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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."
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.
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?
> 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.
"All hands, BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
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.
. . . 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
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.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
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.
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
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?
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
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.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
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.
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
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.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
. . .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
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.
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.
Warhammer forums
"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.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
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.
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums