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How Classsmate PC Stacks Up Against OLPC
lisah writes "While the One Laptop Per Child project pulled itself together and shipped its first Beta machines, Intel was busy developing its own version, the Classmate PC. Inevitable comparisons will be made between the two (especially since OLPC's chairman Nicholas Negroponte called Intel's move "predatory"), so Linux.com's Tina Gasperson and her kids took a Classmate PC for a test run to see how it does in the real world. The upshot? Good battery life, easy to use, and great with ketchup. 'The Classmate is so adorably cozy it make you want to snuggle up on a comfy couch or lean back on some pillows on the floor while you surf. Good thing wireless is built right in. Too bad the typical Linux foibles apply. The first snag was having to log in as root to check the system configuration because the Classmate wouldn't log on to the network. Something tells me most elementary and high school teachers with nothing but Windows experience aren't going to get that.'" Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.
...the extra "s" is for extra class!
Below is the comment I posted under the story on linux.com. For those too lazy to read it there:
Five days with three active kids? The fact that you believe that this utterly minor quantity of abuse is significant displays an utter ignorance of the situation in which the systems will be used. And two hours? After which point it must be plugged in? Kids in many if not most of the locations in which the systems will be used will not have access to an electrical outlet. I know this concept is amazing to someone who has never thought about life beyond the borders of the first world...
The ClassmatePC is utterly unsuited to use anywhere outside the rosy, warm and comfortable existence that we in the first world enjoy. I'm sure it makes a very nice toy for your children, however. Be sure to get back to us regarding its durability after they've drug that gigantic (for children) lug of a machine through the dirt on their miles-long walk to and from school every day, mm?
(You can see that I am just as charming in other parts of the web as I am here)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Ostensibly the "One Laptop Per Child" thing was meant to provide computing access to underprivileged youths. Now there's competition in the same market and somehow that's bad? If Intel strong-arms the OLPC project into oblivion but continues to provide the same "philanthropic", so to speak, service, don't the children still benefit?
The more I read from and about Negroponte the more his true colors show through.
why? forty-two.
Since USB ports haven't apparently been discovered by the general public, what's the chance that "root passwords" and wi-fi configuration have?
If they feel good competing AGAINST a charity. It's like trying to run the red cross out of town because you want your own select staff of employees to profit from the same line of work.
Why didn't Intel work *with* OLPC to make a laptop to help educate people? Now all they're serving to do is divide the market and confuse customers [re: governments] with a laptop which imho is less suited for the task.
It isn't like OLPC *has* to run a geode. I mean at this point a rework is out of the question, but they could have switched it to an intel chip a couple of years ago if a low power chip was suitable for the task.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Well if you cant use Windows, and you cant, you have to learn linux sometime. Might as well be young when they dont even know windows. Only admins will have issues like this anyways. Are not most of the kids that are going to be using these computers kids that have never used a computer before and therefore, Windows? Even if they did, they are young and will be much more open to changing as their ties to Windows could only be so strong at that age.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
It's from Intel, a major advertiser on /. Wonder why it got such a good review.
The security and authentication aspects of OLPC are vital to its deployment; any dropping to root to "fix" something is a total failure.
Did Intel address the power issues as well? Or does it expect access to a wall-wart every 2 hours?
The hardware isn't really what makes OLPC attractive; those who evaluate it only by that measure are missing the point.
things against Windows, forever and ever? How about a Mac, or something else? Or nothing at all, and see something on its own merits.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
"The ClassmatePC is utterly unsuited to use anywhere outside the rosy, warm and comfortable existence that we in the first world enjoy. I'm sure it makes a very nice toy for your children, however. Be sure to get back to us regarding its durability after they've drug that gigantic (for children) lug of a machine through the dirt on their miles-long walk to and from school every day, mm?"
Do third-world children really abuse what they own like that? Or is that the way a first world child would?
Good thing wireless is built right in.
So what happens when these people turn there computer on and it automagically connects to the coffee shop across the road's network?
I just hope it has a built-in spellchecker...
It's be pretty sad if there wasn't *some* advantage to the Classmate given the cost, but since low price was the whole point of these machines, any advantage is rather moot.
