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OLPC Says No Plans for Consumer Release
Gr88pe writes "The One Laptop Per Child product has clarified that they have not made a decision on whether or not to carry out a consumer release of the XO laptop, despite previous reports. From the article: 'OLPC told Ars Technica in a statement that the company has no plans for a consumer version of the laptop. "Contrary to recent reports, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is not planning a consumer version of its current XO laptop, designed for the poorest and most remote children in the world," said Nicholas Negroponte, OLPC chairman.' They are considering a number of plans, but have made no formal decision."
I thought it wasn't for the really poor people. I thought the laptop was for countries that were sufficiently developed that they could focus on education as opposed to sanitation, starvation, etc.
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One of the more interesting ideas that I have seen is to allow people to buy an OLPC for say, double the price, thus also buying one for a child oversees.
The part of it that would be of interest to me would be a system that would allow a westerner to just buy one of these for a child oversees.
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The One Laptop Per Child product has clarified that they have not made a decision on whether or not to carry out a consumer release of the XO laptop
So they clarified with ambiguity. Good show.
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I've heard good arguments for this (more people hacking, less incentive for a gray/black market, buy one for the price of two so the second goes to a kid), but could they be taking this position because of production? After all if they want to give a million of these away and people like /.ers buy 100,000... while that would mean money to give 100,000 laptops away to kids we just bit 10% of their production away. I seem to remember reading somewhere that based on the number they will be giving out it will be one of the top 4 laptop "brands" in the world almost immediately. Perhaps they simply can't spare the production at this time?
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When you have many people purchasing, you can order in larger quantities, and lower prices all around.
If people demand it, the market should supply it.
I say we develop a "one child per laptop" organization. It's function would be to convince governments to develop laws mandating that you can only have a child if you have a laptop.
I think plenty of people where happy with the idea of buy 2 get 1. I would love to get my hands on one or 2 of those. It seems stupid to limit your marked to begin with. Unless I am misunderstanding the article, which seems to have to different points going on. I understand that the development is not geared toward the developed world but that doesn't mean that some will not want it.
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Several of the features of the Laptop initiative arent things that the average power user is going to want or need, but they are features that would be great for niche areas. One that comes to mind is journaling for camping and hiking, emergency services, etc. Im sure there are hundreds of others. I know I would have enjoyed having one when I had phone service but no power during an ice storm a few years back.
One idea I heard floating around was the to buy one for yourself, you would have to buy one towards the initiative. To me that sounds like a win win, they get more in contributions to the cause, people that want to play with one get the opportunity and production orders increase which usually drives down costs even more.
Why would they not want to sell the initial run of these things at a markup to us decadent westerners in order to get the volumes up and bring down the unit cost? Do they not understand the concept of flushing out problems by unloading overpriced units on early adopters? They really need to speak to Apple.
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Definitely a good decision if there is going to be a shortage (at the start) of these products in the developing countries. reportedly enough for some to sell on the "gray-market"
(Bletsas acknowledges that some abuse is inevitable. "Will some parents sell their children's laptops on the gray market? Sure." ) source
Yes this is only initially, but if the children that these laptops are designed for are missing out because some random wants to play with it in his apartment along with his 2 pc's his other laptop, his pda and 3 game consoles something is seriously amiss, regardless of how much he pays for it.
My Mommy says smoking kills. Oh, is your Mommy a doctor? No. A scientific researcher of some kind? No. Well then sh
We all see the OLPC thing as a fun little toy. We all want to play with it. But for us to have a toy to play with may easily backfire into a situation where the next set of 419'ers or click-fraud farms are enabled through the use of OLPC devices.
If the use an application of these things are considerably more limited and not general purpose, then that could go a long way to prevent their abuse.
there are no poor people in first world countries that could possibly benefit from having a cheap PC. /sarcasm
If they don't *know* that this laptop would be a huge benefit to poor people in ALL countries, then they're either being threatened by the likes of Dell (hard to sell $500 POS desktops when you can get a durable $100 laptop) or are completely blind to the people who are right under their noses.
As long as I have a computer with an internet connection I will never be broke. I may be homeless, but I'll never be broke. But, I guess people don't care about the homeless people in say New York that could use a laptop to get started in developing web-sites to bring in some extra money (or even to find resources like food banks and shelters) to help them get back on their feet.
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Your argument is a crock. If someone needs food, they are going to sell that fucking computer. Which makes giving people without food computers: pointless.
Also, if you want to know who he's talking to, read any other Slashdot post about the OLPC. He's talking to every person on Slashdot who said "you idiot, this isn't for bare-means countries in Africa, it's for countries like Libya and Brazil." in response to anyone pointing out that starving people have little use for a computer. So which is it, Slashdot? THAT'S his question.
I wonder if the hesitancy on the part of them to release this for consumer purchase is due to pressure from AMD and the other component manufacturers. (AMD manufactures the CPU in the OLPC) They don't want to sell millions of low-end CPUs, screens, etc. in the Developed World... they are much better off with the current entry level of $500 or so for a laptop.
Personally, I would consider converting my home server to one of these OLPCs. A couple hundred MHz, a couple USB ports for storage, and low power usage sound about right.
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how about we round up all these people who want to play with an OLPC laptop and ship them off to one of the pilot nations to train teachers or children how to use it. You get to play with it, the kids get someone to teach them, it's win, win right?
How we know is more important than what we know.
guys, just created this account to tell you the thing is *tiny*. been playing with gen 1 for 3 weeks. you know the Simpsons episode where Homer gets so fat he can't press a single button on the telephone? That's not me. :) Yet if I type on the keyboard with my fingers so close they rub, my fingers are still too wide to fit on the keyboard. It truly is a keyboard for children. Maybe someone can post some photos next to a ruler. I've heard more than once "it's smaller than I thought".
don't consider this a regular laptop. it's fun, trust me, but physically a very small unit.
90% of "computing" work involves writing documents. This would do fine for the purpose. As it would for chatting, e-mail, and a lot of web browsing.
Most adults wouldn't be caught outside using this:
I seem to recall Apple selling quite a few clamshell iBooks. If anything, this is a bit more elegant and tasteful. I'd certainly buy one or two.
-b.