a child's development having access to food and water and not dying of diarrhea is more important than having access to a computer.

I just wish all the big brains at MIT and elsewhere who've put such an enormous amount of time and effort into this project had instead put it into a device or infrastructure system that could provide for the clean water and power needs of the same communities their $140 laptop is targeting. In my opinion, that would do a lot more good.

Re:No, try again

[Aladrin]

"Tacking "computers" onto the existing public school system will certainly prevent most children from ever becoming an expert in the field."

How has additional 'exposure' to something ever prevented someone from learning it? Without computer exposure in schools, children only learn learn what they manage to gather in the little free time they have left after doing their chores and homework. With schooltime exposure, they have that same amount of time plus 50 minutes (your number) in school each day as well as any homework assigned on it.

It's like saying 'Teaching art in school prevents kids from becoming artists.' NO! It allows more of them the option.

Everyone can't be an expert at everything. At some point, they have to choose to be an expert in 1 or 2 fields, and lousy at everything else, or a jack of all trades in which they are better than average in all things, but expert in none.

You can't force someone to be an expert at something, but you can sure give them the choice.

I lived in a town of a few thousand people. In fourth grade, the 'smart' students were introduced to programming on the Apple IIe. I'm the only 1 of the bunch that picked up on it, but I would not have had the inclination that I might like it if it wasn't 'forced' on me. I am now a software developer and I love it.

Re:No, try again

[MichaelSmith]

Counter argued by Cliff Stoll in "Silicon Snake Oil."

Stolls claim to fame was his skill at hooking up DEC line printers to monitor the activities of a german hacker. I didn't see anything in "The cuckoos egg" to suggest an ability to argue issues like this. I think he should stick to astronomy.

Re:No, try again

[Lorkki]

Sadly, not nearly all teachers can be great teachers.

Re:No, try again

[The_Wilschon]

How has additional 'exposure' to something ever prevented someone from learning it?

If the "exposure" is poorly done, it can set up a negative reaction to the topic, so that anytime it is mentioned, the person becomes afraid. A whole lot of people react that way to math, and the more math they see, the more they get a mental block set up against it. And I don't trust public schools to manage this "exposure" well. My little sister's high school geometry teacher (in an honors class, too) told them that proofs are "the worst part" of geometry. Considering that geometry is the first real math they will have seen, the teacher absolutely shouldn't be prejudicing the kids against it. Enough people are afraid of math as it is, and now 30 more have learned to dread proofs due to poorly handled "exposure".

On a silly note, additional "exposure" to sub-freezing temperatures, or oxygen deficient atmospheres, can easily prevent someone from learning much about them. It simply kills them.

Re:No, try again

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are confusing teaching kids *about* computers versus teaching them *using* computers. The OLPC thing is about getting up to date textbooks and edutainment out to kids who would never see that stuff otherwise. It's not about teaching them how to type, use word processors or program (although they might maybe pick that up along the way).

A textbook costs $20 to $50 - and is worn out after three or four years of abuse. Give the kid one textbook for each subject and over the course of 10 years in school, the OLPC looks cheap. Toss in some "Math is Fun" type packages to drill arithmetic and some reading games - and the thing has paid for itself. Add some simple games and this will be the childs most treasured posession. Stick a copy of Wikipedia on the per-school server (or provide Internet access) - and every kid has access to an encyclopedia that would cost $1000 in paper form. If they happen to get keyboarding skills, learn to search the web, learn to write software, become a Linux expert - so much the better - but that's not the goal here.

For the 3rd world, this is a powerful tool.

Re:No, try again

[yandros]

As it turns out, there are ``big brains at MIT and elsewhere'' working on that problem (notably, Dean Kamens, now usually associated with the Segway).

There are still at least two very good reasons why the CM1 is a good idea:

1.) Building techonological systems for learning, teaching, and exploration is what these guys do. You say ``big brains'' like they're all interchangeable, but you don't opine that they should be working in medicine, as one example of a field that would certainly help the target audience. Why denigrate the people who are trying to use the knowledge and experience that they do have to help?

2.) Education, as we like to say, is the Golden Ticket, Silver Bullet, Magic Carpet, and any other whacky metaphor you wish to use. Long-term education is, as near as we can tell, one of the very very few ways to make serious lasting changes, such as those imagined (quite ambitiously) by the OLPC people.

If human potential and talent were simply machines/cpus/cogs, then maybe these should be allocated somewhat differently, but that's certainly not the case.

Sugar? Not so sweet ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I think it's great that it's getting new features, and I like the whole OLPC idea. But man, what kind of crack are they smoking? That has to be the most awful interface I've ever seen. From the screenshots, it doesn't look to me like there's anything particularly special about it except in its supreme ugliness.

Re:Didn't Deliver

[Anonymous Coward]

ok, im drunk and probably stupid, but my maths tells me its not 140%, but 40% above the original price....

Software security issues

[FreshMeat-BWG]

With all of the talk of experimental software, college-student-style development efforts, and "evolving" software components that are reported with every story on this laptop, I can't help but imagine the number of security holes that are going to be embedded in these wirelessly connected devices. I don't want to knock any of the developers personally for being young, but I don't mind knocking young software as dangerous.

Let's assume there is one nice security hole in these laptops... Is there an automatic update system? Is it centrally controlled like Windows Update or since there are supposed to be large numbers of segregated ad-hoc networks is the distribution of these updates going to be peer based?

How do you prevent making one large botnet powered by a bunch of third-world children turning hand cranks?

Re:Software security issues

[lee1026]

Well, it is powered by Linux, and so far, at least, viruses have had a horrible time trying to infect them. Seeing that the market share of linux is still going to be terriblely low even after this, I doubt that security is a major problem.

Re:Software security issues

[Anonymous Coward]

All software is evolved. Some people believe software is designed. They're in denial.

Re:Software security issues

[FesterDaFelcher]

That's a ridiculous thought. If I were to pinpoint ANY linux distro, it would the one that:

A. Is brand new and relatively untested,
B. Has a captive audience that has NO PRIOR COMPUTER KNOWLEDGE
and
C. Has millions of identical (hardware as well as software) copies wirelessly connected around the globe.

This is the perfect target. Imagine trying to explain to 3rd world kids why they should install patches on their magic picture box.

Re:Software security issues

[frdmfghtr]

How do you prevent making one large botnet powered by a bunch of third-world children turning hand cranks?

For some reason, I think that given that particular operating environment, anybody contemplating trying to turn these machines into zombies is really wasting their time. They are likely not going to be turned on long enough at any given point in time where they would be useful.

Mind you I'm not a network/botnet/zombie guru and I don't pretned to be, this is a gut feeling. I'd be more concerned about machines that are on an accessib;e network 24/7 that have enough power to actually do some damage.

Re:Software security issues

[1u3hr]

How do you prevent making one large botnet powered by a bunch of third-world children turning hand cranks?

If you'd read any of the stories about the OLPC you'd know the crank was dropped from the design months ago. People keep using that image to stigmatise it. Your "third world" qualification only adds to that odour.

But to your actual point: I hardly think the laptops will be a threat to you in your first world home. Internet connectivity between the third and first worlds is poor and likely to remain so. Even if your imagined botnet materialised their attacks would trickle out and be easily blocked. And why would anyone bother when there are tens of millions of wide-open Windows PCs on fat pipes in rich countries?

Re:Software security issues

[legoburner]

How do you prevent making one large botnet powered by a bunch of third-world children turning hand cranks?

This makes me wonder how the various third-world countries will start treating the various physical problems that come from computers. I bet most people in the target areas are not used to sitting hunched over a screen and there will be bad backs, bad legs (from the foot pedal), bad hands from the mouse and small keyboard, bad eyes from late night computing. Should be interesting in few years after launch to see how the native medicine peoples go about treating these.

Re:Software security issues

[kjart]

Why was the parent modded flamebait? They actually have a really good point. Qualities that have long been fairly Windows centric will now be coming to Linux i.e. extremely similar installations and barely computer-literate users. Linux has always tended to embody the opposite of those two situations. I wouldn't be surprised if viruses targeted for these machines started to appear once they start circulating in non-trivial numbers.

Re:Software security issues

[grcumb]

"This makes me wonder how the various third-world countries will start treating the various physical problems that come from computers. I bet most people in the target areas are not used to sitting hunched over a screen and there will be bad backs, bad legs (from the foot pedal), bad hands from the mouse and small keyboard, bad eyes from late night computing. Should be interesting in few years after launch to see how the native medicine peoples go about treating these."

Oh my, my. I'll try to put this gently. In one village I visited recently, people walk a few kilometres up a mountainside (often very muddy from rain), work all day bent double in the garden, then walk back to the village laden with up to 50 lbs. of produce, firewood, etc. on their back. Sitting down and pedalling a computer for an hour or so in the evening is luxury.

For an idea about the physical condition of people in the country where I live, see some photos here. The paramount chief of Loltong village, who's in in early seventies, took me for a 3 hour walk around his mountainous area that left me staggering, then cooked me lunch. He didn't seem to worried about RSIs when we talked about putting computers into the local youth centre. This chief from Koiovo village danced a very energetic custom dance (incidentally answering the 'boxers or briefs?' question all too frankly) and didn't even break a sweat. How many people in your town look like this in their fifties?

The younger folk are more or less the same. This guy was my project officer. Having a lazy desk job doesn't excuse you from cutting wood every day for the dinner fire.

(Sorry guys, no photos of the female physique. Very conservative society here, so I'd probably be deported if I started pointing my camera at beautiful young women. Put your hands back on the keyboard.)

To summarise: Don't worry, sore backs are the least of people's worries, where I live. 8^)

Feature Creep...

[patrixmyth]

Imagine all you could add for another $50! The rise in price is a terrible idea. There was a lot of symbolic significance to being the $100 laptop. Now, with that barrier broken, it will lose that cachet. If they'd simply followed through on the $100 laptop, they could have added all that and more over time.

Re:Feature Creep...

[voice_of_all_reason]

I thought about that too, but will the BIG AND ROUND number translate over to africa (where the customers are?) 100 bucks can translate to anything from 65,000 click-pops to half a million chits or even 3 hippo skins and a used coke can.

Re:Feature Creep...

[patrixmyth]

The reason it translates to Africa is because Africa wasn't likely to be the folks getting the bill. The round number is intended for the Buffetts and Gates who have the big money to spend to invest in Africa.

Re:Feature Creep...

[Anonymous Coward]

Within 2 years, the price will be below 100. It is 100 now, and has more features. This is a great deal.

Re:Feature Creep...

[Anonymous Coward]

after exchange rate, round number probably won't mean much. also, it turns out that the customers for this are middle income countries, not the low income countries. makes sense - PCs are useful in places where there are at least some level of modern infrastrucutre, even if it is unevenly erected across the country. for low income countries, any sort of modern education for the youth would be helpful - my impression is that many such countries suffer from political instability. once a stable government, however "corrupt" it may be, is established, the people generally are able to feed themselves. until then, $100 PC or even $10 PC are likely useless. imagine Lebannon, for example. it is not the poorest of the countries, but what would $100 PCs do for them?

Re:Feature Creep...

[Jrabbit05]

You know Americian Dollars aren't a common currency to the intended target. It'd be better for the end userto have a round number. Not us penny pinchers who don't want to help anyone.

Re:Feature Creep...

