OLPC Available to the Public Early 2008

Zoxed writes "The BBC is reporting that the OLPC will be available to the public early next year on a buy-2-get-1 basis through eBay. With its cheap price, fully open spec. and full/open hardware support for Linux, expandability, 2W rating and LinuxBIOS booting it sounds like an embedded-Linux hackers favorite new toy."

Comments

OLPC?

[User 956]

The BBC is reporting that the OLPC will be available to the public early next year on a buy-2-get-1 basis through eBay ... it sounds like an embedded-Linux hackers favorite new toy.

Between the Gates foundation, guys like mark cuban, the google billionaires, and this type of thing, I love how philanthropy in this millennium is poised to be dominated by nerds.

Re:OLPC?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't. I'd rather philanthropy be dominated by professionals who understand how to fix the problems, or even what those problems are to begin with. OLPC is questionable here, where things like clean water and vaccines can often provide a much bigger bang for buck. Providing jars of peanut butter can do more to raise IQ than giving every child in the world a laptop. Ironically enough, this is one of the areas where Bill Gates actually has it right.

The OLPC project is still a great idea; nobody said philanthropy has to be all about fulfilling basic human needs like water and shelter. I'm not one of those guys who says we have to solve world hunger first zomg. But I'd hate to see philanthropy become dominated by the pet projects of nerds; pet projects of even smart computer industry geeks are still pet projects, and generally have little correlation with what's needed in reality. It's their money, but it's still a kind of benevolent despotism, where the lower classes are showered with money from the wealthy. Many times, charitable giving is focused on what the donor wants to give, not what the beneficiaries actually want.

To counter that, there should be a diversity of giving. It takes all kinds, from experts in sanitation to experts in economics. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded last year to an economist who invented microcredit finance. Who woulda thunk it? We don't need philanthropy dominated by any one mindset, even if it's geeks. Rich geeks today are just the robber barons of the 20th century, and now they're doing the same thing those 19th century robber barons did, giving away their money to make themselves feel better.

Re:OLPC?

[drinkypoo]

OLPC is questionable here, where things like clean water and vaccines can often provide a much bigger bang for buck.

Absolutely not. Now, giving water treatment facilities and facilities to produce vaccines, THAT is helpful. But simply giving the people the things makes them dependent on you, which is what a lot of these organizations really want. "We want to save you - and only we know how!"

Re:OLPC?

[jabuzz]

There are billions of people outside the indusrialised western world who have all their basic needs (shelter, water and food) satisfied that are looking to move to the next level. This is for these people. When did you last hear of starving children in Lybia for example?

Yes if you are have more basic needs it won't help, but not everyone in Africa is starving in a mud hut.

Re:OLPC?

[onion2k]

Yet another person who doesn't get it. Let me explain for the hard of thinking:

OLPC laptops are for children in developing and developed countries whose governments are interested in moving their education system forward. They are not, and never have been, something that a government should spend money on if there are higher priority needs such as sanitation, food, shelter or an energy network. They are targetted very specifically at countries who have a working sanitation and drinking water system, who have a viable food market, who have a working power infrastructure. Don't be thinking that the countries who are signing up to this are populated by starving Africans who have no electricity and drink from a muddy river. That is not the case. Most of the countries who have joined in are actually not in Africa, and all of them have the necessary basics in place already. Hell, one of the countries on board is the USA (well, a state in the USA, but hey..).

The OLPC project seeks to improve the IT education of children in countries who are providing the basics but cannot (or will not) afford IT equipment. That is a problem, and it's one that is being solved in an innovative and exciting way. There really isn't any downside.

If you feel your money will work better donated to a different cause then spend it elsewhere. You have that choice. I'm glad you're thinking of others. That's more than a lot of people manage. Personally, I'll buy a couple of these computers if it means a couple of kids in Tunisia get a chance to hack some Python. Who knows, they might be the ones who create 2020's version of Google.

Re:OLPC?

[bdonalds]

When did you last hear of starving children in Lybia for example?

True...actually, I have never heard of Lybia at all! :)

Re:OLPC?

[ajs318]

If you give people clean water and vaccines, then they become dependent on you.

If you give people the technology to purify their own water and manufacture their own vaccines, then they are no longer dependent on you.

Now, it's an improbably large leap from giving kids to computers to expecting them to become white-coated boffins who are going to save the world, and I would certainly expect anyone who made such a statement to back it up with a long argument. But something good is bound to happen as a result of this. Give the right creative materials to enough kids, and some of them will come up with something amazing. Bear in mind also that while we might consider it primitive by the standards we've come to expect of a computer, a lot of these kids literally won't have seen anything like it before. It's a real hands-on learning tool. The main storage is a bit on the meagre side, but it ought to hold enough reading matter to last between opportunities to download some more. It's programmable in Python, which isn't exactly the hardest language in the world; and it's got a sensor input which allows for all sorts of experiments. I'm not suggesting that it's the first easily-programmed computer with the ability to attach weird and wonderful things to it; the BBC Model B had a nice fast structured BASIC and even more versatile user I/O, but you were lucky to have one beeb per classroom.

With this thing, there's bound to be some kid smart enough to figure out something amazingly useful to do with it and who isn't put off by the thought that this computer is a bit limited. They probably won't invent a cheap, pocket-sized device that supplies unlimited free energy, purifies raw sewage into drinkable water and turns deserts into fertile fields; at least, not straight away. But what I can see happening is clean, safe, modern factories being built to churn these things out in the numbers in which they will be needed, where they are needed, and revitalising economies by creating good jobs. And I can see small but significant improvements to things like crop yields and medical treatment in less built-up areas, thanks just to better communication and information-sharing abilities. How much food is lost because a crop starts to bolt, and nobody else finds out in enough time to get theirs safely gathered in? Or how often do people harvest needlessly early, for fear that that will happen? How many lives could be saved by early intervention, if people only knew a bit of basic first aid and could recognise the symptoms of easily-cured diseases? How much other damage is being done by superstitions clung to out of ignorance? I honestly don't know. But when you've got whole maths classes analysing local data, and readily-available newspapers and textbooks on all subjects, this sort of thing really can't not happen.

And these kids are never going to know anything other than the Open Source way of doing things. They won't have preconceived ideas about sharing vs. stealing. That ought to put the frighteners on the Closed Source software vendors.

Re:OLPC?

[Miniluv]

The reason many of the projects that tried to dominate the people to lift them out of squalor failed for exactly that reason. It just isn't possible for a company in Canada to understand the water economics of indigenous villages in South America, and you end up with policies that make drinking the water out of a bucket in the backyard illegal unless you pay them for it. The good thing though is that they did fail.

The reason its so exciting to see philanthropy dominated by folks like Bill Gates or Mark Shuttleworth is that they're smart enough to know they don't know everything. They go out and hire the top percentage of specialists for the problem they want solved and they ruthlessly weed out the failed ideas as soon as failure is obvious.

Its not their tech savvy thats exciting, its their business savvy and the fact that it is obviously working better than what we had. Witness Warren Buffett, arguably the best investor of his generation, plowing all of his money into the Gates Foundation.

Further, witness the really fundamental change from the status quo of them stating that by a given moment in time all of their money will be gone. Recognizing that they are about solving specific problems and that when those problems are gone so should the money be.

Re:OLPC?

[Brett Buck]

Of course it's anybody's opinion whether giving kids laptops is "moving their education system forward". I think it's moving the system backwards, drastically, to introduce items like computers. If I had kids I wouldn't ALLOW them to work computers until they had a good grounding in more important topics. Excsssive reliance on computer technology is actually one of my pet peeves in education and a lot of other areas. And I am in a technology-related industry. Heck, if/when I become the boss of my engineering group, I have threatened to make every Friday "slide rule and graph paper" day and I am only about half-kidding.

      Brett

Re:OLPC?

[An Onerous Coward]

I disagree with your armchair psychoanalyzing. If you're a nonprofit with a small budget, you might have the money and manpower to distribute a million doses of a critical vaccine. But if you tried to spend that same budget on a truly self-sufficient vaccine producing facility, you'd be broke before you spent even a few percent of the money necessary. It requires building the factory, educating the people who run it, buying the ingredients, etc.

Now, a water treatment facility would be a different story, since trucking in water for the indefinite future would be the bigger undertaking. But nobody is actually talking about doing that. "Providing clean water" isn't meant to be taken literally; rather, it's a shorthand for providing water purification/filtration systems of various scales.

Re:OLPC?

[Dutchmang]

See this is where I disagree. There are lots of good things you could do, and one does not preclude another. Books and libraries, for example, are terrific. But giving kids access to technology makes them think in a technological way. Since technology is a key tool to raising productivity, and a technology-savvy workforce is needed to exploit (not just tolerate) the tools, putting these things into kids' hands is all goodness. Education is good no matter how you view it.

Also, this particular tool is an opportunity for kids to see what exists beyond their immediate social situation. Don't discount the power of your frame of reference to drag you down or lift you up. As someone raised dirt poor (yes in America -- Massachusetts even), it wasn't until I managed to get into college that my horizons expanded -- through peers, primarily -- to places that included stability, productivity, self-reliance etc. You're essentially giving these kids a window into a different world. Some will take advantage of it and some won't... but there'll be more than you would've had otherwise. You need people like that to raise a society's standards.

Re:OLPC?

[kraut]

>Absolutely not. Now, giving water treatment facilities and facilities to produce vaccines,
I don't think any aid agencies actually send tankers of water to Africa.

Vaccines are a slightlydifferent problem; there's only a handful of companies in the world that produce them, and it really doesn't make sense to create them locally. Even most western countries import their vaccines.

