Slashdot Mirror
OLPC Project Interface Revealed
BogusToo writes to mention an EE Times article describing the interface for the OLPC project laptop. Using some fairly intuitive UI concepts (like simplified web browsers and a chat client), the Linux-based system attempts to do away with the kludgey parts of computer use. A video demo of the interface has been placed on YouTube. From the article: "Earlier postings around the Internet have also shown how the physical design of the laptop has changed, including the elimination of the much touted on-board hand crank that was supposed to power the cheap, lime green laptop. It's still there, reportedly, but has now been moved to the power adapter. The OLPC's produced earlier this week in Shanghai still need to go through loads of testing, such as knocking them off desks and dropping them in mud, as kids are wont to do. They may also be kicked around, like soccer balls, a popular sport in 99.9 percent of the world."
From TFV:
"Note that there is no url bar" (in the browser)
I really hope there's more to it than that. I mean, I realize that google isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but having any single search engine be the mandatory primary interface for the web, to the exclusion of even being able to type in urls directly seems insane to me.
<marge>Hrmmm....</marge>
My problem with the OLPC is related to the whole low power/low spec business. I keep hearing about how important it is to save memory, CPU and power on the machine. And yet... the GTK widget set that it uses has gotten slower and slower with every release since GTK 2.6.
The GTK developers simply have no idea what they are doing. They ditched all the old X code and moved to Cairo which massively increased the RAM and CPU requirements for GTK apps... particularly hurting phone/PDA users like Nokia google for it... it's all there on the web). On top of the Cairo problems, they also made changes that sabotaged the performance of the various widgets. Basically, every version of GTK past 2.6 has been a fucking performance trainwreck, and the developers responsible (people like Owen Taylor) have just snuck off quietly and not taken responsiblity.
I remember the GNOME mailing list discussions about adopting the then forthcoming GTK 2.8 -- adopting it meant taking a risk on GTK getting it RIGHT since they would be reliant on untested code. Lots of credulous developers said that they should adopt it because they had faith in the GTK developers not screwing them over. Mugs.
Half a dozen versions later, and GTK still sucks fucking balls... and what's more, the OLPC suffers from it even worse because it is a low-performance system. Essentially... it runs like shit because of the GTK developers never having heard of stuff like optimization and benchmarking.
I agree, I hope they can stand the rough climates of some of the third world countires... for example Chiapas climate (in Mexico) can be really hard for electronics (humidity and rain) and if this is going to kids who have never owned a high tech portable equipment they must be quite durable.
One thing I was wondering while watching the video is that it seems there is no way to open a terminal. I agree that the interface MUST be dumbed down a lot but I am also completely sure that there MUST be a terminal in order to access more "complex" things in the computer. I know (from personal experience) that the kids are the first ones to learn the new technologies and exploit them. If you are going to give them this computer, then lets make them able to get the most out of it.
A terminal and a python enabled system would be enough (IMHO).
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
It takes a world full of nerds and geeks to come up with a project like this where a big bunch of the planet still has NO electricity and NO running water, not to mention little food and illiteracy on a large scale.
While you are correct in part also consider the old saying: give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and he will feed himself for the rest of his life.
If people are dying in a village because they have no food they need food first but after that what? Do you expected a never ending trail of planes dropping food forever? The unit could be used to help educate the village into doing what's right for themselves. By teaching better practices to the ignorant we can hope that they become self sufficient. Education is the foundation of a solid society.
It's not like they're shipping these things out with Counter Strike installed. These machines could become a keystone in fighting bullshit like illiteracy. They can learn the dangers of certain water sources and make better decisions on what crops grow best under conditions that these people can directly interact with.
A lot of the third world's problems would become vapor with a bit of the education that you and I take for granted.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Why is the GUI non-standard?
Because all the existing GUIs in the world today --- including System 6 --- are overweight, overcomplicated, way more powerful than are needed, fiddly, baroque, inconsistent, difficult to use, difficult to learn, and in fact are downright scary to people who aren't accustomed to computers.
KDE, Gnome, Windows, OSX, etc are all completely inappropriate for a machine of this nature.
(In fact, I still think they have a lot of work to do. The relationship between activities isn't particularly clear. Some applications, such as the word processor, still use popup menus, which is very bad. Etoys --- that's Squeak, isn't it? --- is visually inconsistent with the rest of the system. But at least they're heading in the right direction.)
Speaking of which, the word processor is using a picture of a floppy disc to represent saving a file. Since a)The OLPC doesnt have a floppy disc and b)The target users may never have seen a floppy disc, they may need a new icon...