[grozzie2]

The reality is the price of the machine isn't really going up, but, the value of the us dollar has taken a beating. In most any other currency, the price remains fixed relative to 2 or 3 years ago, it's only in $US it appears to be rising. This is what happens to the currency of debtor nations, and it turns into an endless spiral, till eventually, no americans can afford the '$100 laptop', simply because thier peso's are worthless.

Re:Feature Creep...

[iabervon]

The target price is $100. It's just more because they don't have all the volume discounts at the production level they're starting with. It's using a number of parts that aren't in current consumer devices; once they've got the volume up, the price of the system will be below $100. They've gone over this with their suppliers already.

Re:Feature Creep...

[MBCook]

Sounds like a good idea to me. While having a headphone jack would be very useful (listen to language lessons without disturbing others, including learning to read software), the microphone jack too (VOIP idea the article posits) is good, and the display upgrade is VERY good (especially on the 'net at large where most websites assume a minimum screen of 1024x768), I think the SD card is the killer feature.

Before this change, the storage on the machine was fixed. If you wanted to get more storage you would have to plug in an external USB drive (flash, hard drive, CD-RW, whatever). Now with SD cards you can expand the storage in unit, without having a USB key hang off the side of the machine. You can add up to 2 GB (4+ with newer standards) this way. While a 2 GB card is expensive now, it won't always be that way, and smaller cards (say 128 MB) are cheap (if I can get one at a drug store for $17, then people out to be able to get them pretty cheap, especially used). 128MB would be a 25% increase in the system's storage.

Even 64 MB will hold a TON of text, especially if you compress it.

I see this as a good thing. Let's not forget that the OLPC was to be sold at a loss (initially). So for all we know the new features increased the cost $100. They may not have increased costs at all and they just want to lose less so they can make more of 'em.

Hopefully, not only will this help people, some of the ideas will get used in mainstream laptops. If they can do that for $200-$250 (guessing on true cost), then they should be able to make me a nice 1600:900 (or so) LCD that I can view outside, inside, and won't kill a battery really fast. Considering how much power LCDs use (and how unviewable many are in direct sunlight) even a little improvement would go a long way.

And none of this counts the effecting giving tons of kids something as accessible and hackable as a C64 with the power to surf the 'net, be portable, and have an absolute ton of processing power. Considering what came out of C64 hackers (who had a vastly slower chip, vastly less memory, and no internet to get help from) I bet we will see some amazingly talented people as a result of this program.

Re:Feature Creep...

[Anonymous Coward]

Negroponte has consistently said the price would start above $100 and migrate below that price point.

2006 April 4th http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70584-0.htm l?tw=rss.index

"In time, Negroponte expects the $100 laptop to be a misnomer. For one thing, he believes the cost -- which is actually about $135 now and isn't expected to hit $100 until 2008 -- can drop to $50 by 2010 as more and more are produced."

Re:Feature Creep...

[kitzilla]

Don't dispair. By the time CM! finally hits the streets $140 USD will be worth ... well ... about a hundred bucks.

Re:Feature Creep...

[servognome]

This is what happens to the currency of debtor nations, and it turns into an endless spiral, till eventually, no americans can afford the '$100 laptop', simply because thier peso's are worthless.

Yes, it's so sad how the people of the US suffer compared to the good ol' days of... of... umm... before the US existed. There has always been a national debt, it is not necessarily a bad thing.

Re:Feature Creep...

[rolfwind]

I believe Bill Gates would not support a Linux/*nix oriented laptop and has already derided this project. Warren Buffet is "invested" in Gates' foundation, thus that money would not go there either. It still is 7 laptops for $1000 donation. Where else can you get that deal?

And this is also having good features now (the 640x480 screen is too small in todays world - websurfing for info) and can go down in price over time.

Too bad it lost the hand crank in favor of a foot pedal though (handcrank would be 1 with the computer, footpedal is something carry around, an extra cable, and can be lost).

Re:Feature Creep...

[Firehed]

But why the hell add in a camera? The only time I use the webcam built into my laptop is with Delicious Library, to scan in barcodes of books and movies I've purchased. It raises the cost, and more likely than not will open up a huge can of worms as far as child porn goes - poor kids with webcams will probably do whatever the hell some creepy rich guy wants if it'll put a month's worth of food on the table.

Re:Feature Creep...

[Mathiasdm]

There is no rise in price! The computer was going to be $140 at first, then (as more countries bought them), it would fall down to $100.

Re:Feature Creep...

[8ball629]

Well... in 2-3 months the price should go back down to $100 as long as they keep the same hardware. In 1 year it will be down to $25 ;).

Re:Feature Creep...

[dp_wiz]

That's it. But camera-phone-mic is really cool in a such neighbor-net enviroment and definitely worth the bucks.

Re:Feature Creep...

[smchris]

I agree. Another $40 might be a deal breaker for countries like Mali and Chad where $100 is already a lot of money. So it becomes the Asian "Children's Machine". Could be a considerable geo-economic compromise that still leaves most of africa in particular out of the game.

Re:Feature Creep...

[Wesley Felter]

Let's not forget that the OLPC was to be sold at a loss (initially). So for all we know the new features increased the cost $100.

It's sold at cost; I doubt MIT or Quanta can afford to lose over $60M on this project. So when they say the price is $140, my understanding is that the parts+manufacturing cost is $140.

Re:Feature Creep...

[KlaymenDK]

I can see that child porn might be a conceivable, but hopefully not a probable, risk. *Shudder*

Instead, consider that there are tons of other uses for web cameras than chatting and video 'conferencing'. How about long distance doctor calls (Does this critter bite look infected? or, Let me show you how to apply a cast on that broken bone of yours).

Think positive! :o)

CM-1?

[sohp]

Thinking Machines' CM-1 also came out of MIT. You think they could do better than re-use historic designations.

Didn't read the article (slashdot, afterall)

[InsideTheAsylum]

Since honestly there's most likely not much else that needs to be known about said "children's machine 1" other than it's not happening for a while yet and is going to cost more. But really, where is _my_ children's machine 1? I want one, it seems like it has all the features I need and want -- a screen, a keyboard, and compact enough to take with me anywhere I want without trembling about it breaking and costing me a liver to replace. Isn't the biggest problem with creating said product that it's going to be expensive to manufacture and they don't have the money to get it to all the kids? Well, why not mark it up to $250 and start selling it to consumers? I know I want one.

Re:Didn't read the article (slashdot, afterall)

[kfg]

. . .where is _my_ children's machine 1?

Silly rabbit . . .

KFG

Re:Didn't read the article (slashdot, afterall)

[Aqws]

They do intend to sell a commercial version for like 3x the cost, and have the profits go to getting the kids the laptop.

Re:Didn't read the article (slashdot, afterall)

[Anonymous Coward]

This is so true. Cut a deal with Fisher Price or Mattel. I bet this is a financially sustainable, if not profitable, venture.

Re:Didn't read the article (slashdot, afterall)

[InsideTheAsylum]

3x $140 = $420. I can buy a cheap used laptop, or sometimes with enough rebates, a new one, low model one from a laptop manufacturer. The only people buying a crappy laptop for the price of a better laptop are idealists and when most idealists come to a point where money is involved, they simply opt out.

High-res small screen

[Anonymous Coward]

an 8-inch LCD at a 1280x900 resolution.

Wow, that's almost 200dpi. Wish I could get a 21" monitor at that granularity.

Err, laptops?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of the target audience for this laptop can't even afford paper and pencil. And you want to give them laptops? Shouldn't they learn how to read and write (with pen/pencil) instead of how to type?

Re:Err, laptops?

[dosius]

Computers taught me to read. I could program before I could write, not sure that's a good thing.

-uso.

Aarrrgh, my eyes!

[macshit]

Why on earth is the user interface predominantly neon green (and not just neon green highlights, but vast solid areas of neon green)?!?

I guess if it's for kids you want a somewhat cheerful and happy looking interface, but it seems a bit excessive. If you're simply going to blind them, why bother including an LCD in the first place?

Re:Aarrrgh, my eyes!

[AaronLawrence]

Indeed, that's probably going rather too far, although I like that they are removing decorations.

Another problems is that LCDs often have problems with colour at high brightness, so those neon-green on white scrollbars might be practically invisible in many situations, e.g. off angle viewing.

Re:Aarrrgh, my eyes!

[Speare]

Different cultures react in very different ways to color. What looks garish or mis-matched to you, may seem pleasant and calming to someone from a different culture. Look at the clothing from various countries: some prefer western muted colors and subtle accents like pinstripes, while some prefer a huge explosion of colors in floral or geometrical motifs.

Maybe this color scheme was a complete freak of random design, or maybe it was thoughtfully applied to resemble a comforting palette for the recipients. A lush young yellow-green succulent leaf serves as a plate for a sumptuous meal, for example.

Re:Aarrrgh, my eyes!

[Anonymous Coward]

> A lush young yellow-green succulent leaf serves as a plate for a sumptuous meal, for example.

Who the hell do you think is receiving these laptops, amazon pygmies?

It's for kids. Kids are attracted to garish color schemes, and that's an almost universal thing. Take a look at myspace.

What's with the huge resolution?

[Rekolitus]

Seriously. I have a 14" laptop, and it goes up to 1024x768 (in fact, I've never used anything higher), and they're stuffing 1280x900 on an 8-inch screen?

Re:What's with the huge resolution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, not exactly...

"The OLPC screen is very small, and has a resolution twice as high as our usual displays. Based on these observations, a "shrinking" process takes a 1200 x 900 pixels image and creates a 600 x 450 pixels image by reducing each group of four pixels into on as follows..."

http://www.manucornet.net/pub/olpc/theme_and_displ ay/

Re:What's with the huge resolution?

[bblboy54]

Us old farts (those of us over 25) just dont have the eyes that these young whipper snappers have.

Re:What's with the huge resolution?

[Doppler00]

Since the computer will be running a custom operating system, everything will be scalled to the higher resolution screen. Believe me, this is a GoodThing.

Re:What's with the huge resolution?

[Phroggy]

This is absolutely the direction we need to be going. More dots per inch = clearer image, if your software isn't too dumb to handle it properly. It's only when your software insists on drawing fonts that are 12 pixels tall that you have a problem.

Windows and Mac OS X both fail pretty badly. Windows actually tries to work properly, but it's buggy as hell, looks absolutely terrible, and the applications don't support it consistently. The Mac doesn't even try (although it does at least support scaling high-res icons). This is something I know Apple has been working on, and Microsoft probably will address in Vista.

Re:What's with the huge resolution?

[MP3Chuck]

For whatever it's worth, I think the Windows Presentation Foundation in Vista is supposed to solve that problem.

Re:What's with the huge resolution?

[Overly Critical Guy]

The Mac doesn't even try (although it does at least support scaling high-res icons).

Quartz has supported resolution-independence since the beginning, and OS X Tiger does scaling through Quartz Debug.

Re:What's with the huge resolution?

[nxtw]

as of Vista build 5472, Windows has much improved DPI handling... sort of. The default action for any random app is to simply scale the program to size, which doesn't look too great. I assume it's just a quick flag or attribute change to get Windows to render the program as it wants to. Both Opera and Gaim were scaled, but after turning off DPI scaling in the Compatibility settings for both, they rendered at the higher DPIs just fine. The OS itself looks great at high DPI.

Re:What's with the huge resolution?

[moosesocks]

but not currently at the level that the users will see and appreciate.

This *should* have been in Tiger (experimental support for it was, and has been functional, although you're nuts to use it in a production application). It's on track to be included with Leopard, which is a very good thing. I certainly don't mind Microsoft or Apple copying each other on this. We really need higher-resolution screens.