> But simply giving the people the things makes them dependent on you,
Often a fair point; not the case with vaccines.

> which is what a lot of these organizations really want
Somehow I doubt that.

Re:OLPC?

[jaseuk]

You would think, but check out this rather bizarre "organisation": www.jase.com.

Jason. (Nothing to do with me btw.)

Re:OLPC?

[Eternauta3k]

Books and libraries, for example, are terrific.

Wouldn't it be great for some simple, easy-to-replicate book press design for countries where kids can't get books? Might make it cheaper for them.

Re:OLPC?

[slocan]

Rich geeks today are just the robber barons of the 20th century, and now they're doing the same thing those 19th century robber barons did, giving away their money to make themselves feel better.

And sometimes not even to feel better, but only to look better to the eyes of future and old consumers.

But the question that should be asked, once one agrees with your post (I do), is why "philanthropy is becoming dominated by" "geeks". It isn't a castle, meaning that only one can be king. Are "geeks" doing so much more than others? Or others lacking in doing something? I don't know. But couldn't but think that philanthropy cannot be dominated, unless by the negligence of others, since it isn't a prize to be seized and taken out of reach.

As to giving what people want or need, as opposed to giving what is convenient to the "giver", that would take some public spirit, meaning being motivated by public interest (not a simple concept), instead of self-centered interest (either (a) self-interest such as giving the products of one's corporation to create demand or brand loyalty, or (b) self-mindedness, giving what one perceives as being needed in a somewhat pretentious way).

Public interest should be the only motivation of governments. But I do not think that private endeavors (of any kind or scale) should be totally deprived of a public spirit, in the same way common persons should have a genuine interest in the wellbeing and sustainability of their surroundings and the surrounding people (be that their parents, neighbors, coworkers, strangers, servants, waiters, etc).

Some would then say that organizations have no will, or that they have a specific purpose (as rewarding monetarily their investors). I would say that organizations do not exist without people, and these should imbue the organizations they create and maintain with a public spirit too. This responsibility cannot be limited or simply waived by any signed law. And I do think that this spirit applies to any relation.

Nevertheless, some will insist in disagreeing motivated by their egoism, and support the theory that can give them some false peace of mind. And some will disagree for other reasons (non-egoistic reasons).

If the public spirit were pervasive in all people, organizations (the people who own and run them) and governments, I can but only imagine that their would be less poverty, famine, disease, unemployment, wars, sadness etc, and more beauty, cooperation, prosperity (in its deepest sense), health and happiness.

These are only the opinion of a mere human being. Not much.

Re:OLPC?

[Anonymous Coward]

To add to your point, the BBC had a news item on Monday about the massive impact mobile phones are having at all levels of society in Keyna. Watch it here.

Re:OLPC?

[Anonymous Coward]

OLPC is a very limited form of philanthropy. All the actual hardware is being paid for by the governments, and this amount dwarfs the cost of the rest of the work, which I'd guess is paid for by educational research grants and donated corporate/personal time. Not to knock the scope or goals of the project, but it's hard to call it philanthropy when the recipient is paying for most of it.

Re:OLPC?

[An Onerous Coward]

Weird. Bottled water is great for emergency relief efforts, but they seem to want to use it as a long-term solution. I can't see the point.

Good present for grandparents as well?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Hmm- anybody know if the cutdown version will still run OpenOffice? If so, it'd make a damn good present for the retired person as well- a machine that will do e-mail, basic word processing, and web surfing, all in a handy little package that includes three USB ports and an SD slot.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[timeOday]

Interesting idea, though it is rather Fisher-Price in appearance.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[massysett]

OO? Oh God no, that thing takes forever to load even on an AMD 64 X2. Hopefully Abiword and Gnumeric will work on it though. I use Vim Outliner to take notes at meetings, and a OLPC would be ideal for that.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[nuzak]

It's designed to look that way to cut down on black market reselling -- not all possible cases, but those where where the product was diverted from its intended purpose. Basically if a bunch of OLPC's "fall off the truck" on the way to the schools, it's easier to go looking for lime green laptops.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

That would be sufficient to suffice, I should think.

After all, they're not looking to do presentations or calculate multi-column spreadsheets. The retired set is looking to put out Christmas letters and keep track of their investments, at worst.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[DrWho520]

I have read in the past that the "Fisher-Price" appearance makes them easy to identify so that if a load are stolen by "bad guys," the "good guys" can tell.
It also attaches the stigma of stealing from a child to whoever did so.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[Tom in Boston]

Grandparents / hacker dude / Mitt Romney - it's not for you!

I'm surprised if the OLPC project is really doing this.

The project's goal, as I heard Nicholas explain it, is for governments to buy these computers on a LARGE scale, so the funding is not an issue. After his speech at LinuxWorld Boston, someone proposed a similar "let me buy one for $200" idea. Negroponte said that it's great that you want to help, and the best way you could do that would be to do something similar in your own neighborhood. Buy a cheap laptop from Ebay and give it to a local needy student. Negroponte and his wife had been buying used laptops for years and bringing them to a needy village school (in Africa, I think?) where they were used in education.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm.....

You want to steal from a child today - you steal 4 Gig of Ram, a dual core processor, a $250 iPod and a couple of ounces of crack.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[vhogemann]

I guess you would be able to cram OpenOffice into it somehow... but the current version uses Abiword.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[jabuzz]

Because lots of people in the first world do actually want one (myself included). If you don't satisfy that demand then free market 101 tells you that a grey/black market in them will spring up to satisfy that demand. The people running the project don't want that to happen so they are attempting to satisfy the demand themselves.

From a personally perspective I would love to get my hands on one for my four year old neice. She is fasinated by computers and to give her, her very own personal one (preferably in pink) designed around her needs would make a fantastic educational present.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Having said that- I actually disagree with the OLPC folks on this one. Their design is *VERY* close to *EXACTLY* the type of computer I've been wanting for elderly customers for 20 years now. ROM-based Operating System. User Independant, with solid-state removable media for storage. Easy connectivity. Art-based rather than business-based software built in. Ruggedized enough to survive reasonable usage.

Your average $50 laptop off of EBay doesn't fit the bill. But a $300 OLPC, that ALSO gives to a charity, very nearly does. The three things I see as missing are dialup access, a word processor, and printers drivers.

In fact, the next closest I've found to this that fits the bill would be a $1600 Windows Mobile device, or maybe an older CE 2.0 version of the same thing- not something you're going to buy for a retired person, and STILL you have the printer driver problem.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[megabyte405]

A specialized version of AbiWord is in production right now for use on the OLPC, and we are a part of the standard test image - the writing activity.

-- Ryan, AbiWord Dev, Win32 Maintainer, and Art Lead

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I looked up Abiword- and I think that's good enough. I'm DEFINATELY thinking about this as my mother's next machine.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[Flamefly]

Abiword is already running on it, albeit with a simplified interface. You can download the image for the OLPC OS and give it a go, it's very easy to do. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar_Instructions#Insta lling

I actually find the interface a little non-intuitive for the beginning user, which I find at odds with it's goals. The documentation itself states

Before you launch the emulated image, we strongly recommend reading through the Sugar Instructions on how to use the environment -- this does not look like the Windows or Mac operating systems!

Essentially you start with a blank screen, to launch a program you move the mouse to edge of the screen which brings up the program bar. It seems to me it would have made a little more sense for the program bar to be active by default (at least when no programs are currently active). Or at least a little "Start here arrow" for the first few boots."

While I'm being critical, I'd also change the Abiword icon to look more relevant to a pen and paper activity (It's currently the AbiWord logo), and rejig the web icon to be a bit of a more obvious globe.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[CastrTroy]

But now that you can buy them, how will they track down the people who got them from the blackmarket?

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[ACMENEWSLLC]

This project will be surpassed by cell phones.

My cell phone is $150 at t-Mobile with a 2 yr contract, or $200 with a 1 year. On e-bay, unlocked, it is $165.

It runs Windows Mobile 5.0, has WIFI, uses very little power thus could be charged off cheap solar power. It has 200MHz processor at over 2GB of disk space, 64MB RAM.

I have Opera, Skype, VNC, and other applications on it. For $20 I have added 2GB of disk space from the base 64. It has bluetooth and I can hook a bluetooth mouse/keyboard to it.

Sure, this ain't no laptop. It's "not there" yet. However, a friend has Mobile 5.0 release 2 and has Terminal Services client and office viewers. We are close.

The new iPhone runs OSx. Some new cell phones are on UMPC platform and run Windows XP tablet edition, starting at around $900 up to $2000.

I venture to say that in 5 years, our cell phones will do everything an office PC does. As long as you are not a gamer cad cam or video guy, you could do all your work off your cell phone. Having a docking station at home/work.

Given the mass market of cell phones, and the willingness of people to fork over cash for them, I'd say we will get a device that can do all the basic computer functions soon. And through the second hand market we could provide these to 3rd world countries at about the same price.

I may be wrong, but I don't think so :)

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[drinkypoo]

The project's goal, as I heard Nicholas explain it, is for governments to buy these computers on a LARGE scale, so the funding is not an issue.

These will be great for kids in any developing country, but they will only be provided by governments in SOME countries. The money derived from public sales could be used to give away laptops in other needy countries. It could also, of course, be used to pay salaries. It will also provide a network of beta testers who speak fluent English, which will provide error information in a language understood by more of the OLPC developers.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[drinkypoo]

But now that you can buy them, how will they track down the people who got them from the blackmarket?

I'd guess they'll recolor them.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I tend to agree, except for one small problem- the lack of a fullsize keyboard and screen. While this is a good platform (notice in another reply I mentioned Windows Mobile "sublaptops"), the lack of a fullsize screen is a huge detriment, especially to eyes that need at least a 12pt onscreen font for reading. Likewise the lack of a full size keyboard makes it hard to type on.

But beyond that, you're quite correct- my T-Mobile MDA which I purchased when it was *much* more expensive ($495 with a 2-year contract) is exactly the type of platform I'd like to give to cutomers, except for the aforementioned problem of keyboard and screen (lack of USB type A host connector is also a problem, but I'm working on that one- Windows Mobile 5.0 supports USB OTG, and all that is required is a special cable with a separate power source).

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[Anonymous Coward]

While I'm being critical, I'd also change the Abiword icon to look more relevant to a pen and paper activity (It's currently the AbiWord logo), and rejig the web icon to be a bit of a more obvious globe.

Why is a globe an obvious logo for a web browser?

(remember, these are designed for technologically naive people)

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[larkost]

While it is long-since out of production (and more than a little dated now) the Apple eMate 300 just about describes what you wanted. It was a great piece of equipment for that type of use.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[chris_sawtell]

It might run OOo, I don't know. It might if it had more memory. Abi-Word is the word-processor offered as standard, but what I do know is that it is much smaller than a normal laptop. It has been specially designed for child-sized hands. An adult, particularly somebody who could touch-type, would find the tiny keyboad absolutely infuriating.

The other point is that without the wireless mesh, an access-point and an internet connected server on the other end of the radio link its functionality would be serverely compromised.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

At a similar time, I owned a Hitachi HPW10E4MB; it came pretty close as well and in fact I bought my brother a Casio Cassiopeia A-60 at the same time with thoughts in that direction. Unfortuneately, the HPC market soon died, replaced by PocketPCs for the most part. This is more what I had in mind, but it's cost is well outside the range anybody would expect.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[ajs318]

Why would you want dial-up access? The thing's got wireless built in, so it will work with an (external) wireless broadband router (and every OLPC is a router in its own right). If you really, really want dial-up, "modify" any wireless router with Flashable firmware and a serial console port so you can plug that into a dial-up modem and make it into a wireless dial-up router.

Or -- you could just stick pins in your eyes. This is the 21st Century! Dial-up belongs in the dustbin of history.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[DaveJay]

Here's how it's going to shake out:

The iPhone kicks off a whole series of portable computer phones, with faster speeds, more memory, and more storage. It becomes normal to use one with a bluetooth headset, because the touch screen gets covered in oil from your skin if you hold it up, and you'll probably be reading emails while talking with someone.

At some point, docks will come into existence, just like with laptops but with a twist: they contain video cards (to drive higher-resolution screens than the phone has) and a hard drive (for backing up the phone automatically whenever you plug it in, ideally encrypted.) People keep a docking station at home and another at work, each with a monitor, keyboard and mouse.

Then, thanks to advances in hard drive size (and the limited amount of data you need to back up from the phone) and the commoditization of video card hardware, the dock itself could be the size of a USB hub, and carried in your backpack for use wherever a keyboard, mouse and/or monitor can be found. At home you have a keyboard, mouse and monitor, at work the same thing, and the hub sits in your briefcast (ie you bring it to/from work, but not to the beach.)

So, now your phone is the computer. You get the full-size keyboard and screen when you're sitting down to do "real" work, a lightweight device when you're on the go, and disaster-recovery backup included as part of the package. Even if you drop your phone, you plug a new one into one of your docks, enter your (hopefully secure) password, and get a new copy of your phone. Someone who steals your hub can't get your data. Each family member has a phone, and syncs through the same hub, rather than having multiple users on a single computer. For kids, they sell a light version that doesn't do everything the big expensive one does, to keep costs from getting out of control.

Yeah, hook me up.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Not every place (especially in the third world) has broadband available. But many places have phone lines now.

Likewise, in the United States, it's about a $20/month difference between broadband and dialup. That might not mean much to you, but it means a hell of a lot to somebody on a fixed income who has no need for the extra bandwidth.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[Fred_A]

I concur.

As soon as someone makes a laptop sized cell phone, the OLPC will be made redundant. Until then, it has its place.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it might be a good idea if the for sale ones use red plastic. It would just be different dye pellets in the molding process. No tooling changes or anything.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[swv3752]

Uh, make that $10 difference between the cheapest dialup and the cheapest DSL. My DSL is $25 and I could get a version slower for $20. The cheapest I have seen dialup is $10. And AOL and Earthlink are about $20. While even $10 can me a lot on a fixed income, most likely most can swing it that would want a computer.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hugemongous areas of the US representing millions of people still have zero broadband outside of satellite. And I don't mean way the heck out in the boonies of alaska, I mean anyone past the two miles to the nearest telco switch box. Past that, SOL, you ain't getting it, and double forget any cable. And with no government mandate that they improve the copper (they are only mandated to be able to support a 19.2 connection on the copper if there is telco service at all), they aren't going to do it either.

Really, get OUT of the dang city once a decade or something and go LOOK at your nation. It's BIG and it isn't all the immediate close-in suburbs and large urban areas. Geographically speaking, the bulk of the nation is still *outside* of DSL availability areas. Dialup is still very important as the only access quite a few people can get, and you have to factor in the cost of telephone service on top of that, it comes bundled, there is no unbundled dial in access that I am aware of. So your dialup net connection is going to run you more than $50 a month, most places closer to 60 all things considered, then either get raped on long distance (which is about anyplace once you are stuck with that sort of government 'deal" with the telcos, or have to pop for cell phone service on top of the other. And again, you aren't getting any high speed data plans like EVDO or anything out in the rural areas.

Anyway, don't just assume everyone has access to some unbundled 20 a month DSL, with maybe three or four providers to choose from, that is pure urban centric fantasy land.

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[Drgnkght]

It might have something to do with the "world-wide" bit. ...

If someone knows what a web browser is, it is likely that they will also know what the "World Wide Web" is. (Emphasis on the "World Wide" part.) In fact I'd say it would be highly unlikely that anyone would get one of these without at least that being explained to them. Probably a "here's the basics, now have at it" sort of deal.

Besides can you think of a better one? Seriously, if you think a globe doesn't work as an appropriate icon then step up to the plate, what would you use? Why?

Re:Good present for grandparents as well?

[ACMENEWSLLC]

Dude, it's been done already. You can buy them now. They are just expensive.

http://umpc.com/default.aspx

UMPC doesn't by itself mean cellphone, but there are UMPC's with cellphones.

Unless you think a UMPC is too big to qualify your definition. It is a bit bigger than my candybar phone.

As for the keyboard/mouse -- bluetooth. I can already buy full size keyboard/mouse for my cell phone that work over bluetooth.

Will it be the _exact_ same laptop?

[ziggamon2.0]

Cause if it is the exact same, and they have now created a $200 value for the laptops, they can now easily be sold to collect the money, instead of the intended educational value...

Re:Will it be the _exact_ same laptop?

[Qzukk]

Cause if it is the exact same, and they have now created a $200 value for the laptops, they can now easily be sold to collect the money, instead of the intended educational value...

Yep. Exactly like how PBS telethons have encouraged the mugging of ladies carrying bags or men sipping coffee by setting the value of cloth bags and mugs at $120.

Re:Will it be the _exact_ same laptop?

[timeOday]

If PBS were the only source of coffee mugs and book bags, I guess you might have a point.

I think your parent has a point. At some point we're going to see these on ebay, and we'll think, gee, I hope this wasn't one of the ones Pakistan bought to give some kid a future. And you just know there will be a Terrorist captured with one at some point, and it'll be a big story. Any way you look at it, there will be some retrospection on whether the laptops ended up doing what they were "supposed" to do, and somebody will use the word "misguided" to describe the whole effort. I hope they're wrong.

Re:Will it be the _exact_ same laptop?

[Anonymous Coward]

you may have a point.

Re:Will it be the _exact_ same laptop?

[novus ordo]

OLPC is being exhibited at CES:

The One Laptop Per Child Project (OLPC) has whittled down the cost of the green and white computer they hope to deliver to school children in developing countries to about 100(euro) (US$130) so far, and hope to reach the target price of US$100 in 2008, a project leader said Monday.

Re:Will it be the _exact_ same laptop?

[CastrTroy]

But the demand would be there regardless. People want these laptops one way or the other, creating a white market way to get them will only further drive down the cost of the black market ones, if not wipe it out completely.

Re:Will it be the _exact_ same laptop?

[Moofie]

"at some point we're going to see these on ebay, and we'll think, gee, I hope this wasn't one of the ones Pakistan bought to give some kid a future."

Did you understand the part where that's the EXACT OPPOSITE of what will happen? If you buy a laptop from the project (which will apparently broker their sales through eBay), you get one laptop, and you fund one to go to a kid who needs one.

I'm trying really hard to find a problem here, and I can't do it.

Re:Will it be the _exact_ same laptop?

[kabocox]

At some point we're going to see these on ebay, and we'll think, gee, I hope this wasn't one of the ones Pakistan bought to give some kid a future. And you just know there will be a Terrorist captured with one at some point, and it'll be a big story.

I'd think that a terrorist could afford a $500-700 laptop from Walmart. If this 1 laptop for $100 ever pans out though, that could be 5-7 laptops for $500-$700. 30x100=$3,000. It would be much cheaper to provide "many" of these things. I would like to not hear about this again until after atleast one customer has paid their $100 million for their 1 million laptops. That'd I'd find news worthy, everything else about this has been like watching paint dry. After we can see the effects of rolling out one these, then we can complain or critize about it, but it seems everything has just been rehashed over and over on this one. You know what's really going to bite us on the butt? When any one of those countries improve their average educational level over the next 10-15 years by investing only $100-200 million for the hardware. Once you have your population trained/educated on these things, they'd all be in the mindset to maximize their use.