I learnt to program back in 1978 on a 1MHz Z80 with 1K of RAM and no software other than a monitor program that let me type hex codes into memory. I turned out OK.
If the point of this is to get computers into as many kids hands as possible, where cost was previously a limit, then cost should in essence be the only consideration once any other minimal design goals have been met. Putting in more features (able to run expensive Microsoft bloatware!) for a higher cost would seem to be a detriment to the overall goal rather than a benefit.
The better value-for-money laptop should win. OLPC may be taking too long to get into production.
Classmate PC comes with Treacherous computing. I'm not buying this 'market forces will sort it out/competion is always good' argument that keeps being posted.
The OLPC is definitly more in the spirit of charity.
Why is dropping to root a failure for this laptop? It seems to me to be the solution to keeping kids out of things they shouldn't be in...just don't give them the root password. And if they WANT kids to be getting into it, how freaking hard is it to drop to root? You show a kid that one time and it is all it would take. As Windows has gotten more locked down, there are things only an Admin can do and people have to log out and log in as admin...and the world has survived.
Transporter_ii
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
The OLPC has better hardware in a number of key areas - I think the screen is the best example - I would much rather have the OLPC's dual-mode 1200×900 than Intel's 7-inch 800x480 LCD.
It's like they were not even really trying - other than to come up with something that runs a crippled version of Windows to dump on the market.
I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress -J Adams
Hell I bet in a few years you will see them in casual pictures along the roadsides in ditches and the people who get them find out they have very little to do with improving their lives.
OLPC and this are feel good ideas when too much of this world does have clean drinking water and adequate medicine or food for the day.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
This article says very little about the OLPC, and it would appear that the author has never used it, so the title of this post is incorrect.
That title has got to change since the blog had nothing to do with OLPC. If anything, it shows that the Intel ClassmatePC was not even designed for the same market as the OLPC. A 2 hour battery life? Standard software interface? And don't even get me started about how the wireless didn't work.
This is purely a simplistic review of a small piece of hardware Intel half-heartedly designed and is using in an attempt to stall acceptance of the OLPC. The ClassmatePC is not designed for use outside of 1st world classrooms or homes. And shame on Intel for putting such little effort into this and going after OLPC customers.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Don't flame me I know little about either.. Would it be fair that children in the ghettos would similarly treat their new laptops the same as kids in the third world? Has any kind of user testing been done to show what these kids would really get from it. IMHO computers in the classroom is highly overrated. From my observation kids end up using the computers to waste time, surf web, play games. Not that there isn't learning going on. But more often detracts from the lesson that is being taught.
Two comments. One, I don't get it, why aren't we targeting an OLPC for the US? Why only 3rd world countries? Personally, I'd love to have a 100 dollar laptop to toss around and be generally mean to. I was all for the 200 dollar program where I get one, and I send one to one of Sally Struther's kids. 2nd, why not just run windows 2000 on this thing? I've gotten 2000 to run acceptably on machines with far lower minimum specs than this. (Granted it's not as 1337 as Linux, but a lot easier for non IT personel to run...i.e. middle school and K-school teachers).
There are a bunch of false assumptions with this review, not to mention Intel _must_ have put in quite a PR effort to get this story published.
1. The family "just using it."
I think there are enough admins here who understand that the OLPC will probably be delivered pre-configured.
2. So, wireless, much less a steady _Internet connection_ is widely available in developing nations?
The OLPC is getting destroyed quite publicly and there's nothing OLPC can do about it. They've been out-financed.
Today's lesson: Selling to governments without 10's of millions of dollars for bribes of all kinds (including campaign donations)doesn't happen. This is a text book case of what happens to anything innovative (read: new vendors) in government.
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
Maybe I'm wrong... Just saw the screen captures and that's what it looked like.
Anyway, it would seem smart for Microsoft to bundle in a 'gimped' version of Windows because of their already wide adoption, helping the third world and poor countries get a leg up into becoming Windows developers only helps them in the long term.
I guess the next generation of kids will just be Linux gurus and facilitate our whole moves into Linux for the home and enterprise. Time will tell, but the OLPC project is something that is going to get a LOT of kids excited about being "into computers". I would think that Microsoft would be following suit. Giving away their OS isn't that big a deal since everybody in the third world pirates it anyway.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
that is incorrect. Please refer to http://www.classmatepc.com/classmatepc-system-soft ware.html
This review makes me angry. Why the hell would you review something as though it were a consumer product for spoiled white kids who have two computers to choose from and who see if their children's version of "second life" works. OLPC is intended for kids who have one extremely endangered life and need to learn basic computer skills. The fact that they had to CALL a tech support place is the sign of Intel's failure. What, are kids in Africa going to walk 30 miles to a pay phone that they can't afford just to be put on hold and deal with call centers in Bangladesh? Are we trying to punish these poor kids?
STFU you stupid Slashbot. I hope you die a painful death.
Thank you for playing. Next!
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Most children in developing countries that are able to attend school are going to want more than 2 hours of use from a computer. They might have a place to plug it in once a day or maybe they won't. How are they supposed to deal with a constant need to plug in a laptop? The OLPC "charge-it-yourself" solution seems to be a much better fit for most of these kids.
I do think that the Itel offering would be great for developed countries where electrical power is available everywhere. $200/ student in public schools is quite a chunck of the per-head money that the school is alloted, but you could make up for it by triming back on other computing products. For example: Instead of buying/ upgrading current classroom computers @ approx $600 each you could get three of the Intel lappy's. If a clasroom was slated to get 4 new computers that would work out to 12 of the Itel machines. Even if evry kid didn't get their own 12 is much better than 4. I remember fighting to use an Apple IIe when we had only 6 of them for a class of 21 and the teacher insisted that papers must be typed.
Please go read up on the OLPC project.
Start with the mission statement:
OLPC is not, at heart, a technology program, nor is the XO a product in any conventional sense of the word. OLPC is a non-profit organization providing a means to an end--an end that sees children in even the most remote regions of the globe being given the opportunity to tap into their own potential, to be exposed to a whole world of ideas, and to contribute to a more productive and saner world community.
Q: why doesn't OLPC make a $100 laptop for the US Market?
A: That is not the purpose of the OLPC project. They do not have the resources nor the infrastructure to pursue such a commercial, non-humanitarian effort, nor the desire.
Q: Why do companies like Dell and Intel make a sub-$100 laptop for the US market?
A: There is very little profit in it.
I, for one, welcome our new preciousss classsmate overlordsss.
Nicholas Negroponte called Intel's move "predatory"
Huh? Isn't the point to get 'puters to the po' folks? Shouldn't the response be "the more the merrier?" Is Negroponte looking for monopoly control of this market? Intel has every right to do this.
Intel is NOT interested in providing computing access to underprivileged youths. They are interested in keeping 30Million children from learning to use AMD based devices which htey previously called a 'toy', a 'joke', and 'of little interest to Intel's business'. In short, they are scared they will loose money, and they are correct. Competition in the market is not bad. The practices Intel is employing to kill off a humanitarian effort to protect their bottom line is.
OLPC is a humanitarian project which is trying to provide educational devices to third world countries. These devices are 100% open (open hardware and software) with minimal maintainance. They are designed for the harsh environments and to have minimal environmental impact.
Intel at first dismissed and made fun of the project, then realized that it could be a threat to their business. Instead of developing a better product with humanitarian goals, they created a piece of closed hardware junk with huge environmental impacts. These devices are not designed for third world environments, have a 2 hour battery life, etc, etc, etc. They are being sold well below cost, and Intel is flying all over the world to the governments which approached OLPC and spending millions to sell these devices to them. Not out of a humanitarian effort, but as a business transaction. While on the surface this may seem like competition in an open market, that is just not the case.
OLPC is not a market driven business project. OLPC did not go to governments to sell their program, they announced the program and the governments came to them. In order to provide the devices cheaply, and allow the governments to develop the devices themselves, OLPC needs 3Mil units ordered. They were close to having that before Intel came along and started lobbying only these governments, and offering these junk replacements (internal cost estimate at $400, NOT the $200 under priced value, nor the $50 'introductory' price).
The sole purpose of this is a predatory act to stop an AMD based device from gaining acceptance. This also ignores the software effort. The hardware laptop is only 50% of the OLPC project. The other half is the revolutionary new operating system and GUI being developed as part of OLPC, specifically for child learning. Intel doesn't want to be bothered, because they are not in the business of providing a learning device, they are in the buisness of selling intel chips.
So yes its predatory. VERY predatory, because that is what the computer business is, and that is what Intel is. The stock holders and board members would not have it any other way. OLPC is something completely different, and is being hurt by their actions.
Is this bad for the children? Just look at the two devices, and I think you have your answer.
we, Slashdot, cannot die, there will always be others to take over, to annoy you more, to boldly go where no nerd has gone before!!!
Lighten up Nicholas if you really care about getting computers into the hands of kids. Competition should be welcome in this case. Now they should rebrand to One Type Of Laptop Per Child (OTOLPC)
The 60 minute documentary which is worth watching, the first few minutes made me feel smug and arrogant and better the the presenter, before I understood. Its worth watching.
The classmate & OLPC are only 2 of the alternatives you see a device from india that did look quite interesting. The OLPC is $175 hoping to be $100 in 2 years. You can see an awful lot of thought has gone into the device. Particularly the community networking without a central network. Every aspect has been thought about ;enviroment; interaction; look; security.
The intel involvement reminded me why I don't care. This was the first project I understood. I know what OLPC was trying to do, and then it became about business. This isn't about countries coming together to build/buy a machine on mass to save and share development costs. Intel are produced a cut down laptop that to sell at a loss to drive out the competition, competition that lives or dies on co-operation. A project Intel/Microsoft mocked before. Its a bit sick.
Its better not to care
Typical American School classroom: 30 Students all at basically the same level (grade wise) Computer lab available if not in classroom. Textbooks for every subject. Library full of reference books. Teacher and Assistant. Blackboard, overhead projector, audio/visual equipment. Electricity, desks and lights. Computer access at home. Typical Emerging Market school classroom: Lots of students. Teacher. Blackboard. OLPC is designed provide more than just a computer. It'll be a textbook, library, play video, link to scarce resources, link to the world. It can even be used by the parents of these kids to lookup agricultural processes, how to build a pump to get clean water, medical information, lobby the UN and world bank for money, info on micro loans, check to see if their government is lying to them.
Classsmate !
As soon as Intel have driven the OLPC out of the market, they will hatch some limp reason why their own product will no longer ship. These piddling margins don't interest the evil that is Intel -- so they'll kill that end of the market in order to preserve their margins up the other end. It's about time we boycotted these bastards.
"So since they live in deplorable condition they should be kept ignorant so it propagates to the next generation?"
You know I'd buy your argument, except for one small problem. Slashdot! Here we have a forum were everyone has all these technological gadgets, and internet access to die for. And what do we witness with all that? Ignorant, and uninformed comments. Spelling and math errors, not to mention all the other base mistakes. If technology can't do a thing for us, why do we expect it to do things for third-world countries?
Since when is Linux recomemded for the least technical users?
And frankly, anything beyond that is going to require an experimental user or some kind of tech support on any system.
Oh, and before you complain about multimedia on Linux being harder than other operating systems, I just had to install MPlayer on a Windows machine, since it was easier than battling with RealPlayer/Quicktime/Windows media player and codec hell.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
You are confusing OEM Windows with Windows. Toshiba went and installed those drivers for you when they installed Windows. If they preinstalled Linux you quite obviously, wouldn't have to install those drivers there, either.
Buying a laptop that works with Retail Windows is very difficult. Most require special drivers just to install it.So don't buy unsupported hardware?
Seriously, if Toshiba made Linux laptops, they'd integrate WIFI hardware that sucked less.FWIW, I've been using Linux as my only desktop operating system since 1994, and the trick is to buy hardware that is supported by Linux.
This isn't that difficult, as Linux has far superiour hardware support over every other operating system, but it means that if you're installing your own operating system, you're doing the job of the integrator, so it's your job to make sure the hardware works.
If you don't want to play integrator, don't: Dell is preloading Ubuntu today, and there are quite a few other OEMs that will sell you Ubuntu preloaded- including laptop makers.
But every time you blame this on Linux, to some you're just making yourself look more and more like a idiot, and to people who know less than you, you're just confusing.
