Slashdot Mirror
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."
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?
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.
"Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey?"- Peter Gabriel
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?
We live, as we dream -- alone....
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!"
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.
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.
"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.
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
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.
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
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.
My other car is first.
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.
CRM 114 instead
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
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.
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
. . .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
> 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.
"All hands, BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
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.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
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.
A-Bomb
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.
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.
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:
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
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
"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
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.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
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.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
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.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
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.