Re:Will it be the _exact_ same laptop?

[the Gray Mouser]

Yes, but what if I don't care about funding one for some kid somewhere.

Presented with a choice of paying $300 for a new one, or $200 (or less) for a new one off ebay, I'll go with the one off ebay.

Here's another consideration. The laptops will cost the physical distributors in these countries nothing. That's a pretty high incentive and opportunity for corruption if a market for these does develop.

And considering that Pakistan is one of the countries on the list, I don't think potential ties to terrorism is very far-fetched at all.

Re:Will it be the _exact_ same laptop?

[Moofie]

"Yes, but what if I don't care about funding one for some kid somewhere."

Then please feel free to go buy a different laptop. This is a charitable enterprise. If you do not wish to be charitable, don't participate.

Re:Will it be the _exact_ same laptop?

[liak12345]

And you just know there will be a Terrorist captured with one at some point, and it'll be a big story.

I see you've heard of my new One-Laptop-Per-Terrorist plan!

Re:Will it be the _exact_ same laptop?

[Fred_A]

OLPC is being exhibited at CES:

        The One Laptop Per Child Project (OLPC) has whittled down the cost of the green and white computer they hope to deliver to school children in developing countries to about 100(euro) (US$130) so far, and hope to reach the target price of US$100 in 2008, a project leader said Monday.

Uh, wait... 100 € now and they want to drop the price to $100 in 2008 ? At the current trend this means they're going to have to half the price in one year ? Is this realistic ?

Re:Will it be the _exact_ same laptop?

[xivulon]

I doubt. Most likely the laptops available to privates will be of a different color/shape and all the green laptops will be tagged. You can send a policeman around and if he sees a green laptop in a market, it means it has been stolen and he can use the tag to find the owner. If you see a green laptop on ebay, it means it has been stolen, and I doubt you will see green laptops on ebay because ebay is in an agreement with OLPC to distribute the laptops to private customers and will be quite aware of what colors/shapes are allowed and what are not.

Re:Will it be the _exact_ same laptop?

[JesseMcDonald]

You can send a policeman around and if he sees a green laptop in a market, it means it has been stolen and he can use the tag to find the owner.

You can't simply assume that such laptops have been stolen; what if their legitimate owner (the child) chose to sell it? OLPC has been adament that they wish for the laptops to be owned by those who will be using them, because that gives the children a permanent link to their laptop, plus a sense of responsibility for it often lacking for shared hardware (the "trajedy of the commons" issue). However, by the same token, if the child owns the laptop then the child (or the child's parents) can choose to sell it to anyone they wish, and they may indeed benefit from doing so in some cases (ex post facto, not just ex ante).

On the other hand, you're right that eBay has no obligation to let people list the OLPC laptops for auction on their site.

Re:Will it be the _exact_ same laptop?

[c_forq]

You missed the point that the kid may be able to sell it, and even if his family had to buy it they can sell it at a higher price due to the white market being twice the price. More realistically, if the kids father needs a little boost to make ends meet, or in the case of a bad father to pay the bar tab, it becomes fairly attractive to try to sell this tool instead of it being used for the intended purpose. The point is if you see one on ebay, you have no real way of knowing if it was bought off the white market or sold by someone who received one in a target country.

Is this a deal?

[kcbanner]

"Buy-2-get-1."

Does this mean you ay for 2 and get 1, or get an extra one free? Because I can see how this would work:

1. Sell OLPC on eBay, using strange wording to trick users.

2. ???

3. Profit?

-kcbanner

Re:Is this a deal?

[rhartness]

RTFA! It states that it's a buy-2, get-1, send-1-into-the-third-world policy.

Re:Is this a deal?

[CyberLord Seven]

FTFA:

The aim is to connect the buyer of the laptop with the child in the developing world who receives the machine.

"The will get the e-mail address of the kid in the developing world that they have, in effect, sponsored."

The only thing I'm worried about is some jackass phucking this up for everyone by trying to...well, you know where I'm going with this.

Still, this is a cool idea. I can buy two sets of these knowing that two kids somewhere in the world are going to have laptops, keep one for myself and give the other to one of my nieces or nephews, or just leave the spare around the house for fun when they come to visit.

Re:Is this a deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not a deal, it is a way to sponsor a child in a developing country. You pay for two, you get one, a child gets one.

Re:Is this a deal?

[Tim C]

Does this mean you ay for 2 and get 1

Yes. What else could it mean?

(You pay for two, receive one, the other goes to a needy kid. Easy.)

Better than a donation

[walterwalter]

Well this form of "donation" sounds better than the previously reported on where you did not get anything for your money. I would buy "one" of these. I wonder if there will be any form of choice as to which country gets your laptop.

Re:Better than a donation

[AoT]

I'd hope you'd have a choice of a country whose language you speak. Getting the email of a kid in China so I can not talk to him would be much less interesting for me than would being able to communicate with a kid who speaks Spanish or Arabic, languages I'd actually be able to email in.

Then you can buy it for $300

[Anonymous Coward]

think of the africans...

Re:Then you can buy it for $300

[WED Fan]

Judging from all the email I get asking me to help move millions of dollars out of Africa, I think Africans have enough computers. I think they need more financial advisors to help them move that money.

Re:Then you can buy it for $300

[Kjella]

Judging from all the email I get asking me to help move millions of dollars out of Africa, I think Africans have enough computers. I think they need more financial advisors to help them move that money.

Funny, I always took it as a sign it's the west who needs more financial advisors. Or maybe it's the lack of warning labels on money, it's a wonder noone has sued the government over it.

A donation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I assume that you get one and the other goes to someone for which it eventually was designed, i.e. a child in a third world country.
(OLPC = One laptop per child)

Re:A donation?

[TrashGUY]

This might be a hard concept for people. Wait im buying three but I only get one... I guess charity and good will is always overlooked.

Re:A donation?

[HeroreV]

1 + 1 != 3

The customer pays for 2 laptops. 1 laptop goes to the customer, and 1 laptop goes to a poor kid who will likely sell it for food.

Re:Buy 2, Get 1 -- what a deal !

[pembo13]

Slashdot needs a system to mod anonymous cowards out of sight

Re:A new hero for slashdot readers!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the slashdot right wing fascist scum! We need somebody too!

I will buy one

[Onyma]

What else could you ask for... a cool toy and the knowledge that some of your money went off and did some good elsewhere.

Re:I will buy one

[markbt73]

Me too... I've been looking for a cheap portable word processor, and my wife has been looking for a cheap eBook reader... two birds with one stone! Not to mention the warm fuzzies of doing a good deed.

What will be interesting is the reaction people have to using one in public... Sit at a coffee shop with one of these and be immediately recognized as a philanthropist.

I would buy one.

[BlahSnarto]

This would make the perfect remote admin tool

They should totally open the hardware to hacking
hell even encourage it. Maybe a power Adapter hack
incase you want to do something like coding.

i dont know, just throwing ideas out..

Re:I would buy one.

[spiritraveller]

The entire thing is already open source, all the way down to the BIOS.

That's more open than anything you'll find in an American store.

The hardware needs to be durable and sealed tight (to keep out dust), so I think encouraging hardware hacks may work against the goals of giving poor children a long-lasting device. But that's not to say you couldn't take a hacksaw to it and explore... no doubt, many people will do just that once it's put on the market..

Re:Buy 2, Get 1 -- what a deal !

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot needs a system to mod anonymous cowards out of sight

Nothing to see here. Move along.

Africa

[rhsanborn]

I'm kind of disappointed that it will go into 2008. I'm looking at going to Africa with the Peace Corps in January of '08 and a computer that could run independent of a power grid or exepnsive solar setup would have been great. Regardless, I think that even at 300 dollars its a bargain for people who are in situations where power is an issue, or, poor families in the states that don't have access to these kinds of resources.

Is it a good move?

[thePig]

I do understand that there a pretty lofty thoughts & minds behind this, but I do wonder whether this is a good move?
If the real world price of this laptop is $200 (it is what the buyer pays, regardless of the fact that one is going to 3rd world country), and it is being sold to people in 3rd world countries for $100, then wouldn't this cause _not_so_good_people_ to buy/steal from the poor people and sell it here?

Even if they are just selling it to the poor countries (and not giving it through ebay at all) , people being people, would buy it through ebay, even paying $150/200 since it is cheaper than what they can buy here.

I guess this $100 laptop should be given to the general public too, so that such injustice doesn't happen.

Re:Is it a good move?

[zesty42]

Not a bad question, but a couple thoughts:

I think the computer will only appeal to a small market in most countries because it won't sync with iPods (I'm serious). A few geeks and some people that want help other kids will buy them. Also, it would take a bit of effort to steal and ship these computers in a mass that would really be profitable. That may be one advantage of working with Ebay early on, they can help police for such activity and have a vested interest in doing so.

Re:Is it a good move?

[radarsat1]

If the real world price of this laptop is $200 (it is what the buyer pays, regardless of the fact that one is going to 3rd world country), and it is being sold to people in 3rd world countries for $100, then wouldn't this cause _not_so_good_people_ to buy/steal from the poor people and sell it here?

Isn't this a risk regardless?

Re:Is it a good move?

[vidarh]

At least part of the reason for the distinctive colour is to limit the appeal of resale by making it obvious that you're using a machine you shouldn't have in the first place. Presumably the for sale model will come in a different colour, so that people can trivially see if you're getting something taken of a kid.

Re:Is it a good move?

[thePig]

Yes. That is what I mentioned by the second point.
Unless the $100 laptops flood the market, in such a way that there is no buyers at all for the $100 laptop, stealing is a big risk.
Another factor to consider is that the people who steal wont be selling it in USA most probably.
For example the people who steal it in Nigeria would most probably sell it in Chad or Sudan. How they are going to stop this smuggling is beyond me.
I really do wonder whether this whole lofty idea might get washed by the flood of human grief and greed.

Re:cool

[ShieldW0lf]

Sounds like my 6 year old daughters next computer. As of now, the money to buy this is already set aside. Good job guys.

Couple Thoughts: Case Color and Good Idea..

[nweaver]

a: Its about time. Everyone has been clamoring for this, because there are some real interesting industrial & cool uses this could be used for. Between the daylight screen and highly rugged design, this has the potential to be very interesting. I'd be tempted to pick one up for $300 to play with myself...

b: You can stop the reselling problem (one worry is always that by selling them you'd create an adult market and therefore encourage theft) by a simple expedient: a different color case. Make purchased OLPCs black, and kid ones in cheerful old-school iMac colors, and now they are vastly different products from a retail viewpoint.

Re:Couple Thoughts: Case Color and Good Idea..

[SoCalChris]

I'd be tempted to pick one up for $300 to play with myself... Hey, you can play with yourself without a $300 laptop. Kids everywhere have been doing that for free, for thousands of years.

Re:Couple Thoughts: Case Color and Good Idea..

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I checked, you could play with yourself even without $300...

Re:Couple Thoughts: Case Color and Good Idea..

[Carnildo]

You can stop the reselling problem by a simple expedient: a different color case. Make purchased OLPCs black, and kid ones in cheerful old-school iMac colors, and now they are vastly different products from a retail viewpoint.

That would wreck part of the value from my perspective: nobody in their right mind would steal a laptop in bright Playskool colors.

Re:Couple Thoughts: Case Color and Good Idea..

[Anonymous Coward]

Self-entertainment without visual and aural aids is so early 90s.

Yeah, give them Sugar!

[bananaendian]

OLPC is not 'Linux hackers favorite toy' - It'll be running Sugar, a complete failure for a user interface, obviously designed by a committee of 'child experts'.

Just watch that google video. It's insulting to the intellegence of even the most stupid of children.

And do you really think these things are going to be 'given' to the children to 'play with' and learn as they would.. - oh no! They'll be carefully controlled, supervised and hamstered away at classrooms, where the kids will have to do exactly what the teacher wants them to do: "now, timmy, move the pointed to this icon and click it, then draw a circle... "

So much for the dream of creating a Linux generation - these kids will grow up to be another bunch of helpless cubicle retards at telemarketing caves...

Re:Yeah, give them Sugar!

[mungtor]

At least we'll recognize them by their high /. ID numbers...

Re:Yeah, give them Sugar!

[vhogemann]

Hey...

Remember that those things are hackable using Python, and it is a fairly easy language to learn, and way better than BASIC. My first contact with computers was using a Sinclair, a much more restricted and "dumbed" computer than the OLPC.

Older kids can open a terminal and start hacking these puppies right away! And what prevents a smart kid from wiping the pre-configured Fedora and install Debian or Gentoo?

Also remember that the first batch of laptops will go to the hands of children learning to read, around 6yrs... There will be plenty time for the developers adapt the interface to older kids.

Re:Yeah, give them Sugar!

[Moofie]

So, basically, you're proceeding from the assumption that this will be the first generation of children to always do only what their teacher tells them.

Would you please explain your rationale? I think that's a pretty shaky idea.

Re:Yeah, give them Sugar!

[BecomingLumberg]

How long do you think it will take some enterprising young lad (or lass) to decide that the OLPC is in desperate need of a working version of [insert your favorite distro]? 512 is a bit tight, but could be done if you REALLY got finicky about your packages.

And depending on the age of the child, I think sugar is fair enough. Certainly it is limited, but that isn't a bad thing in a classroom setting. Plus, i would rather Timmy not be playing frozen bubble. It comes with email, IM, AbiWord, a web browser, and an encycopedia. What more do you want for $100?

Anyway, be cynical. It is the best way to get marked insightful on /.

Re:Yeah, give them Sugar!

[DeathPenguin]

One would think 'Linux hacker' implies one willing to utterly defile the system's existing software, ie, make the first priority to install Damn Small Linux (Or similar distro) on the thing. What your saying seems similar to saying that cheap Dells aren't good for Linux hackers because they come with Windows XP Home Edition installed. Linux hackers are not who the OLPC's target users are--Linux hackers are gonna go off and do their own thing anyway.

And did it ever occur to you that maybe, just *maybe* searching forums and fighting flame wars to figure out how to compile a kernel isn't the best way to educate people? Maybe the focus should be on things like arithmetic, reading, and writing rather than fighting one's own operating system to be the l33test kid in the shantytown. Remember, these aren't meant to teach kids about Linux, they're meant as a classroom aid.

Re:Yeah, give them Sugar!

[physicsnick]

Don't bash Sugar from the meager videos you've seen; you need to actually try it to see what it's like. I watched the Google video and immediately hated the interface as well, but it's a very different experience when you actually sit down in front of it and use it.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OS_images_for_emulation
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar_Instructions

Before commenting on what you think it will be like, please try it first.

Re:Yeah, give them Sugar!

[kabz]

I downloaded the Sugar image and it boots straight up in Parallels, no messing. Comments from some of the people involved say that the software is barely usable, but the basics work, including the graphics and networking. I couldn't get sound to work, though.

Squeak appeared to work, but I'm not sure what kids will make of it.

The biggest disappointment is the lack of consistency in various areas of the UI. Right click in Abiword and you get tiny old style gnome menus which clashes pretty horribly with the big and monochrome theme of much of the rest of the UI.

OLPC and it's cultural implications

[jeffmeden]

Has anyone backing this project considered how these laptops will become nothing more then a symbol of America and 'Westernization'? What happens when it is taken as a political message that these are being distributed to certain regions, and groups who oppose the symbolism move to suppress it? I know this is outside the scope of the current discussion but I am genuinely interested in what has been considered, especially before I think about writing a check...

Re:OLPC and it's cultural implications

[drinkypoo]

What happens when it is taken as a political message that these are being distributed to certain regions, and groups who oppose the symbolism move to suppress it?

It's only being distributed to people who pay for it. I don't think they're going to deny any comers, though. It's not like these things are powerful enough to be classified as munitions or anything :D

The whole world is becoming more modern... except those parts that have been shit upon by some more powerful organization (usually a nation, but sometimes someplace like the whichever-india trading co... with the assistance of a nation) and have thus been artifically kept back. This is an attempt to help rectify the rectum-enlargement the first world has imposed on the third.

Re:OLPC and it's cultural implications

[vidarh]

They are not being "distributed to certain regions". The ministries of education in countries that want them arrange to buy them at cost, and any country or suitable organization is free to buy them for distribution to children. As it stands, the list of countries lined up so far is fairly diverse both in terms of economy and political systems.

Re:OLPC and it's cultural implications

[delphi125]

They will be constructed in Taiwan. Perhaps in 10 years time the Nigerian ones will be constructed in Nigeria. The OS and keyboard will be localised. This is the modern, non-religious equivalent of missionaries. Missionaries have been treated badly often enough not to be nice, but have also chosen their battles - and OLPC is at the request of the receiving country, rather than air-dropped into hostile zones.

Re:OLPC and it's cultural implications

[pembo13]

There a lot more things in the queue before lime green laptops for that title.

Re:OLPC and it's cultural implications

[Anonymous Coward]

You kidding??

These OLPC laptops are a symbol of TAIWAN and Pacific-century Asian domination!!

Where's America in that? :-)

Forget the artificial constraints!

[ThePineTree.net]

Why even try to limit the roll-out to third world countries. Just let market economics drive down the price! Who knows if they sold these by Tens of Millions the price would probably drop down under the $50 barrier. Think of the Halo effect this might have! Having a full function computer at the price of a bargin basement cell phone. We run a local news site and I can think of lots of ways we could run promotions to "Give" them away!

Re:Forget the artificial constraints!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nicholas Negroponte gave a presentation at my workplace last month. He said that, just to get the attention of manufactures to make components in the size/ quality/ price range they need, he had to promise that they would only be sold by the million. Otherwise the manufacturers would just keep ignoring the low-end market and chasing the high-end markets of niche-trash like 180-inch high-def plasma screens.

So for the time being the OLPC people are only working with whole-country contracts, and only in countries where the head-of-state is personally enthusiastically behind the project. Thailand recently had a coup, and the new junta prefers that everybody maintain the wage-slave culture, so they cancelled their project. Guys like Lula & Khadaffi on the other hand have socialist tendencies, so they back this stuff.

Khadaffi actually wasn't OLPC's ideal customer; they wanted countried in the 50-200 million range. But Khadaffi could write them a check on the spot for his whole country of 5 million, so they let him in. I just wanna see what happens when Castro wants some...

Like everyone else, I am waiting for the secondary market to get going. Then I am getting one. And yeah--when that time comes and they open up to individual buyers, the worldwide market for these things will be huge. And those manufacturers who thought down-scale was so unprofitable will find themselves with a market-leader on their hands, no thanks to themselves.

No hand crank!

[HangingChad]

They replaced the hand crank with some yo-yo thing. I find that hugely annoying, even if the yo-yo thing works better. They totally trashed my dream of bringing a bright green wind up laptop to a vendor demo and annoying the hell out them cranking my obscenely bright laptop in the middle of their presentation and sending mesh text messages to my co-workers.