To those of you who say that small fonts are useless because they're impossible to read, I urge you to go pick up a copy of the Wall Street Journal, and flip through the financial section. The text in there is tiny, and yet is perfectly legible to anyone with reasonably good eyesight. If the resolution were there, we could actually *use* our screen real estate properly.

Re:What's with the huge resolution?

[zlogic]

Some PDAs with a 3.8" screen have 640x480 resolution. Stuff (especially digital photos) looks better than on traditional screens because pixels are so small. Fonts are smoother. And GNOME tries to adjust fonts to the screen size, so that they'll be the same size on a 8" 1280x960 and on a 17" 1280x1024 screen.

Re:What's with the huge resolution?

[PRC Banker]

I'm an amateur on the production processes of LCD screens, but I'd wager that an 8" screen has a much smaller area for there to be errors on than a 14.15" screen common in today's laptops (almost 1/4 of the area), and when manufacturing a large LCD sheet, there are a lot of cut-offs that are not of a useful size for mainstream manufacture, but can be used for smaller (8") screens, hence a reduced price for this 'waste'. These screens would probably have a few dead pixels, but this is a low cost and robust machine, not a highly polished pretty machine.

Re:What's with the huge resolution?

[Savantissimo]

Your link is informative, but the quote you cite is a bit misleading. The developers don't seem to have access to the real OLPC displays yet, so they need a display simulator to test the graphics settings of software meant to run on this display. The shrinking described is part of that simulation.

Info from your link on the display:

* The screen is very small (exactly 6 x 4.5 inches, about 15 x 11 cm).
        * The screen has a resolution twice as high as our usual screens (200 dpi VS 96 dpi -- 1200 x 900 pixels).
        * For power saving purposes, we work in a "color swizzling" mode, meaning that each pixel of the display can only be red, green or blue, according to the following layout:

[view of upper-left corner of square-pixel, conventional horizontal-vertical layout screen with sucessive diagonal lines of red, then green and blue pixels running from lower-left to upper right. -S.]

In photographic terms, the display has high resolution, but low acutance. The display can resolve small details more or less fine, but it has a hard time with sudden contrast changes between pixels. ...
Because of the swizzling + antialiasing process, thin lines won't look good. More precisely, thin lines with high contrast won't look good at all. Not too dark grey lines on a white background will probably look okay.

Actually, thin lines have a kind of "tut-tuttering" look, as if they had been sewn onto the screen.

Pushing the "porn machine"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll let you in on a little secret - Linux (OSS in general) is the poor mans porn downloading system, and porn has driven its development. No one prints porn, so forget printer drivers. A few people want to upload pictures of themselves naked, so there are a few camera drivers. Scanners, forget it. USB keys ? Handy for trading PORN. I don't know how to do it, but if some sort of survey could be done I think you would find that 90% of all Linux systems are used for porn excusively. The other 10% are scientists Latexing their papers AND downloading porn.

And don't forget, these are the biggest cheapskates in the world. They don't want to pay for porn or software.

I don't see why the third world needs porn - they have enough problems with things like slavery, genocide, etc.

Re:Pushing the "porn machine"

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice troll. Well, not really. Actually it was pretty lame, but I'm feeling generous. Try harder next time. You might be a real troll someday!

Re:Pushing the "porn machine"

[Ginger Unicorn]

is that like queef richards?

Commercial availability?

[cpenner461]

I know they're saying that it's not available for the general consumer, but in line with this recent discussion I think it'd make a perfect PDA. It's smaller than most laptops, but has more functionality than most PDA's. Naturally if size is a true concern for you it may not work (probably can't slip this in a pocket), but I'd buy one in a heartbeat. I saw a guy/site the other day that's trying to get them to charge $300 for a consumer, the consumer gets one and two kids somewhere in the world get one for free. I'd even do that (although with the price creep on the laptop itself I'd be more inclined to pay for 2 instead of 3).

Re:Commercial availability?

[mrchaotica]

I haven't noticed anywhere mentioning whether or not it has a touchscreen, so I assume it doesn't. For me, that more-or-less ruins "PDA-like" uses.

Stop this elitist culture of whining

[virchull]

Whenever a posting about the "$100 laptop" goes up, there is a flood of techno-elitist criticism on this board - like the CPU can't be overclocked. Who cares? The culture of these comments is elitism and xenophobia at its worst. Who cares if there is some waste / inefficiency / lack of elegance in the program. If it changes the lives of a few thousand kids, it is worth it. Take a look at programs where governments (pick your favorite, or not so favorite one) spend billions of dollars a day and have little chance of positive impact on poor kids in remote locations.

Get up out of your server log, or your WOW game and take a look at real life in remote places. If you don't like what you see in the "$100 laptop" program, stop whining and start doing something about it. They have a website. Go contact them to help.

Re:Stop this elitist culture of whining

[grozzie2]

Take a look at programs where governments (pick your favorite, or not so favorite one) spend billions of dollars a day and have little chance of positive impact on poor kids in remote locations.

for a measly hundred million a day, you can invade thier country, kill thier uncles and aunts, maim thier parents, and have plenty left over to blow up all the bridges, destroy the power plants and replace thier government with a set of puppets whose main purpose in life is to try stay alive. When it's all said and done, you can tell those kids just how much you have improved thier lives....

Re:Stop this elitist culture of whining

[lee1026]

Of course, if there is no waste, then we can change the lives of a few more thousand kids. Isn't that a worthwhile goal?

Re:Stop this elitist culture of whining

[Overly Critical Guy]

Calm down. Wanting to overclock the CPU isn't "elitism" or "xenophobia." It's people wanting even more options for those who are buying these machines.

Re:Stop this elitist culture of whining

[trelayne]

Here here. This topic is attracting a lot of elitist eggheads who are interested in taking on "that mediocre laptop project". Maybe they should get back to playing on their game consoles. This topic is not for children. Ahem, I mean children pretending to be adults. It's meant for real, impoverished children who will get a lot more stimulation/education from these laptops than western, whining kids playing yet another fancy game to get over their obese boredome. If you don't have something constructive to say or do, then clam up and get back to daydreaming about getting a hot girlfriend in place of your sex toy.

Re:Stop this elitist culture of whining

[Teancum]

As far as contacting the OLPC people.... I have long since given up in a since of futility as my lonesome opinion will hardly matter at all and they simply don't care about what I have to say. This is a BS program and an attempt to fleece a bunch of governments of 3rd world nations to buy a bunch of hazardous waste. I also don't see that much of this computer equipment will ever end up in the hands of very ordinary people living in modest living conditions, but rather go to the politically elite and political supporters of the government instead.

As far as trying to change the world for the better in a more productive task.... I'm doing that already. I won't go into details, but the point is that I have made my own private contributions to helping people in 3rd world countries, including direct offers (that have been taken) to both feed, clothe, and educate those who are interested. And doing what else I can do to generally make this a better world to live in.

This whole program is a scam and it will burn out with very negative reprocussions to any future legitimate effort to help spread knowledge around the world through technological means.

Re:Stop this elitist culture of whining

[Anonymous Coward]

Or for absolutely nothing you can sit on your ass, appease dickheads like you and watch another skyscraper crumble and have another 3000 people die in an hour. Translation? STFU!

The CM1 is neat. Me want.

[gklinger]

I think the CM1 is pretty cool and I wouldn't mind having one to fool around with and I suspect I'm not the only one. What they should do is sell individual units for $200 to people in developed countries. The could put the extra $60 towads subsidizing the cost of a unit sold to developing nations so the price will remain $100 and the extra $20 could go to the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program to help cover administrative costs and development of future equipment. While more advanced computers are available, often for very little money, I would buy one to give to my young niece (think baby's first computer). I suppose the OLPC could sell quite a few to developed nations for use with very young children. Having their own computer would be a source of pride and would teach responsibility and the educational possibilities are as wide open in the developed world as they are in the third world. This project is wonderful and I applaud everyone involved.

Re:The CM1 is neat. Me want.

[Aqws]

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

Re:The CM1 is neat. Me want.

[DrXym]

Exactly, except I'd buy two. One for the kid, and one for me. The CM1 / OLPC would be a sweet, sweet machine for anyone who needs mobile computing but not the inconvenience of lugging around cables, laptops, cases, cds etc. This thing is so small and rugged that you could toss it into a backback, use it on the beach, take it to the coffee shop etc. A touchpad, keyboard, speakers, mic, USB, screen make it far more useful than a pocket pc for wireless internet but its nowhere near as expensive or fragile as a laptop (or an Origami device). And if the worst happens and someone steals it... well it only cost $200-300 so big deal.

Re:The CM1 is neat. Me want.

[Teancum]

These are clearly idiots who have no concept of economics outside of something they have learned by some strongly Marxist indoctrination class.

If a computer like this can be produced on any scale at a reasonable price, it will be. What they should instead be strongly pushing for is to push up economies of scale and sell huge volumes of this stuff to 1st world nations (if it is worth anything), allowing this to also be sold to 3rd world nations at huge discounts because all of the R&D costs have been paid for and mass production techniques have reduced the price to embarassingly low amounts.

If there is any industry that economies of scale work out better for than electronic component manufacturing, I don't know what it is. And this whole idea screams that you need to produce huge volumes of the stuff in order to be effective. Restricting sale to 3rd world nations only is just going to create an incredible economic imbalance.

I have no doubt that once these things are for sale in say Nigeria, that you will be seeing huge amount of spam from Nigeria (besides the 419 scams) that try to get you to buy these at nearly cost from those same countries.... perhaps even by the governments of those countires (perhaps the nephew of the education minister?)

In addition, especially since almost all of the software and materials here are going to be open source, creating a competing product for sale in 1st world nations is going to be trivial and will be done by competitors anyway if this proves to be successful. The only way to keep this corruption at bay is to sell them at Wal-mart for prices so cheap that there won't be an incentive for these 3rd world countries to make a profit off of them. This also won't kill the laptop market except at the most price sensitive ranges.

This whole idea of selling a version of it commercially at a major markup is just basic pipe dreaming and counter-productive to the actual goal: Getting computers into the hands of economically disadvantaged individuals. Defining exactly who those individuals are in terms of some United Nations statistical report and restricting sales is just academic BS.

A camera on a children's computer is a bad idea...

[jerryasher]

So my kids would love for me to get one or two, knowing that we would also be buying them for kids in underpriveledged nations. But, I am not buying my kids in this country a computer with a built-in webcam.

resolution isn't that simple

[rm999]

"8-inch LCD at a 1280x900 resolution."

That is in monochrome, specifically for displaying ebooks. The color LCD is supposedly a quarter of this resolution (according to wikipedia), likely because each color pixel is made up of 4 color components (according to wikipedia it may be a RG-GB config). So, in monochrome mode, the color filter is somehow removed and each of those 4 components can create their own monochrome pixel.

Put an electrical plug in it and id buy one

[voss]

Seriously,

In trying to make a laptop for the third world, they might have stumbled
upon an amazing breakthrough product. Is it possible they might have
accidentally stumbled on the Commodore 64 of laptops? Even at $199
Id buy my nephew one.

Re:Put an electrical plug in it and id buy one

[Carlbunn]

That's something I would like to see. Charge around 200 - 250 usd, and use the overcharged money to give more laptops to the people that needs them

Re:Sugar? Not so sweet ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this is gonna make /. cringe...but at $3 a pop why not just put on Windows CE 5.0 ?

I'm sad

[dcapel]

an SD card slot, mic and headphone jacks, a built in camera, built-in wireless, and an 8-inch LCD at a 1280x900 resolution."

I feel sad. My box not only lacks the former, my resolution is lower than the latter :/

I sure hope they do enough real world testing.

[assassinator42]

Otherwise they might end making and distributing a bunch of them only to leave kids and teachers wondering exactly how they're supposed to use them.

Re:I sure hope they do enough real world testing.

[pembo13]

How much did not knowing how to use something stop you as a child?

I want one

[Anonymous Coward]

I would definatly pay $200-$250 for one of these if they gave a tax credit, and the extra $ went to buying kids them. It would be great as a remote for my PC running VNC. Hook me up Negroponte. I hope he's reading these comments or some one in the OLPC proram is, sounds like lots of people want them, and it would be a great way to subsidize the project.

I call Feynman!

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Any thread containing a mention of a new type of computer will eventually reference Feynman's work for think.com.

Lame me down, you modders!

For $50 more you can buy a kid to wind it 4U

[Anonymous Coward]

You could make him carry it around for you, too. Seriously though, the third world doesn't need laptops (nor extra features) - they need vaccines, birth control, planned pregnancies, and womens' rights.

With all the worries about ...

[Spacejock]

... childhood obesity, couldn't they come up with a better idea than giving kids 'Sugar'?

Re:With all the worries about ...

[kfg]

Have you ever seen an impoverished, underfed third world child deriving some small measure of pleasure and sustenance by chewing on a stalk of grass?

KFG

Re:With all the worries about ...

[Shadyman]

Certainly not as much pleasure as we seem to get from it.

Me too.

[despisethesun]

People have been saying this since this project was announced and yet these clowns still haven't gotten the picture. I'd love to have one of these things to fuck around with, and like you I'd be willing to pay a little extra to subsidize the whole thing since it seems like a good cause. And yet the OLPC people keep saying "not fucking happening". You've got to wonder if there is something wrong with these people.

unnecessary feaature-creep

[schweini]

i am really sorry to hear this - apart from the fact that 100$ had a nice symbolic ring to it, i would've loved if a back-to-basics PC like the original one would gain more popularity - the lines between 'necessary' and 'luxury' are way to blurred noawadays, anyhow. didn't the originnal design have a USB port? so why do they have to include a webcam? sure - i guess the CMOS itself costs near to nothing, and will be hooked up to the usb bus internally anyhow, but it's still not necessaary, even though it might be a good deal.
anybody know where i can buy a basic mobile computer nowadays? something that takes advantage of the advances of some technologies (batteries, flash storage), but compromises for 'good enough' in other parts ( a pentium II runs firefox and older versions of office fine enough), and comes in a toshiba libretto-style formfactor?

Re:Didn't Deliver

[Overly Critical Guy]

Worst of all, Steve Jobs offered OS X for this laptop TOTALLY FREE OF CHARGE. They rejected it and went with Red Hat, who just so happened to be a sponsor.

So we could have had a $100--er, $140--MacBook. Imagine the cool stuff people would have churned out with XCode and Cocoa...sigh.

Re:Didn't Deliver

[Anonymous Coward]

So we could have had a $100--er, $140--MacBook. Imagine the cool stuff people would have churned out with XCode and Cocoa...sigh.

*barf* I'm glad they didn't.

Re:Didn't Deliver

[MBCook]

I've got a Mac, I've had it for about 18 months now and I love it. I especially love the command prompt and all the Unix utilities. That said, I agree with the decision they made. Being able to tinker and repair the laptop, as well as write kernel changes and such, is a major boon. Children will be able to learn much more about the computer if they are interested. As much as I love my Mac, it doesn't compared to Linux in a few areas. There is much more information available through some of the interfaces on Linux (/dev and such, for example) than I can find on my Mac. There is quite a bit of documentation on writing drivers and kernel changes for Linux, but next to none for OS X save Apple's documentation (which I find to be a little sparse).

Don't forget that while OS X runs well on older Macs, a custom slimmed-down Linux will run much faster and use far fewer resources. OS X is just not designed to run on 128MB of RAM by any stretch, let alone less so applications still have room to run. Frankly I think Jobs knew that OS X was incompatible with what the OLPC people were planning (mostly hardware wise, but also in ideals).

I'm not surprised that RedHat is the distro chosen (especially considering that they are a sponsor), but I don't think that's why they didn't go with OS X.

Re:Didn't Deliver

[Overly Critical Guy]

You'd still be able to tinker and repair the laptop, as well as write kernel changes. Darwin is open source. Despite that, this magical hypothetical idea in every Slashdotter's mind that kids are all programmers who want to write kernel code is a load of crap. They would have been better off with OS X and its fantastic frameworks, because most kids would rather use that given a choice. Linux is, frankly, a desktop disaster.

There is much more information available through some of the interfaces on Linux (/dev and such, for example) than I can find on my Mac.

XCode ships with professionally written documentation for all its APIs and technologies, much better than the web-searching you'd have to do for Linux.

Re:Didn't Deliver

[moonbender]

You're going to run OS X on a 400 Mhz CPU with 128 megs of RAM? And 256 Megs of storage? How?! Maybe Apple should have offered OS 9... Hey, spatial Finder!

Re:Didn't Deliver

[jrockway]

Have you ever used OS X on a 400MHz machine with 256M of RAM? If not, I wouldn't recommend it.

Also, please provide the source code for OS X.

Disproportionate Specs?

[Millenniumman]

This computer has a very low power processor (although it is good enough for what it is for), and poor storage (512MB is insufficient, even for this computers purposes), and yet it has a camera (How do you store the pictures?), and a high resolution screen (1280x900, 8 inches). Why not put on a cheap screen and add a reasonable amount of storage, and probably still end up lower priced?

Call me cynical...

[NotQuiteReal]

I know I do.

Yeah, you just wait - if these things ever get distributed to the kids you think need them, you are mistaken.

What makes you think the same thing won't happen to them as happens to stuff like food? They will be absconded with and sold to people who will buy them on eBay (or whatever) without asking where they came from.

Yeah, just what the 3rd world needs - computers. Not non-corrupt governments and basic infrastructure... yeah, computers, that's the ticket!

You can teach kids about "stuff". My crank broke off, my screen is broken, my battery is dead, my OLPC won't boot, I have no local internet connection. Some bully just killed my sister for her OLPC. What's for dinner?

Sorry, didn't mean to harsh your buzz, but come on? Computers for poor kids in the third world? Aren't there any prerequisites to support that?

I suppose you could flood the world with these devices to the point that they are worth less than the mugging they would take to steal from someone, but somehow I doubt it.

Think about it - if you handed out dollar bills to these folks what would happen to them? You are talking about handing out $140 bills? OK, it is not as fungible as cash, but say you traded it in for 100:1 value? You propose handing out dollar bills and you don't think the bad guys aren't going to harvest them?

On the other hand, maybe they will only go to semi-desparate places that do have some modicum of rule of law, etc. In which case, never mind.

Mod me troll or flamebait, but that's just me.

Re:Call me cynical...

[Vellmont]

Yeah, just what the 3rd world needs - computers. Not non-corrupt governments and basic infrastructure... yeah, computers, that's the ticket!

Repeat after me.. "The third world is not a single place that has all the same problems". I'm tired of this idea that all third world countries everyone is starving, the government is corrupt, etc. That's certainly true in many very poor countries, but the "third world" is a hugely diverse place that has different problems depending on which country you're talking about.

Re:Call me cynical...

[motiz88]

Ah, nothing like that standard OLPC "infrastructure first, laptops last if at all" troll. Catchy, truthy, but completely wrong.

Your opinion is based on a very narrow stereotype of what the "3rd world" is. There are now countries that HAVE the infrastructure and the rest of your "prerequisites" - some of which, like the theft potential, have been specifically addressed in the laptop's design (too distinctive to steal, etc). At this point, powerful educational tools ARE what those countries need, and CM1 is a very promising initiative in that area.

So you're indeed being cynical, but as a knee-jerk response rather than after an educated look at the facts. The sad thing is this kind of comment will most likely keep appearing on future CM1 stories...

Re:Call me cynical...

[grcumb]

*sigh* Another armchair International Development specialist whose only experience of hardship was when the ice in the local 7/11's Slurpee machine melted last July. Sorry if what follows sounds a little harsh, but....

"Yeah, just what the 3rd world needs - computers. Not non-corrupt governments and basic infrastructure... yeah, computers, that's the ticket!"

And just how the fuck do you think corruption comes about, except through the cynical exploitation of an under-educated and ill-informed populace[*]? Improved access to education, information and communications are explicitly aimed at improving governance in developing countries.

By the way, did it ever occur to you that much of the corruption afflicting developing countries is encouraged and often instigated by the same sanctimonious pricks who occasionally deign to drop a few pennies in the international development pot? OLPC is largely self-funding, which means that governments would be stealing from themselves if they subverted this one. In fairness, that's hardly unheard of, but it provides a stronger incentive to actually do the right thing with the laptops.

And infrastructure... these computers are designed to supplement local infrastructure. If you had any clue whatsoever about the logistics of building infrastructure in most developing countries, you'd know why this ad hoc, opportunistic approach is the only viable approach right now.

"On the other hand, maybe they will only go to semi-desparate places that do have some modicum of rule of law, etc. In which case, never mind."

Oh FFS, did you even read the website? You know, the one where they say exactly that?

Look, seriously: Please go educate yourself before I start to think that these bovine comments are just part of some astroturf campaign to discredit the work of the OLPC project, which is - Heavens to Betsy - actually based on insight and experience. Volunteer for Peace Corps, VSO, CUSO or GeekCorps. Work overseas for a while and then see what you think about your facile 'analysis'.

[*] Sounds a bit like some developed countries we know, doesn't it?

I think they should have named it the

[pair-a-noyd]

CRM 114 instead

Re:I think they should have named it the

[Duhavid]

That's discriminatory!

Actual technical details?

[afree87]

I would like to call Slashdot's attention to several design elements of this laptop which most coverage has overlooked:

1. The laptop will carry Esperanto teaching utilities .
2. The laptop will include an Office Assistant sort of creature which was, quote, "inspired by the Tamagotchi toys, and its purpose is to allow kids to interact with the control of the computer in a simple and fun way". The assistant is named "Amiko" because that is Esperanto for "friend".
3. The laptop will have its own UI, unlike any UI which has ever been used on a real (non-toy) laptop, which for me at least recalls bad memories of Microsoft Bob .

There does not seem to be any page on the website for people to discuss how the laptop actually ought to work, or if these ideas are at all sane.

Is it just me, or when reading these software details, doesn't the whole thing seem just a little less plausible to you?

Re:Actual technical details?

[Anonymous Coward]

Expanding on #3...

These kids are going to be carrying a notebook computer around every day of school, yet are going to be computer illiterate. I can just see their first day of their first job asking where Amiko is on this PC.

Re:Actual technical details?

[westlake]

The laptop will carry Esperanto teaching utilities

Tell me how Esperanto, insignificant in world trade and commerce, the arts and sciences, gives third-world kids a leg-up in a world where English is the first or second language of two billion people.

Re:Actual technical details?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me how Esperanto, insignificant in world trade and commerce, the arts and sciences, gives third-world kids a leg-up in a world where English is the first or second language of two billion people.