I asked for a hand crank, instead I get some yo-yo thing. Humpfh.

Re:No hand crank!

[gardyloo]

I asked for a hand crank, instead I get some yo-yo thing. Humpfh.

        My god! I think you may have just read your father's mind!

(kidding, kidding. Couldn't resist)

Re:No hand crank!

[Stanistani]

...and I wanted it to play "Pop Goes The Weasel" when you turned the crank...

Re:Buy 2, Get 1 -- what a deal !

[Thansal]

Click

Just set the "Anonymous Modifier" as -6 and you will likely never see another AC post.

Set it to -2 and browse at 0 and you will only see them if they get modded up decently and you browse at 0 (I assume you do, as you see his post, set it at -3 if you browse at -1).

not to hard is it?

You must be thinking of a different Mark Cuban

[Anonymous Coward]

Between ...guys like mark cuban... I love how philanthropy in this millennium is poised to be dominated by nerds.

Since when was owning a basketball team considered philanthropy?

Re:You must be thinking of a different Mark Cuban

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy matches all his fines with donations to charity. And he racks up a lot of fines.

300 bucks' a good price.

[stardude82]

That would be about right for the current generation of e-paper products and less than the other Linux web tablets (i.e. Nokia). Not to mention more powerful than both. /My first laptop didn't have as good of specs as the X0 (133 mhz, 32 mb ram, 9 in. lcd, 500 mb hd, no CD drive) and you didn't hear Intel or Microsoft bitch about it having "inferior hardware" back then. Ran everything I needed it to up until '02.

Re:A new hero for slashdot readers!

[obdulio]

There are other initiatives more worth to follow (in spanish, sorry):
http://www.presidencia.gub.uy/_web/noticias/2006/1 2/2006121402.htm

umm..network access?

[t35t0r]

How are people in rural areas going to get network connections? If the OLPC is working as a wireless router then there needs to be at least one WAP somewhere in the frontier that is being picked up by a OLPC and rebroadcasted to other OLPC. Who will be providing the network infrastructure? People in these rural areas don't even have electricity. Sometimes they get it by splicing a main line and dragging a wire into their houses. Even then the electricity often goes out for several hours every day.

Re:umm..network access?

[drinkypoo]

The idea is that the governments behind the OLPC project will also be providing some sort of network link, and meanwhile the OLPCs are supposed to mesh network. I would give you a hard time for not just answering these questions from their page or their wiki but frankly I couldn't find it either - I've just been following the discussions here on slashdot.

Re:umm..network access?

[somepunk]

http://www.comminit.com/trends/st2005/thinking-105 1.html http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/12/ 12/long_distance_house_calls/

Re:umm..network access?

[pembo13]

You seem to have some way of predicting exactly where these things will go to. Maybe there can be a community access point. Just like community bathrooms. And community phone stations.

Re:umm..network access?

[DragonWriter]

How are people in rural areas going to get network connections?

Quite likely they won't on an always-on basis; one of the reasons for wireless networking built-in is to be able to use several of the units in an ad hoc network in the absence of permanent infrastructure. OTOH, a private firm is donating satellite time and has developed a satellite earthstation designed for rural villages that will be sold to accompany the OLPC, which one would expect some of the national governments buying the OLPC might purchase to provide content-delivery infrastructure.

Re:A new hero for slashdot readers!

[nuzak]

Google translates it fine. Unfortunate name that the Minister of Industry, Energy and Mining has though: Jorge Leprosy

Re:Insensitive Clod

[aardwolf64]

We "cubicle retards" prefer the more PC term "cubetards", you insensitive clod...

Side FX

[Device666]

Let's hope those people in the poorer nations don't discover ebay to soon. They might sell their OLPC...

Re:Side FX

[cakefool]

But, how would they leave feedback?

Patronising crap! retired doesn't mean stupid

[fantomas]

Simple machine so good for the retired? go back to your lollipop you patronising kid! Becoming 65 doesn't mean relapse into child like state.

My dad retired a couple of years ago, signed up for a computer course (never used one before) and now he's got a digital camera and he's playing with Photoshop.

Some folk over 65 might want a simplified device but I know a heck of a lot of retired folks who have a lot more experience than the average college kid at dealing with complex devices and fine at picking up a new one.

Re:Patronising crap! retired doesn't mean stupid

[Marxist Hacker 42]

What I'm really looking for isn't simplicity- it's MINIMAL DOWN TIME. As in, a lack of stupid question calls and/or virus/spyware removal calls from that individual. Linux in ROM goes a hell of a long way to preventing such calls (heck, any ROM based OS does), for the simple reason that such platforms are a lot more immune to viruses and spyware (just reset to defaults and the computer is "fixed").

With a built-in SD slot, one could argue that this system is *built* for digital snapshot type people.

Re:Patronising crap! retired doesn't mean stupid

[Alchemar]

I will admit that I know several people that used the later part of thier life to educate themselves in new technology. Most of the geeks started out young when they had the time to take things apart, figure out how they worked, and put them back together in a way not intended by the designer. It is hard to beat the learning curve for computer and electronics and work a full time job. Most of those young kids now have full time jobs, and a lot of people that had full time jobs find themselves with a lot for free time. Some of those people want to learn about computers, but a lot more just want to be able to use them as a tool to do the things with their time that they consider more interesting. I know a lot more people that want to use a computer to stay in touch with their grandkids, look at the photo of the family that thier children just sent them, and look up what the side effects of not taking this or that medication, than want to know the difference in specs between USB, Firewire, and WiFi. It doesn't mean they can't, most of those people could learn if they invested the time, but it is literally not worth the time to them. Most of these people rely on their children to keep these tools up and running. A simple machine that is hard to break involves less time to upkeep. If that retired person is now wanting to know how a computer looks on the inside, this is a cheap computer to experiment with. Either way it makes a perfect gift for that retired person in your life. If that retired person fits inbetween, they probably already have a computer that they are happy with. Anytime someone makes the statement "the perfect gift", it is implied that they don't already own one.

Anytime someone classifies a large group of people with a generality, there are going to be exceptions. That doesn't mean they are singling you out as not being able to comprehend. The fact that you have a slashdot account implies that you like computers, most people learn about the things they like. Being on slashdot alone implies that you are an exception to many of the generalities that the rest of the human race could be classified under.

Re:Patronising crap! retired doesn't mean stupid

[Fred_A]

With a built-in SD slot, one could argue that this system is *built* for digital snapshot type people.

However with a relatively low (by current standard) resolution screen and very little mass storage (although from what I gathered you could potentially add an external USB drive), it's not the best machine to fiddle with your photos.

OTOH, as a simple general purpose mail/Web/writing machine it should work for everybody.

Put them everywhere, 1st world & 3rd...

[gwn]

I provide volunteer IT support in a school and I would love to see the over priced, over engineered, fragile, feature rich, but utility poor machines we currently put in schools replaced by machines along these lines.

Look at what the computers really get used for in our kids classrooms and you start wondering who is really benefiting from them being in there... hint, not the students, think big business.

If I could convince a parent, teacher, principal, or school board to buy OLPC computers with the added benefit of outfitting a student, class, school, or school board in the developing world at the same time... FANTASTIC! Partners in a global community. Where do I sign up?

Mod parent up

[zrq]

b: You can stop the reselling problem .... by a simple expedient: a different color case.

Excellent idea, although possibly yellow rather than black ? I kind of like the bright colour, makes it less like a work machine.

Although if black is all we can have, then I'll take black. I'm keen to try one out and start working on some (free) software tools to add to them.

If they had a 'buy two now get one later' scheme, I'd go for it. Order and pay for them now, but you don't get yours until the retail version becomes available.

Re:cool

[Belial6]

Why would you buy one of these for a six year old? It is severely crippled and dumbed down. Wouldn't a full featured computer for a little more money be a much better investment in your daughter? My two year old has been running Ubuntu for over a year now with no problems. Recently, he has even taken to doing his own updates. Now, I like to think my kid is overly bright, but if you think that your 6 year old daughter can't use a full featured computer on her own, you are probably under estimating her.

They should make a full PC from this design.

[Ant P.]

A Linux alternative to the Mac Mini, with just enough extra bits to run AIGLX while still on a 12V adaptor.

I'd buy one. Hell, I'd buy ten and give them away to people.

Re:cool

[Anonymous Coward]

My two year old has been running Ubuntu for over a year now with no problems. Did anyone catch this? You lead us to believe your child has been "using" Ubuntu since before they were a year old. Seems to be a bit of a reach. I mean Ubuntu is pretty easy but a 1 year old using apt-get seems to be a stretch.

Re:cool

[God'sDuck]

I caught it, but was too busy trying to figure out how he installed Ubuntu on his two-year-old to respond.

Any OLPC article is flamebait...

[Anonymous Coward]

...because it's such a stupid idea.

What makes you a GUI expert?

[feranick]

I am eager to know.

You need a reality check...

[Eric Damron]

"And do you really think these things are going to be 'given' to the children to 'play with' and learn as they would.. - oh no! They'll be carefully controlled, supervised and hamstered away at classrooms, where the kids will have to do exactly what the teacher wants them to do: "now, timmy, move the pointed to this icon and click it, then draw a circle... "

So much for the dream of creating a Linux generation - these kids will grow up to be another bunch of helpless cubicle retards at telemarketing caves..."

You do realize that the "story" you just told is a fantasy, right? There is no logic or reason to your rant and no reason to believe this is what will happen.

You need a reality check dude.

Re:You need a reality check...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bear in mind that the main target for these machines in nations who don't necessarily have a particularly well-orchestrated (by which I mean top-down & authoritarian) school system, where teachers have the chance to enjoy seeing kids actually learning by using their own minds to figure things out..