You would think that teaching English would be a better solution - but English is one most difficult languages to learn. Esperanto, on the other hand is one of the easiest. Esperanto also has the advantage of being a (mostly) Germanic language, like English - this means that learning English will be easier later in life. All in all, it's a rather good idea on their part. Too bad most people see the word Esperanto and have a negative reaction - rather then learning a bit about what it is, and thinking how it can help.

Starting to wonder why

[rolfwind]

my laptop's screen isn't this good:

"has higher resolution than 95 percent of the laptop displays on the market today, approximately one-seventh of the power consumption, one-third of the price, sunlight readability, and room-light readability with the backlight off."

Re:Starting to wonder why

[Anonymous Coward]

Because dipshit, the MIT people are lying through their teeth to sell the stupid thing. Do you honestly believe a $140 laptop is better than some rinky dink fisher price toy or an Tiger pocket electronic game? Give those 3rd worlders some dollar store calculators, they'd be better off than this miserable contraption.

Re:Didn't Deliver

[Overly Critical Guy]

Intel OS X would definitely run on it. But hey, we'll never see Apple make it work, will we?

Flop

[gnu-sucks]

...and if you pay $400, you can get a dell with a 15" screen, and decent storage.

Seriously, 1280x1024 on an 8-inch screen? And a web-cam? What the hell are these guys trying to do? Scare people away from computers? Or, I'm sorry, "children's machines'"?

Re:Flop

[pembo13]

I do not understand your logic, how would a supposedly high res and webcam scare anyone away from a machine?

Re:Flop

[mrchaotica]

Yes, for three times the price you can get a Dell that's entirely USELESS when it only lasts for 2 hours per charge and you only have access to electricity once a week or so (not to mention the fact that a Dell is not even slightly rugged)...

Re:Flop

[gnu-sucks]

Or you could get a computer powered by hand-crank that is also entirely useless.

The same technology that is going into these laptops, likely nothing more than low-voltage input inverters, could be applied to any situation.

I just don't see anything so great about a 400mhz cpu and how much storage?

Re:Flop

[gnu-sucks]

1280x1024 is more than I have on my 12" screen. For someone using their first computer, they might prefer a larger screen with lower resolution, versus a small screen with high resolution.

As for the web cam, it just doesn't fit into the equation imo. Wouldn't it be more useful to have double the (rather small) storage? I can't see what good giving all these kids webcams will do. Perhaps a community webcam or something would be far more practical.

Re:Flop

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, the hand crank is no more. Your info's outdated.

Re:Flop

[mrchaotica]

I think you're missing my point. A $400 Dell with a 15" display is probably going to use about 20-50 watts of power, depending on load. The OLPC device is being designed to use something on the order of one (1) watt.

Also, the OLPC device is designed to be rugged -- water resistant, shock resistant, etc. Dell doesn't even make rugged laptops AFAIK, and besides that making something equivalent in specs to your 15" Dell that would actually survive for more than a week in the dusty or wet outdoor environment these are being designed for would run, oh, about $1500!

As for the CPU and storage, well, I was perfectly happy with a 486 with similar storage and a much slower CPU when I was a kid. As long as they're designing the software to run well within the constraints I don't see a problem!

Re:Flop

[pembo13]

1280x1024 is more than I have on my 12" screen

That's the res on my 19" monitor. I am in this case however, assuming that this resolution was chose as it would be used so much for reading text. And I think we understand that high resolution does not necessarily translate to small text.

As for the web cam, it just doesn't fit into the equation imo.

I would like to believe this was put in for the social aspect of life, along with other side benifits. A community webcam could very likely satisfy the other benifits, but no very much the social. But to be fair, the a community camera seems like a more efficient idea. Though I know 512MB would not be enough for me, that should be able to hold a lot of well compressed video and a lot of e-book. At the same time, it would lower the appeal of the device to thieves.

Re:Flop

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, 1280x1024 on an 8-inch screen

I guess you must be a windows user (and one who is apparently incapable of changing windows font size too*, modern windows also has the feature I'm about to describe):
Linux's "new" (it's been around for years now) font rendering is vector-based. an 8" screen is an 8" screen. One that's 1280x1024 is higher-resolution (more dots per inch), and therefore simply clearer for a given real-world font size (in points or mm or whatever: Only losers specify stuff in pixel sizes in this age of high-resolution displays).

* I've actually seen windows users buy 1280x1024 displays instead of 1600x1200 ones because the "fonts look bigger". Morons!
Hint: if you use the same real-world font size (as measured with a ruler held up to the display), the 1600x1200 monitor will always be clearer and better for your eyes.

Re:Flop

[Anonymous Coward]

if you pay $400, you can get a dell with a 15" screen, and decent storage.

Yeah but the OLPC has the explicit goal of being "non-explosive".

Re:Flop

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got a sharp zaurus PDA with a 200mhz CPU, 128mb SD card on which i've got Linux running GPE (a gnome for mobile devices), a web browser, gnumeric, abiword, several games and gaim. Thats most of the software I need for day to day tasks, so I think 400mhz and 512mb of storage is more than enough for a child who's just getting started with PCs. Also think back, how many years ago was it you had a PC of similar specs? less than 10? What kind of PCs do you think people in developing countries who can afford them are using? The latest 3ghz P4s or 10 year old systems which have been thrown out by people in the developed world?

New Hope

[v1ncent]

It would have been nice to keep the price tag at an even $100, but it's hard to sustain an organization while producing a negative income. In the end, the third world population will greatly benefit from this project and it's nice to see the digital divide reduced. With access to technology and all the benefits it can reap, these populations will finally have hope.

Re:New Hope

[Anonymous Coward]

With access to technology and all the benefits it can reap, these populations will finally have hope ... of getting iTunes on the cheap also.

Re:A $140 machine for children

[Duhavid]

If you network two together, would that be a "wee-wee"?

Re:Disproportionate Specs?

[Anonymous Coward]

My laptop runs on 512 MB of ram fine in linux. I only break 120 MB used when I throw firefox on and I can leave it on for days and never break 250 MB used..

This is all while running xfce, xchat, gaim, 3-4 terminals, screen, thunderbird, and xmms constantly. If I throw on gimp and OOo I MIGHT be able to break 300 MB used...

512 is plenty if you get off windows and stop running all that spyware, buddy.

Re:Didn't Deliver

[Anonymous Coward]

this magical hypothetical idea in every Slashdotter's mind that kids are all programmers who want to write kernel code is a load of crap.

  No, this idea is taken from the early 80's, when just about every home computer came with a programming language, and kids learned to do basic programming out of curiosity. A large chunk of modern programmers got their start tapping away at Commodore basic. That experience is denied to kids these days, since most computers are shipped as a sort of black box with no programming capabilities whatsoever.

How to deal with software security issues?

[trelayne]

Hmmm, I know how: all of the thousands (if not 10s of thousands) of 3rd world hackers-to-be who just hate
"developed world" privileged hackers who like picking on the kid who's living on $43/year
might just get mad and learn how to break into Mr. Privileged hacker's computer and invent
their own nasty worms, viruses and other critters. Education always emerges from a challenge.

Re:Disproportionate Specs?

[Millenniumman]

I was referring to the storage, not the RAM.

And I use OS X, not Windows.

You know what's cool about this

[CrazyJim1]

This is going to be a standard by which a 3rd world nation sees computers. If any self respecting geek wants to make a difference in the impoverished 3rd world, he should write some free software for this machine. I myself may write code for this machine. They should do something like this in the United States, where kids get a laptop instead of books. It'd be a revolution. You could even gauge which software teaches best by the test scores.

Wrong approach to education...

[hcob$]

Simply put... Better Education != More Technology

The solution to education is that we elevate it to status that it deserves. Talk to many successfull people, and I'd wager that they could point to less than five (5) teachers that made a difference in their life and learning. Our Education system has these major ERRORS in it's design.

1.) Grade school is focused on churning out people who meet an arbitrary number on college entrance exams

2.) College is focused on churning out as many BS students as possible.

3.) It's too easy to get a teaching certificate

3.) ALL CLASSROOM TEACHERS ARE PAID TOO LITTLE

Solve problems 1, 2, and alter those to focus on critical thinking and you'll see a major difference in our children. Solve problem 3, 4, and we will never have to speak about teacher shortages again.

Re:Wrong approach to education...

[miro f]

I don't recall the part of the plan where they send these laptops to college students in USA...

Re:Wrong approach to education...

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed, we need more and better teachers in the classroom and fewer computers.
Have you ever looked at the curriculum required to be a teacher? Go
to any college and you find more emphasis on methodology than content.
How can you teach high school mathematics when you have no appreciation
for advanced mathematics?

Re:Wrong approach to education...

[Anonymous Coward]

3.) It's too easy to get a teaching certificate

3.) ALL CLASSROOM TEACHERS ARE PAID TOO LITTLE

Clearly, a better education system is needed, especially in basic mathematics.

Re:Wrong approach to education...

[maxume]

The solution to 1. is to make the first 9 grades remedial. Figure out what a kid doesn't know and teach them that instead of constant rote and repetition. The rest of the time, the kids spend in really fun daycare, there is no reason to abandon the social aspects of the current system. I suppose it would be a good idea to support any educational interests they have.

The solution to 2. is to come up with a better way of sorting people. Good luck.

The solution to 3. is to ignore certification and measure effectiveness, and pay enough so that you can fire the bottom [5/10/20]% every year and still have enough teachers. Making a bad teacher take classes gives you a bad teacher who took some classes.

Re:Wrong approach to education...

[marcosdumay]

Those problems are to a degree universal. And OLPC won't solve them.

What doesn't mean that those laptops will be useless, like the GP implies.

Call me, too.

[Kadin2048]

I've been saying the same thing every time this discussion comes up. Now I just don't waste my breath.

Sometimes it's better to just let idealists try their thing; if you try to tell them that their idealism is flawed, they'll just tar and feather you. Just shut your mouth and make the best of it that you can.

I think the most likely outcome of this whole project, if they ever get around to shipping a bunch of them to a really poor country, is that they'll be taken by corrupt government officials or warlords and sold back in return for hard currency that can be used to purchase weapons. The kids will end up with guns, and the PC's will end up on eBay.

The status quo in the developing world will basically remain unchanged, but we'll all end up with marginally cheaper laptops, because producing these things is going to cause component prices to fall due to the economies of scale involved.

If you want to be cynical, look at it this way: a whole lot of rich governments, and probably a few poor ones, are going to give you a nice indirect subsidy on your next AMD laptop. Enjoy.

Re:Call me, too.

[Gnight]

These devices are not going to be handed out for free. They will be sold to the respective countries at the cost of manufacturing. It is up to the receiving governments whether to participate or not. If they would like to spend their money on fixing more pressing issues, then that's fine; that's their prerogative.

Also, selling the "child's" version of the laptop (if their is indeed a consumer version) will almost definitely be illegal and looked down upon. I can see these things propping up on eBay, then being taken down. A grown person using one of these laptops (the child's version) would be looked at the same way as a person driving a post office truck around; it's very noticeable that they are doing something they probably shouldn't be doing.

What needs to be prevented are the stealing and misuse these devices, not the development and distribution of the device itself. We can fight that by refusing to purchase stolen CM1s. If there is no market for them, hopefully there won't be big problems.

Re:Call me, too.

[SoupIsGood Food]

There are poor countries, and then there are failed states. Sending these things to a failed state, without a strong rule of law and robust social structures, where misrule is the rule, is a recipe for disaster. Sending these things to places with a strong social fabric and a (mostly) honest government is a great idea.

Such countries do exist, and they would benefit the most from a solid education system. Zimbabwe would be a poor candidate to receive these. In Botswana, they would be a great idea. Algeria would be a poor candidate. Tunisia would be a fine one. Columbia or Congo? They'd be stolen to fund the wars. Suriname or Cape Verde? They would help bring third world nations into the first world.

They managed to build a modern, portable system for less money than a new iPod. Give them some credit for smarts. They will only deploy these where they will do some good.

SoupIsGood Food

Re:Call me, too.

[Reservoir Penguin]

Actually, every time an article on this topic comes up there is a FLOOD of high-ranking comments similar to yours. And every time the response is the same. RTFM! At least try to follow the links, read the wiki, get up to speed before participating in the discussion. These machines are not going to be shipped to the poorest countries controlled by warlords. Brasil is not controlled by warlords and neither is Egypt and many other developing countries. People theier are not dying en masse of starvation. They have a large middle class and an underclass that can benifit from these laptops. The other fallacy is that ones government first have to solve every other problem before attempting to educate the population. I've been to real third world countries and kids their still enjoy playing football> watching tv and playing cheap consoles youv probably never heard of even if they dont have a nutricous meal three times a day. I'm absolutely sure they will immenesly enjoy playing and learning with these machines.

Re:Call me, too.

[Teancum]

How will this possibly be made illegal?

My contention is that the sale will be done by the governments of these 3rd world countries themselves anyway, perhaps laundered through some other surrogate like the nephew of the Education Minister, but it will be done.

IF these end up in the hands of individuals, there still won't be a way to legitimately stop the resale of these computers. Besides, unless eBay and other on-line auction houses specifically stop the sale of these laptops explicitly by name, there isn't a way to prohibit their sale there either.

In addition, how are you possibly going to prevent people like Saddam Hussein (when he bought a container ship full of PS/2s) from reusing these components for military systems or for purposes completely unrelated to the supposed educational mission?

Imagine a beowolf cluster of OLPC laptops that.....(fill in the blank)

Re:Call me, too.

[Gnight]

How will this possibly be made illegal?

The exact legality could get murky. I live in the US; is a parent who sells their child's textbooks committing a crime (I'm not sure)? I suspect that someone selling his son's CM1 would be the same as someone selling all his son's issued textbooks.

IF these end up in the hands of individuals, there still won't be a way to legitimately stop the resale of these computers. Besides, unless eBay and other on-line auction houses specifically stop the sale of these laptops explicitly by name, there isn't a way to prohibit their sale there either.

I hope that places like eBay do block the sale of these devices.

In addition, how are you possibly going to prevent people like Saddam Hussein (when he bought a container ship full of PS/2s) from reusing these components for military systems or for purposes completely unrelated to the supposed educational mission?

We won't be able to stop this. Nevertheless, Saddam doing what he did didn't stop Sony from manufacturing the PS2, and I don't think these possibilities should stop the manufacturing and distibution of the CM1.

Re:Call me, too.

[Teancum]

I know this is a late reply, but so be it....

As far as a parent who sells a child's textbook, I would have to agree: It is illegal because the textbook is "property" of the school district. On the other hand, if the textbook (or any other book) is sold to the parent or child and it becomes their property. They are free to sell it, burn it, bury it, or do anything else to that book they would like to. Including selling it on eBay if they would want to.

The only reason that eBay would want to block the sale of these laptops is because they would be stolen property of a particular government agency. As long as the merchandise has legitimately transfered ownership, its sale in any forum can't be prevented.

BTW, the issue with Saddam and the PS/2s had more to do with export/import restrictions, where building a super-computer with PS/2s seemed to have been legal but doing so with a quarter-million x86 computers would have illegal under USA and EU export laws. It would have been impossible for Saddam to get computer components in any other way, and I would argue that the OLPC and similar programs can and will be perverted to circumvent technology trade laws and export restrictions. This has nothing to do with prohibiting computer manufacturers from making something but rather keeping some dangerous countries from getting certain technologies like nuclear weapons that may use them and not care about the consequences.

As far as what countries this program is going to target, all you have to do is look at a night-time satellite photo of the Korean penninsula: the nighttime lights stop at the DMZ, with hardly anything further north. Unfortunately the poorest of the poor countries of the world are ruled by idiots who are doing seemingly everything in their power to keep their fellow countrymen in the poverty status that they currently are in. Programs like OLPC will do nothing to help out these individuals.

Re:Disproportionate Specs?

[EPAstor]

Just a bit of info - as you say, the storage is a bit small. However, think of it this way - they abandoned hard drives because they fail too often. Think of the abuse these will undergo relative to most systems - sand, rough treatment, no air conditioning... These machines need to be hardy. So they went to flash storage, and as it is, the storage is probably one of the most expensive parts of the system. Expanding the storage available is definitely non-trivial in terms of cost. As for the screen, the 1200x900 resolution is for black-and-white - this is important, as they're looking to maximize readability. In fact, they're looking for newspaper-level readability in bright light, which requires true revolutions in display technology - as I understand it, though, they've basically solved that problem. I've heard figures of about 690x520 as the effective color resolution, which seems perfectly reasonable. Also, I've heard that cameras are getting awfully cheap (component-wise, anyway)... Since it doesn't need to do any of its own processing, I bet the camera (just the sensor) is less than $5-10 of the total cost. And think of the wow factor... remember, these are targeting kids! You get this kind of thing used by making it fun.

Re:Sugar? Not so sweet ...

[miro f]

I believe MS is working with the OLPC group to create a version with Windows on it

New Interface?

[jusdisgi]

Er, am I the only one missing the distinction between "New Sugar Interface" and "GNOME Desktop" ????

Re:New Interface?

[megabyte405]

Probably not the only one, but it's fairly easy to see if you make sure you are actually looking at Sugar screenshot (hint: it's all tabbed) instead of the picture of the prototype (which ran Fedora and GNOME last time I looked).

Re:New Interface?

[wild_berry]

Sugar is running in a window in the Fedora system it's being developed on.

"Education" is wrong approach; learning=DISCOVERY

[mrchaotica]

I don't know about you, but learning to use and program computers has greatly improved my critical thinking skills.

Of course, by that I don't mean using computers to write reports and stuff, like they're typically used in schools in the US -- that's just a waste. I mean that the inherent process of discovery that's involved in learning (on your own) to use a computer is actually incredibly valuable.

It might sound counter-intuitive, but I think the best success they could have with these laptops would be if they distribute them to the youngest kids they can find (that are old enough to not try to eat them or something) and then not give them any formal instruction or training, except perhaps on how to turn it on and how to type man man at the command prompt. Unless they're entirely uninterested (and I suspect that won't be the case), they'll not only learn how to use the computer itself really quickly, but will also discover (through the included wikibooks and the Internet connection) many more concepts than a single teacher could ever hope to introduce them to.

Re:Disproportionate Specs?

[Abcd1234]

Umm, these things aren't supposed to be used to play WoW or download MP3s. They're supposed to be used as a learning and communications tool. You know, browsing the web, chatting, writing documents, that sort of thing. WTF do they need a multi-ghz processor and a tonne of storage for?

Inflation?

[dextromulous]

Ouch, from $100 to $140 in this short of time? Talk about inflation :P

Re:A camera on a children's computer is a bad idea

[Tweekster]

Hmmm, so give your kid access to a camera and he will become a pornstar?

sounds like someone did a bad job at parenting, like the parents of the kid in the article.

Re:A camera on a children's computer is a bad idea

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds like someone did a bad job at parenting, like the parents of the kid in the article.

Sounds like you have a case of the dumbshits.

Smoother Font Rendering, perhaps?

[codergeek42]

It might be for the same reason I've got my 17" CRT at its max resolution of 1400x1050: font DPI. Instead of having the fonts at 75 or 96 DPI, I've got it all at my monitor's EDID-specified optimum of 111 DPI, which means that there are more pixels per length which can be used for better anti-aliasing etc.

140$ ?

[aCC]

According to a story on Ars Technica, the $100 MIT Laptop is now going to cost $140.

This makes it sound like they will sell it for that price. I looked long and hard to find where it say that. It's still called 100$ laptop everywhere official. It turns out that estimates (!) put the production costs at 138$. They will still sell it for 100$.

Man, and I hate these arrogant people of the "first" world who know how to improve the world so much better from watching tv or reading the internet. How come there are so many of those ones here on /. ? This project is about education, not about laptops. Argueing that "regime change", "better infrastructure", "providing food" is much more important doesn't change the fact that those problems are difficult to impossible for outsiders to solve. Starting with something that COULD actually do something good is much better than doing nothing or throwing money away with something most people KNOW doesn't work.

Cost Increase

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not just a 40 buck price increase, it is a %40 price increase. That is a huge chunk of coin!

This is not a A64 @ 400mhz

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a AMD GEODE at 400MHz. Basically, it's a 486 that's been altered a bit so it runs faster than the 120MHz Intel/AMD used to produce them at 10 years ago. Looking at the benchmarks at AMD's website, it'll perform something like a Pentium 166Mhz. If you think OS-X will run anywhere decent on this machine, go back to your Steve Jobs blowjob fantasy land.

Re:Disproportionate Specs?

[Vellmont]

(512MB is insufficient, even for this computers purposes)

Why? I think you can very easily fit enough into 512MB of flash ram to have a web-browser, word processor, chat, e-book reader, and several e-books. What's the purpose you envision where 512MB of storage isn't enough?

Why not put on a cheap screen and add a reasonable amount of storage, and probably still end up lower priced?

Because it's supposed to be mostly for reading text, and it's also supposed to be cheap. The high resolution is only in monochrome mode. I'd expect the color resolution to be a lot lower.

I'm getting tired

[suv4x4]

I've been a hot fan of this project. But they keep changing it and delivering nothing in "real world" (i.e. actual production and selling it) and I'm getting tired of all the hype that proves wrong in the aftermath.

will have crank to power it up!
ok now it won't have crank
will look like a normal laptop!
ok now it'll look like a laptop-cross-lolipop.
it'll be $100!
ok now it won't be.

I expect this to progress in future until it ends up as a perfect clone feature/price-wise of a Dell laptop.
They should've discussed and tested all this stuff in private before thew blew the horns, again and again and again and again.

Re:Disproportionate Specs?

[Bunyip Redgum]

The key advantage of the high res screen will be that it is easily read for hours on end. The text/ xhtml or pdf file for this won't take much space.

Learning by installments

[CarpetShark]

Actually, I learned quite a lot in school, compared to what I manage to learn now. I've been trying for ages to establish a regular routine of learning sessions in my free time (not ALL my free time) again. For stuff like learning languages (or, yes, becoming comfortable with computers), there's nothing like repeated small doses.

Re:Learning by installments

[Ruff_ilb]

What the GPP fails to realize, I think, is that MOST people can't intuitively grasp the concepts of computing automatically, like many people on /. can. I've seen many, many people (I volunteer at a nonprofit that gives computers to children who can't afford them, and then teaches them how to use them) who don't understand the most simple of tasks, and thus need education.

Sure, computer education might be useless for many people, but it is necessary for some.

Now, I'm not advocating a "Lets all go and learn computers now, class!" approach, but the computers should be THERE, and support (in the form of classes, if necessary) should be in place for the students who can't learn how to use them. No matter how the students learn how to use them, it's a skill they need to have before they're out of high school and into the real world.

Re:Learning by installments

[Anonymous Coward]

> MOST people can't intuitively grasp the concepts of computing automatically, like many people on /. can.