Re:Buy 2, Get 1 -- what a deal !

[pembo13]

Nope, not too hard. I appreciate that tip.

too much work

[Municipa]

Why don't we just see how many laptops we have, see how many children we have, kill the difference, then distribute the laptops.

But does it run...

[KalvinB]

Bunnies?

If it's fast enough for advanced software rendering in higher level languages (Bunnies is Java) then it would be very good tool for teaching programming on. I've learned a lot of math creating these sorts of programs and it's been a lot more interesting than just doing math problems. I'm sure there's hardware to do the rendering on these things but that takes a lot of the learning out of programming.

Hopefully the OLPC will come preinstalled with programming tools or they will be readily available.

/. Flashback

[jo42]

Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of OLPCs...

Summary is rather hyperbolic

[DragonWriter]

The BBC is reporting that the OLPC will be available to the public early next year on a buy-2-get-1 basis through eBay.

Er, no, the BBC is not reporting that. From TFA (emphasis added):

The backers of the One Laptop Per Child project are looking at the possibility of selling the machine to the public. One idea would be for customers to have to buy two laptops at once - with the second going to the developing world.
.
.
.
Michalis Bletsas, chief connectivity officer for the project, said eBay could be a partner to sell the laptop.
.
.
.
Nicholas Negroponte, chairman and founder of the OLPC group, emphasised that the launch to the poorest parts of the world was the organisation's main task.

Of plans to sell the machine, he said: "Many commercial schemes have been considered and proposed that may surface in 2008 or beyond, one of which is 'buy 2 and get 1'."

So, rewriting the first sentence of the summary to be accurate: "The BBC is reporting that the OLPC might be available to the public, either next year or later, and if so that it might be on a buy-2-get-1 basis, and eBay might be involved in some way."

Re:Summary is rather hyperbolic

[pademelon]

Nor is the BBC saying anything about Linux or open source as far as I can see. They had an audio report on the OLPC a few weeks ago in the BBC World Service program "Digital Planet". That didn't mention anything about the operating system - hardware support for Linux - or BIOS, but they did say that Microsoft were shipping a "cut down version of Windows". Towards the end of that program they reported that some readers had complained about pro-MS bias in previous editions. They dismissed this complaint of course.

Re:Summary is rather hyperbolic

[Zoxed]

(be aware that the BBC have changed the article since I submitted the news: see my other post)

> Re:Summary is rather hyperbolic
> Nor is the BBC saying anything about Linux or open source as far as I can see.

This is true: the BBC never said that: re-reading my summary I can see that you could read it as meaning they did. I should have more clearly seperated fact (as in what the BBC reported) from my opinion !!

But I respectfully disagree that it is hyperbolic: the fact is that the OLPC *does* use LinuxBIOS and is *designed* to run Linux: even the wireless driver is fully Open !! And it *is* very cheap.

> Towards the end of that program they reported that some readers had complained about pro-MS bias in previous editions.

That would include me: I always complain when the BBC write about PC malware and fail to mention that they only affect Windows machines.

Re:Summary is rather hyperbolic

[Zoxed]

> Er, no, the BBC is not reporting that. From TFA (emphasis added):

Unfortunately the BBC have changed the article since I read it: without changing the date/time stamp or acknowledging the update !!

From my archived copy that I read 24 hours ago and based my submission on:

"The backers of the One Laptop Per Child project plan to release the machine on general sale next year.
But customers will have to buy two laptops at once - with the second going to the developing world."

And the quotes from Nicholas Negroponte have been added since I read it.
And the title has been changed from "Public can purchase $100 laptop" to "$100 laptop could sell to public".

So my summary was correct when I wrote it, but yours is correct now !!

Re:Summary is rather hyperbolic

[fang2415]

I'm probably too late to get noticed here, but does anybody know if the BBC softened their language on this a bit after the initial story went live? I could swear that yesterday their headline read "$100 laptop will be available to public" and that the lead was closer to "The backers of the One Laptop Per Child project will sell the machine to the public. But customers would have to buy two laptops at once - with the second going to the developing world." than to the current wording.

I'm wondering if OLPC yelled at the Beeb and got them to backpedal, thus effectively nullifying any news here and making the submitter look kinda stupid.

Does anybody happen to have saved the text of the article from before about 17:00 GMT yesterday?

Re:Summary is rather hyperbolic

[fang2415]

Drat, Zoxed beat my post to the punch. If anybody's still reading this, mod parent up! This is a very important change which casts quite a different light on OLPC (and, now, the BBC) than the original piece did...

Re:Summary is rather hyperbolic

[Zoxed]

Story on rumour quoshing:

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,3928 5426,00.htm

Re:Summary is rather hyperbolic

[Anonymous Coward]

"So, rewriting the first sentence of the summary to be accurate"

You must be new here.

Re:Summary is rather hyperbolic

[pademelon]

This seems to be flogging a dead horse, but my point was not intended as a criticism of the original post - which perhaps was slanted appropriately towards us open source biased nerds who read slashdot. It was intended to point out the BBC's steadfast unwillingness to use terms like "open source" or "linux" in the context of OPLC. As I said, in the audio report they managed to squeeze in a mention of only one operating system: the cut down version Windows - which had nothing to do with OPLC.

Re:Summary is rather hyperbolic

[Zoxed]

> This seems to be flogging a dead horse

I do not think so !!

> but my point was not intended as a criticism of the original post...

Sorry: I misunderstood your first post. Yes, I think you make a very good point. But the BBC do seem responsive to comments submitted to them on their website (I would guess that at least half the time I get an email reply from either the journalist or the editor.) In the future I will be commenting to the BBC on the points you mention (just as I always point out that "PC viruses" do not affect (generally) Macs, Linux, *BSD etc and that they should mention Microsoft somewhere in the article !!!)

Re:Summary is rather hyperbolic

[pademelon]

I've already commented on the BBC website about the audio report - but the more complaints the more likely they will take notice. They haven't responded yet on this one - they have on previous though.

Size Comparison

[physicsnick]

Here's a size comparison to an ordinary laptop:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Image:AP1_39.jpg

The thing is tiny. It is not meant for adults, especially not ones with aging eyes and arthritic fingers.

Read first, then comment. Oh, wait, it's slashdot

[Medievalist]

Your post is nonsensical. (Hint: eBay is on board.)

Not that anyone really cares, though. Are you proposing that we prevent people from giving water to Pakistanis because they might give some to terrorists? Terrorists need water more than laptops, after all.

Re:cool

[An Onerous Coward]

I have a two year old nephew lying around the house. Can someone link to the HOWTO?

media PC

[wall0159]

One of these puppies would make a great media pc - could stream audio and photos to it.. (maybe not video though..)

Hope it has a headphone jack! :-)

But I reckon it will change the marketplace in other ways - if you can buy a sub-notebook for $200 in the West, that will have to affect the market. Also, what about things like those digital photo frames..

Offtopic...try on this troll for size!

[Overzeetop]

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

Thats no big deal, Apple customers have been doing that for years!

(Sorry, I just had to do it. Be easy on me, mods, I'm going on 80 hours in the office in the last week - at least three or four of them I wasn't even surfing slashdot.)

Are there patents on the hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

If not, why doesn't someone grab the design, fly to China, and contract to get a containerload of these to sell in the states by next summer? Sugar is OSS, is it not?

We all seem to be waiting breathlessly for Negroponte to lower himself to selling us one. Is there a reason it couldn't be done? Group buy anyone?

Go through your state

[tepples]

If I could convince a parent, teacher, principal, or school board to buy OLPC computers with the added benefit of outfitting a student, class, school, or school board in the developing world at the same time... FANTASTIC! Partners in a global community. Where do I sign up?

Ask your school board and other school boards in the neighboring districts, and then show your state's[1] school regulators that there is interest. I'm not sure what the process is for a state government to apply for the program.

[1] "State" refers to a sovereign entity or political subdivision with at least a million K-12 students.

Re:Go through your state

[Anonymous Coward]

Massachusetts is apparently on the list of interested entities, so there is a precedent.

Re:Read first, then comment. Oh, wait, it's slashd

[timeOday]

Are you proposing that we prevent people from giving water to Pakistanis because they might give some to terrorists?

No, of course not. I'm just saying the inspiration of this project may be diluted when some of the people who receive these laptops for their kids' education decide they'd rather make a quick $150 instead and hawk them. Maybe the OLPC project should make the "giver" and "receiver" laptops look different, so people can distinguish between "hey look at me I donated a laptop to a poor person and got this one as a token" (good), vs "hey look at me, a big shipment of laptops to Africa got diverted and I bought one off the back of a truck" (bad). And beyond that, I just hope people and especially the press have reasonable expectations for this, and realize it still may be doing good even if it doesn't transform all nations into clones of America overnight (which it won't). And to not be shocked if a few of the laptops don't end up being used to educate disadvantaged kids after all.

Two for one.

[Kamineko]

Shortly to be followed by 'buy one, get one'. It is eBay, after all.

saving money over charity

[abigsmurf]

You seem to be completely missing his point. People won't care about the charity side of things and buy it wherever it's cheaper. Ultimately most people would rather save $100+ then donate $100+ to a charity. For 99% of people $100 is a huge single donation and simply something they wouldn't consider.

You cannot buy this product elsewhere without a huge markup, that's the underlying flaw of the project. For people who may be struggling to feed their families and where university grads can expect just $40 a month, $200 is just too hard to turn down. Even worse, I suspect lots would find $50 hard to turn down which is where this project falls down.