If they are literate, they certainly can. No one is asking schoolchildren to build compilers or write in assembler. They're simply being taught some trade skills, like the basic usage of business software, or writing a half dozen classes in BlueJ to create a quiz game or whatnot. This doesn't require highly lateral thinking, just the ability to follow instructions. Advanced computing topics are still best left as electives.

Computing skills as taught in primary education are neither going to produce technophiles nor require them. It's probably nearly worthless as a creative skill ... however it's still a good vocational skill, and the platform itself offers a lot of possibilities that are a lot cheaper and safer than, say, woodshop.

redhat vs. debian

[CarpetShark]

Debian would have been a much better choice in that regard. Also, it would have been nice to see the kids using systems without a commercial organisation's adverts plastered all over the screen. That said, I'd much prefer to see redhat/fedora on these things to seeing Microsoft stuff on them.

SD Cards in the third world

[CarpetShark]

Hmm... good points. I suspect the SD card though, is for photo transfer, unless someone company managed to worm their add-on products into the system, so they can sell masses of SD cards to schools or something.

Old Troll - OS X fanboism

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Overly Critical Guy is trolling here - he does this every time the OLPC project comes up. Again, I will have to refute him, just in case someone was tempted to believe his troll has merit.

Worst of all, Steve Jobs offered OS X for this laptop TOTALLY FREE OF CHARGE.

Jobs offered OS X to the one laptop per child program late in the day, knowing that it was unsuitable due to lack of source. It was simply grandstanding on his part. Frankly, I can't think of a non-malicious reason for Jobs to make the offer, (why knowingly offer something useless?). Job's crack at the OLPC project wasn't as childish & pathetic as Gate's, but make no mistake - it was similar jealousy that prompted it.

And if you're wondering why the source is so important, wonder no further - have a read of the OLPC's OLPC on OSS page:

* Must include source code and allow modification so that our developers, the governments that are our customers and the children who use the laptop can look under the hood to change the software to fit an inconceivable and inconceivably diverse set of needs. Our software must also provide a self-hosting development platform.

* Must allow distribution of modified copies of software under the same license so that the freedoms that our developers depend upon for success remain available to the users and developers who define the next generation of the software. Our users and customers must be able to localize software into their language, fix the software to remove bugs, and repurpose the software to fit their needs.

* Must allow redistribution without permission -- either alone or as part of an aggregate distribution -- because we can not know and should not control how the tools we create will be re-purposed in the future. Our children outgrow our platform, our software should be able to grow with them.

* Must not require royalty payments or any other fee for redistribution or modification for obvious reasons of economy and pragmatism in the context of our project.

* Must not discriminate against persons, groups or against fields of endeavor. Our software's power will come through its ability to grow and change with the children and in a variety of contexts.

* Must not place restrictions on other software that may be distributed along side it. Software licenses must not bar either proprietary, or "copyleft" software from being distributed on the platform. A world of great software will be used to make this project succeed - both open and closed. We need to be able to choose from all of it.

* Must allow these rights to be passed on along with the software. This means that we must not provide a license specific to the $100 Laptop project or organization or its customers. While we are the developers of this platform today, the users of this platform are the developers of tomorrow and it is through them that the platform will succeed, be transformed, and be passed on. They need the same rights as we do.

* Must not be otherwise encumbered by software patents which restrict modification or use in the ways described above. All patents practiced by software should be sublicenseable and allow our users to make use or sell derivative versions that practice the patent in question.

* Must support and promote open and patent unencumbered data interchange and file formats.

* Must be able to be built using unencumbered tools (e.g., compilers) whose output is unencumbered and free to examine and reverse engineer.

Again, I say that Steve Job's is far too an intelligent man to not understand OLPC's goals, so I can only imagine publicity (waaaaaaaaah! Google and Redhat are looking like nicer companies than Apple!) prompted his 'offer'.

So we could have had a $100--er, $140--MacBook.

Incorrect. You are not a c

Re:Old Troll - OS X fanboism

[WilliamSChips]

You do realize that the only thing Overly Critical Guy ever does at any time whatsoever is troll, right?

Re:Old Troll - OS X fanboism

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

You do realize that the only thing Overly Critical Guy ever does at any time whatsoever is troll, right?

Yes, yes I do. But I was just wondering if he ever gave up. Apparantly not - kinda like a bulldog.

Its almost like steve jobs pays him by the word.

Re:Old Troll - OS X fanboism

[WilliamSChips]

Its almost like steve jobs pays him by the word.

Nah, I think he gets personal pleasure out of being the Slashdot equivalent of "To be nonconformist, you must dress exactly like me". What's funny is that he used to have this link in his sig with the "the whole _point_ of slashdot is to have this big public wanking session" as the text to it to make it seem like a complaint, while ignoring "[ And don't get me wrong - I follow slashdot too, exactly because it's fun to see people argue. I'm not complaining ;]" which showed me what type of person he was: A deceptive asshole whose only purpose is to be irritating. In that way he's a lot like Ann Coulter.

Re:Old Troll - OS X fanboism

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Yeah, I know he's not really a shill, just another troll (the trolls, with the odd exception have really lost their touch on /. I have to say). other then that, I completely agree with your post :-)

Anyway, in an attempt to pretend this post is vaguely ontopic, don't you think the sugar interface looks more attractive than whatever the Apple guys (probably the interns) would've slapped together had the OLPC project been dumb enough to choose os x over linux?

Re:Old Troll - OS X fanboism

[Anonymous Coward]

don't you think the sugar interface looks more attractive than whatever the Apple guys (probably the interns) would've slapped together had the OLPC project been dumb enough to choose os x over linux?

When I first saw the interface the green looked kind of strange although after seeing the actual laptop it seems like it would look better on the laptop itself.
-WilliamSChips, who is unable to post as such because with my karma I'm only allowed 25 posts a day

Re:Old Troll - OS X fanboism

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Don't forget - it's still just in the prototype phase - alpha testing in thailand soon. Should be interesting.

Really ?

[TrickyToSay]

My PC has a whole raft of programming languages installed... I have millions of programming books... are my kids interested ? Not on your life... they like eMail, MP3's, P2P, MSN, Neopets, web browsing etc. They love the PC as a social and information tool. We older computers lovers who grew up with ZX81, Commodore64, Spectrum etc only learned to program because there was very little decent software available except games, and we had to save up for weeks for those. We bought magazines with games programs you could type in. We learned basic (and maybe assembler if you were a geek) so we could correct the typos, fix the bugs and port that really cool C64 game to the Spectrum. Later we learned about modems so we didn't get disconnected so often from our favourite BBS (and later the internet) It's much different now... software is given away "apparently" free to make money (usually advertising, paid add ons etc etc). Kids prefer consoles for gaming as they are more reliable and consistent with what they get at their friends house. Money for games doesn't come into it as much as they seem to have more disposable income than when I was a kid.

Does it really need another GUI?

[invisik]

Can't they just use the standard Fedora GUI--why another GUI? Too much re-learning and too much time spent on redesigning something that is already and will continue to go under heavy development.

Besides, does the video card support XGL? :)

-m

Re:Does it really need another GUI?

[beaverbrother]

This laptop is specifically for people who otherwise would not have access to a computer. I don't think many of them will have an issue learning "another GUI" because in all likelyhood this will be their first.

Re:Does it really need another GUI?

[invisik]

True, but when they learn it and then move to another computer in school/elsewhere it will be different.

-m

User Interface

[Anonymous Coward]

Making the $100 laptop is one thing. Writting its software, another.

They should forget about this MS/Apple philisophy "we will deliver the ULTIMATE application that does everything you want, it is bloated, has some impressive features our UI experts envisioned of, but lacks simple things, and leverages shared distributed incremental productivity".

Instead they should go with the OSS philosophy, "provide some good libraries and let the Children build their UI".

Many people can write the UI. But only negroponte can build the hardware.

No XGL

[Anonymous Coward]

XGL sucks:)

It is supposed to draw windows using OpenGL. It all started when somebody claimed that using 3D acceleration to draw 2D primitives, was 10000 times faster with OpenGL rather with the classic 2D blitting functions. Problems are:

1) 3D acceleration was not made for the windows. It's for games. 2D blitting is good enough for office/internet applications.
2) Nobody gives OpenGL drivers for their card. There are no drivers for it. In the meantime you are stuck with software OpenGL, which eats all of your CPU.
3) It's based on the wishful thinking that all Video card vendors will release OpenGL drivers for their cards. Yeah sure, like never. GL is too complex for plain 3D acceleration primitives.
4) I hope they never will.

It's just eye kandy that doesn't work yet.

Re:Disproportionate Specs?

[dave2112]

and poor storage (512MB is insufficient, even for this computers purposes), and yet it has a camera (How do you store the pictures?)

How about a little effort before you start bitching?

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Hardware_specification/
Expansion: 3 Type-A USB-2.0 connectors

Re:Disproportionate Specs?

[dave2112]

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

Subsidize

[dp_wiz]

I even will pay 300 if it really would help to decrease costs for whom it is made.

Sour sugar

[mikmolson]

Why on earth does nobody seem to realize how horrible the UI is?
Just another geeky window manager with task bar and window controls? So much for actually caring about innovation (for kids)...
Just look at the chat about shared activity screenshot: the chat overlaps the window in question, how dumb is that...
A multi million $ PR stunt for the participants, and then have grad students hack together the UI? On top of Gnome on top of a fat Linux distro on top of a 400MHz (count'em cycles) CPU?

Why flamebait

[Mateo_LeFou]

I think it's because it asserts that systems remain free of viruses through obscurity -- that is, low market share -- which is not true. The biggest counterexample to this thesis is Apache, with huge market share and far fewer security exploits.

Re:Why flamebait

[FesterDaFelcher]

So you are saying that virus creators aren't looking for low hanging fruit? Come on. They know currently that if an exploitable hole is found for any linux distro, the community will work around the clock to get a patch out ASAP. And users would apply it ASAP. Once a distro is in place in millions of machines around the world, that patch will take forever to be applied.

By using mature, best of class software?

[twitter]

How do you prevent making one large botnet powered by a bunch of third-world children turning hand cranks?

You can do that by using well know software that has yet to power bot nets.

Let's assume there is one nice security hole in these laptops... Is there an automatic update system? Is it centrally controlled like Windows Update or since there are supposed to be large numbers of segregated ad-hoc networks is the distribution of these updates going to be peer based?

It will be as easy to update these machines as it is to update any other free software. If it follows the same path every other hardware platform, there were be multiple distributions all well maintained and trustworthy.

Compare the record those distributions have to the dismal record Windoze has and call me in the morning. I've yet to hear of a Mac, Solaris, Linux or BSD botnet. It's not the users, it's not the update scheme, it's not the market share, it's the software. Windoze is brain dead and you have a lot of nerve to recommend it as a model for anything other than abject failure.

With the given specs, this laptop is attractive everywhere and that spells doom for M$. Cheaper than a PDA, with more features than most "low end" laptops. Computers like this are going to rock the commercial world. Who's going to buy a $2,500 tablet at that rate? How's Bill going to extort even a $40 license fee on top of a $140 platform? Software that grew up in the era of $2,000 enthusiast computers will die as computers are finally and undeniably turned into commodities.

Re:By using mature, best of class software?

[jb.hl.com]

A simple trojan would make it ridiculously easy to make a botnet on Linux or any other UNIX-like.

Re:By using mature, best of class software?

[1u3hr]

A simple trojan would make it ridiculously easy to make a botnet on Linux or any other UNIX-like.

There are millions of Macs running OSX (aka BSD Unix). Why hasn't anyone released this ridicualously easy bot to take them over?

Re:By using mature, best of class software?

[jb.hl.com]

Maybe because it's a far smaller target than Windows, and I'd wager most OSX users would be far more adept at spotting a trojan/other virus than most Windows users.

Re:By using mature, best of class software?

[1u3hr]

.... I'd wager most OSX users would be far more adept at spotting a trojan/other virus than most Windows users.

Most of the Mac users I know use them exactly because they don't know, or want to know, what happens under the hood. Of course, there are Mac geeks, but proportionally few.

Usability?

[barry_the_bogan]

I saw a while back that Thailand is interested in these things. I was just wondering if anyone has actually tested them for use with the Thai script. Why I ask is that I worked on Khmer (Cambodian language with very similar complex writing system) a couple of years ago, and typing at a reasonable speed in unicode using complex text rendering (graphite or uniscribe) slowed my 1.6GHz system to a crawl, and often had to wait for the processor to catch up displaying what I had typed.

once again, stupid mit hype

[cinnamon colbert]

u can go to bestbuy/circuit/etc and buy a decent laptop for 3-400 bucks. idont know what the markup is, bu the implication is that a laptop costs ~ 200 dollars to make, with ms os
so if some moderately wealthy person in india or korea or whatever actually gave a flying f*ck about anyone in the thrid world, they could order a years run of last years hardware, and ship a million pc at probably way under 100 bucks

and we all know about new non standard stuff: it never works
why shd the cm1 be anydifferent ?

there is somehting really obscene about one of the most arrogant and well funded institutions in the world - the mit media lab - telling the 3rd world what it needs.

ps if you really want rugged and low maintenance, there are these things called books; don't require any electricity , you can fix them if they break, they last a logn time and they are really cheap.

How many books do you think you could mass produce on acid free paper for 100 dollars $ a few thousand pages - a few 10s of thousands of pages.

I could go on, but i think the enthusiasm for this project is a sign of sickness, that what is good for me is, in a watered down, untested form, good for someone else

Re:once again, stupid mit hype

[gritak]

I don't know how many books you can print for US$100, but I am sure the number is no where close to 19,000 (the number of books on Project Gutenberg's website so far). You certainly cannot print the entire Wikipedia (1.3 million articles as at today). What I don't like is the fact that we cannot buy this laptop. They should release a commercial version we can buy online, same spec, higher price, but different casing (so kids don't sell their laptops, or have it get stolen and sold). Why? Cause if nobody but 7 year old kids gets one of these, who's going to write free software for these things? A computer is only as good as the software it runs. If in the first two years of it's release, 100% of the owners are 7 and 8 year olds, the production of software is going to be severely limited. I'd buy one immediately. It's definitely more powerful than the Dell Axim I just bought for about US$350. Millions of people will buy one immediately.

Re:once again, stupid mit hype

[cinnamon colbert]

yeah but..u don't need electricity or parts or repairs or anything to read and reread and trade and go to the libary wiht books...
i wd also be interested in yr response to my 1st point, which is that if u cna buy a laptop at yr favorite retailer for 400, somoen could, with ease, put together a 100 dollar laptop runnign a std os
this mit thing is just some sort of hype bullshit,

Re:once again, stupid mit hype

[gritak]

The 3rd world countries buying these laptops are not exactly dirt poor. China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria, Thailand, while not as rich as the developed world, do have significant resources. It is not like children in these countries are having to do without textbooks because the money have been wasted on these laptops. The choice is not between whether the children should have books OR computers. They already have books. The choice is between books + even more books vs books + computers. I suspect it isn't even that. The money for these notebooks are not going to be coming out of the the budget to buy school books for the poor children. The education departments will ask for, and get additional money to buy these notebooks.

Now, if some rich guy from the 3rd world were to ask his own government for US$200 million, everybody will be crying foul, corruption, waste, etc. But if a white guy from MIT (a prestigious educational institution, not a greedy capitalist corporation), were to do the same, he will be treated differently. It's how the world is. The education secretary in India, who said "We need classrooms and teachers more urgently than fancy tools" will find out that he will end up with no laptops, and no additional money for classrooms and teachers. The money would have misteriously dried up.

I live in Malaysia. Not one of the countries in the initial round of negotiation. But it is right next door to Thailand, and economically, about the same level. We have here a school book loan scheme. Poor children gets their school books for free. On loan. At the end of the year, you return the text books, and the next year, it's given to the next batch of kids. The books probably last about 5 to 10 years. They're pretty worn down by the 3rd year. I know cause I got free books till I was 12. Then they tightened the rules a bit, and I was disqualified. My parents weren't rich, but we weren't poor either.

Let me put it another way. How many computers do you have. How productive will you be if, in a freak storm, an electrical surge come down the wire frying all your computers, and you had to do all your work without a computer for an entire month? I know I would be almost entirely useless. My boss might as well send me home until the new computers came. I don't have children yet, but if your kids ask you for a computer to help with their studies, would you tell them no, I'd much rather you spend the money buying more books.

It would be better if the laptops could eventually replace textbooks. Most children remain in school for about 12 years. The cost of providing textbooks might be comparable to the laptops. With the laptops, the kids could get an unlimited number of the latest textbooks in electronic form for free. While books are cheap to print, they cannot be updated. Either your throw them away and print new books, or condemn your kids to study with 10 year old textbooks. That might be OK 30 years ago, but science and technology progress much too fast these days.

Linux to a retailer near you

[Eric Pierce]

I could see this finally bringing a Linux computer into the major computer retail outlets.

What an excellent beginning computer this would make for any child even at double the price! If the OLPC gets the attention of the larger media outlets (I don't see why it wouldn't), this could really push demand for this little laptop, and hopefully we'll see them lining the shelves.

My 2 bits.
EP

Stop this ignoramist culture of mediocrity

[asuffield]

Who cares if there is some waste / inefficiency / lack of elegance in the program

That is exactly the culture of mediocrity that people are complaining about. The very fact that you think this is okay is a damning indictment of your society. That "eh, it doesn't matter if we don't the best we can, so long as we do something" attitude lies behind just about every stupid thing you hear about these days.

Wow...

[Upaut]

The sugar interface is sweet (sorry).

I hope that this project will eventually rolls their own distro, as this might be a great improvement for childrens computers in general. Imagine a distro that parents can install on a cheap computer for a home-schooled child. With access to other children, classes, and other features: home-schooled children might be able to develop more social connections, and have a better education in general. Or even elementary school children, learning to use a computer and how to use them to interact.

I am fine with this project not releasing laptops to American children, but I hope to see other aspects of their work trickling down into the school systems.

My guess is...

[Arceliar]

It'll probably go down to $100 or less to produce again, given time. Flash storage gets cheaper and cheaper by the minute it seems, once the custom LCD's are produced I'm sure they'll find a way to start cutting costs, and the processor upgrade isn't going to be that big of a deal cost wise if you ask me. I personally don't think the camera is needed, especially on a machine with such a slow processor and such little storage, but I'm sure they've got a good reason for it..despite the fact that it seems like virtually nobody here has thought of one.

And as most people seem to be ignoring, except for the one or two others who have mentioned this, AFAIK the LCD screen runs at such a high resolution when it it's monochrome book-mode. When in color, it'll (supposidly) have 1/4 the pixels due to the way they've designed the screen.

It'll be a while I'm sure, and I realize they'll probably still sell them $100 like originally planned, but until that time a 40%+ net loss is going to hurt bigtime if they want the project to succeed.

I know this has been said many times, but they really should start considering selling these to the average consumer at a marked up price, simply to reduce their losses on the other ones. Or, as much as I'd hate to start fragmenting the design, sell more than one version. Frankly, as long as they kept the new screen and possibly the headphone/mic jacks, the new version does nothing that the old one couldnt have with a USB hub and a couple external devices (since it only had 1 USB port to my understanding). I honestly see no reason for increasing the cost to produce by I believe an expected 38% just to add a few rarely-used features that'll mostly just suck more power from the battery.

When all is said and done though, regardless of how they design the hardware, they'll almost certainly have to make their own custom version of the distro tailored to the little things just to make them run at a decent speed, but if done correctly it could probably out perform many windows machines, or anything for that matter running a OS and software with generic or no optimization. My first linux experience was, as a junior high student, putting slackware (which turned out to be easy despite my 0 *nix knowledge at the time) on a 333mhz, 64mb ram, 7G hd Compaq machine, and I was startled by the performance increase, even when running KDE, as compaired to windows. Anyone who thinks these things will run slow because of their processor speed or lack of ram, is wrong. If they run slow, it's due to inefficient code or poor optimization. As mentioned by others, the C64 was extermely popular, and MANY times weaker in processing power, memory, etc. but that didn't matter because it ran good code.

Nothing could change the OS market faster than raising millions of children on linux.

I wish it were about education....

[Teancum]

... but it isn't at all.

This is about academic tenure and people with PhDs who are thumping their chest to pretend that they are oh so much more important than the rest of humanity that they have a secret which they can barely keep from telling others about.

If this were something serious about trying to make a very inexpensive portable computer, it would have been developed, tested, and released with millions of them flooding Wal-mart and IKEA stores around the world, and /. geeks (or similar groups of individuals) being given the first crack to purchase them to help write the software.

While there are some legitimate efforts that are going into the OLPC of altruistic individuals, the main organizing people are trying oh so hard to keep from offending the major computer manufacturing companies and getting sweet deals on computer equipment that they simply miss basic economics. And why this is such a farce of a concept that I am offended that they call themselves to be citizens of the same country I live in.

I will also agree that the condescending attitude toward particularly African nations and others of the developing industrial world is particularly offensive to me... and I'm not even living in those countries. It should also speak volumes that the first major government to "sponsor" this project was.... Massachusetts. Clearly a significant 3rd world country.

after a few months

[john_uy]

add $40 more so we can get a super duper resolution of 1680x1050 and cd-writer

after a few months...

add $40 more so we can upgrade to dvd writer functionality, a built in cf/sd/mmc/etc slot, and some speed bump in the processor

after a few months...

add $40 more so we can upgrade to blu-ray/hd-dvd drives, add wimax card builtin

after a few months...

add $40 more so we can upgrade to 802.11n, and speed up the processor

after a few months...

add $40 more for a directx10 video card with 256mb ram and hdmi video output with increase in resolution of monitor

after a few months...

add $40 to increase memory and storage capacity

well i am not against the concept. it is a good objective. but i would rather see it get lower. i'd rather have the headline, "peoples' laptop now $40 cheaper!" or "new features added for free." i wouldn't want it to keep on increasing to a point it is the same as with any manufactured laptop out there. the price has increased by 40%. it's either the government/organizations subsidizing will get less laptop and less beneficiaries or they will increase the budget (which is highly unlikely.)

Didn't anyone read Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age?!

[rwa2]

This isn't about better education. Technology isn't about education. We're throwing a whole bunch of raw tools into a developing nation and stepping back to see what happens.

Which has precious little to do with the plot of the Diamond Age, but still, it makes you think.

I think this experiment is worthwhile just to observe how people adapt and react... Even if it's a complete failure in some way, it will be an interesting failure.

* Will they form a hive mind and advance technologically as a society?

* How will they change culturally? Will they become more global, or shed their own culture, or celebrate their own culture more?

* Will they just come to resent technology and lash back?