That's not even considering the competitor option (this argument is only vaguely related). Intel's Eduwise laptop is $400 and packs a 900mhz celeron M compared to the 350mhz geode in the OLPC. If They're going to charge $350 for this and for $50 you can get a system that's a whole generation more powerfull and will still no doubt run Linux.

The OLPC people don't seem to have researched just how many people would feel comfortable essentially giving away $100-$200 to charity. There's been lots of buzz from linux enthusiasts and homebrew types but how many parents in the West have they talked to in regards to pricing? This thing needs to sell in the high 100,000's in the west for the project to be successfull and so far all I've seen them talk about is the charity side. They need to really look at the viability of the western side of things from a business perspective and I don't think they are.

Re:saving money over charity

[Moofie]

"People won't care about the charity side of things and buy it wherever it's cheaper."

People do all kinds of things I don't happen to wish to do myself. So what?

"You cannot buy this product elsewhere without a huge markup, that's the underlying flaw of the project"

No, that's the EXPLICIT POINT of the project. If you want a cheap laptop, go somewhere else. If you believe in the goals of this project, buy one of these.

"$50 hard to turn down which is where this project falls down."

I don't understand what this sentence means. Would the recipient of the laptop be free to sell it? Sure. I'm sure not gonna put a gun to their head and make them learn. I'm also not going to bid on their auction.

"If They're going to charge $350 for this and for $50 you can get a system that's a whole generation more powerfull and will still no doubt run Linux."

Competition is good.

"The OLPC people don't seem to have researched just how many people would feel comfortable essentially giving away $100-$200 to charity."

Says you.

"This thing needs to sell in the high 100,000's in the west for the project to be successfull"

Why?

"They need to really look at the viability of the western side of things from a business perspective and I don't think they are."

Again, why? The Western audience (by which I assume you mean the "first world" audience) is irrelevant to the project's goals. The funding is going to happen, regardless of what happens in the retail sales. I (me this carbon unit) will be delighted to buy two and keep one. You can do whatever you want, for all values of "you".

Re:saving money over charity

[abigsmurf]

Go through your points 1 by 1

1: Unless you're planning to buy an awful lot of laptops, these people are crucial

2: yes they'll buy it elsewhere. On ebay or reseller sites for $100 less. If people can get something cheap, they will

3: The receipient is free to do whatever they want with the laptop. People do and will bid on the auctions though. Scalpers have been thriving since before Ebay was even invented and it's only got worse since then.

4: not for a charity. If you're not making product on a product and a rival can make a superior product for not much more and you can't match them technologically, you don't have many options of improving sales.

5: Why do you think charities do these "just $5 a month can feed a family for a lifetime" over calls for one off donations now? because people don't like seeing a huge chunk taken out of their bank account. Now maybe if they did do a similar thing to these charities that advertise on TV they'd have more success but it seems they're looking at making people pay a big chunk of change in one go. I don't know anyone who would be happy giving $100 away to someone they don't know.

6 and 7: because these donations aren't sustainable, they're relying on big payments from organisations and it will be increasingly difficult to find organisations willing to fund the project as I imagine that most will only contribute a single time to the project.

Re:cool

[a.d.trick]

No, but I did find a dead badger HOWTO. Maybe you could try substituting the nephew for the badger.

Why do so many people miss the economics?!?

[A nonymous Coward]

The OLPC can be justified on simple economic grounds.

An OLPC comes with ebook textbooks. The cost of the OLPC is at worst the same as paper textbooks. The OLPC textbooks can be updated as often as necessary instead of being obsolete castoffs, and they are in the native language instead of a foreign language. The child can carry all of them around without weight penalty.

They also provide light from the screen if necessary, and they provide communication with the other OLPCs and with the big wide world. Parents can get medical advice. They can find the best market for their farm goods instead of having to walk ten miles with thir goods and hope they get the best price possible.

The idea that kids can learn about computers is NOT the main goal of OLPC.

These are TOOLS.

Re:Why do so many people miss the economics?!?

[arbitraryaardvark]

Mod parent up, but let me expand a little. People, maybe even slashdotters, can create content deliverable over the one laptop per child (olpc). "how to build a solar still to provide drinking water, using a recycled trash bag." "how to order child immunizations cheap from a veterinary medicine wholesaler" "how to build a solar oven" "how to use a waterwheel to charge your laptop, distill and pump water, and run a pirate radio station." "seasteading for dummies" "microfinance brokerage services" "how to take back your government" "how to bounty hunt nigerian spammers for the organ trade" "camwhoring for survival" "roomba hacks for desert and jungle" "avoiding hiv and hepatitis"... whatever it is that people want to do "instead" of the 1lpc can be done cheaper/better/faster "with" the 1lpc, at least to the point of having at least one per village. At some point you get diminishing returns, but meanwhile ubiquitous computing keeps getting cheaper smaller smarter, so the transition keeps spreading, and the spontaneously arising networks from the 1lpc help bring the singularity to your neighborhood.

Software developing

[Vadim Makarov]

OLPC reminds me of the Russian BK series home computers of the 1980s, one of the most mass produced home computer series in the world. It was sold with virtually no software. A very lively software community sprang up, with many users basically developing their own applications and making them available for free, because there were no commercial ones available and this computer for many years was the only one the general population could afford. It's worth mentioning that BK had less than a hundredth of the computing power and memory of the OLPC, so practically all programs for it had to be written in assembler. Admittedly, software development is more complex these days, but...

To make a similar community appear around the OLPC, its developers don't have to take any special steps, but only make it possible for the user to reinstall the operating system and run a standard software developer environment on the OLPC. Most childs won't do it, but those who do may, over several years, add substantially to the software tailored to be run on the OLPC and its successors.

OLPC is just a code name.

[Thrakamazog]

The final product will be known as "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer"

You have a good point

[DavidShor]

But lets be realistic, information transfer has both negative and positive impacts. How long until we see aid workers being lynched because of rumors that the new vaccine is a western plot to make locals impotent?

Until we see Al-Qaeda recruiting third world kids using IM?(The countries they are sending the laptops to are poor but transitioning economies where food and water issues have been figured out, but where were are still serious macro-economic problems. This is where terrorism usually thrives.)

I support the laptop roll out , but I hope someone is planning for these problems.

Information, that's the trick

[A nonymous Coward]

The same OLPC mesh that spreads rumours of fraudulent vaccines also allows access to the truth. Sure some will believe the lies, but now the thoughtful will have a way to counter it. Rumors have a shorter lifespan where listeners can ask others, in other villages, who have already had the vaccine, what it was like. When village after village reports on how nice it is to not suffer from malaria or HIV or whatever disease the vaccine counters, that's hard territory for a mere rumor to take hold in. When villagers have something to ddo other than go to religious school and more points of view than the local fanatic whose school they are forced to attend, his garbage has a lot less fertile ground to take root in, and his lies are easier to see.

It won't stop all rumors and liars, and it won't stop all villages from falling for rumors and liars. But it will make it less likely.

Information is wonderful. That's why so many governments try to stop it.

I am personally amazed at some of the countries signing up. Libya? Pakistan? I suspect they are too fanatically blinded and technologically ignorant to foresee the trouble they will have in a generation. A wonderful present to the rest of the world!

Re:Information, that's the trick

[DragonWriter]

I am personally amazed at some of the countries signing up. Libya? Pakistan? I suspect they are too fanatically blinded and technologically ignorant to foresee the trouble they will have in a generation.

Gadafi, though perhaps best known in the west for his regimes connection to Cold War anti-Western terrorism, has for quite some time been rather heavily interested in promoting development throughout Africa and using his regimes position to advance that goal (that's particulary been true since the end of the Cold War.) He's long been more interested in building his personal legacy that way than securing some kind of durable, generational dictatorship in Libya. This is hardly out of character for Gadafi (either in signing Libya on or in his regime's exploration of the possibility of sponsoring even poorer African countries that can't afford to buy into the project themselves.)

Re:Information, that's the trick

[A nonymous Coward]

I know he's more interested in a legacy than passing on his dictatorship to any heirs, but he's still a dictator, and free information is not reknowned for its compatibility with dictators :-) That's what is interesting.

Pretty friendly environment to learn in, too

[loqi]

Especially considering that the application and GUI layers of this thing are largely written in Python, and the source is just a single "View Source" keypress away.

How the OLPC can -really- help the third world

[Grismar]

How about making the OLPC available to the public at double the price it costs the people in third world countries. I'm sure a lot of folks would still like to get their hands on a simple PC or complicated toy like this for $200 and feel good about themselves in the knowledge that they just bought themselves -and- a kid in a third world country a PC.

Toy

[jmv]

...it sounds like an embedded-Linux hackers favorite new toy.

Forget embedded-Linux hackers, I'll be buying it for my (then) three year-old! Seriously, that ought to be the best (learning) toy you can get for a young child: cool, pretty and robust. What more can you ask?

UPDATE: "$100 laptop could sell to public"

[Zoxed]

I could not decide which thread to post on, but here is an explanation of how the BBC story changed from "will" to "could" from the BBC journalist: Taken in good Faith

Re:Read first, then comment. Oh, wait, it's slashd

[Medievalist]

I'm not sure what "the inspiration of this project may be diluted" means. Nobody on the project expects the machines to be invulnerable to theft, so I don't anticipate anyone getting disillusioned.

Some people will always steal. This does not matter to the project, it's not a project to stop theft; and since OLPC machines aren't going to be shipped into areas where it would make economic sense to steal them, their theft is unlikely to be profitable enough to endanger the project goals.

Get war-torn theocracies and starving African families out of your mind, they are not part of this project - there's another project for them, that involves keeping them from starving. The OLPC project is NOT dealing with cultures where people can routinely steal from children without repercussions.