Whatever script you run when you decide to switch WiFi on, just put it in your /etc/init.d and create symlinks in the appropriate runlevels! Or add to your rc.local, whatever you have. Or use KDE's autostart feature and put it in there.
Global warming is a cube.
Hate to break it to ya sunshine but *somebody* had to install "two proprietary drivers" on your Windows box too. You didn't have to because THE VENDOR DID IT. Guess what? Those new Ubuntu laptops from Dell? All the hardware in those will work right out of the box - why? Because THE VENDOR DID IT.
/. after all. :D
Want some fun? Get a PC, with a blank hard disk, then try installing Windows on it and see how far you get. I have to do this weekly at our facility. Most occasions a Linux distro (usually SLES/RHEL, occasionally Ubuntu/Debian) installs flawlessly. Often it's the storage controller (either SATA/SAS, U320 RAID and occasionally Fibre Channel) that halts the Windows install in its text-based stage before it's even begun copying files to disk!
Oh, not to mention the number of f**ktard manufacturers out there that make Windows drivers available only in floppy disk images for the machines they make WITH NO FLOPPY DRIVES. Most don't even have an FDD header on the motherboard so take a trip to buy a USB FDD - because Windows can't load drivers at boot time from any other sort of media like CD's or USB keys like Linux can. (This has FINALLY been fixed in Longhorn).
As for WiFi (and a few other gadgets) there are a multitude of postings all over the net of totally lacking driver support in Vista for some devices. The only thing I had to do to get my laptop's (obsure as hell) WiFi card working was follow the instructions provided on the Ubuntu wiki and the whole process took a little over 5 minutes. (Yes, I still found that "scary" - I'm a hardware geek, software is some form of arcane black magic to me). It's the only device that didn't work out of the box and I have to re-do this every time I upgrade the kernel. The fault lays squarely at the feet of the hardware vendor for not making drivers available and not the community who have done a darn fine job of making their own.
If you are waiting to switch because you "still see areas where if it were "...just a little better"..." then I suspect you probably never will, because you will always find some little reason not to.
Sorry if it feels like I'm stomping on your toes. It is
Why bother with non third world based comparisons involving OLPC? All regular teachers are obviously computer incompetent, as I recall from my ninth grade prank (I crashed all but one of the computers in the school simultaneously, then rebooted them with altered boot screens, shortly followed by an infinite net send). The third world children will obviously be capable of basic use and such of the computer, with the goal being to get them a computer. Though, Intel does seem to have a predatory attitude.
The point is that jumping through some hoops that it does work on the Toshiba. With some limitations. And with some advanced knowledge on my part. With a little bit of work Ubuntu could be made smart enough to tell me that the only way my machine will work completely is to possibly install the restricted drivers. Not a difficult thing to add. And certainly makes for a better experience for the novice.
You can be as defensive as you want about Linux and going about finding just the right hardware for the operating system. When I solve problems with hardware I try to solve my problem, by hardware that works for me, that is right for me. My computer choice should be based on my needs not the operating systems limitations.
Useful information. And something that the notice would never figure out.
I have fairly good knowledge of Linux and might figure this out eventually. I want to see Linux be as easy to use as the other two operating systems. Install. Boot. Login. Use.
I'm not saying Linux is a poor operating system. I'm saying it needs to be possible to be used by novice users without them having to even know there are startup scripts or runlevels. It's great to know that stuff when you are a computer hacker. It's not so great for the masses to have to learn this.
And where this is ON TOPIC the article very clearly states that they could not connect to the network without logging on as ROOT. My experience with the same frustration of connecting to the network is entirely on topic.
cheap PC's are useful for poorer nations this is true what I don't understand it shouldn't they have running water, roof over there heads, and electricity first before they have a computer? it just seems like its the wrong order I mean lets fix the basics first and worry about computers later! its not much help to have a computer if you starving to death! I suppose you could sell it? but thats about it? ether that or a Nigerian scammer!
The review seemed selective, but I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt. (Having said that, I recently worked for a place that paid the Wall Street Journal to run an "article" for them, so I tend to be more skeptical than I used to be.)
First, if the laptop is aimed at overseas users, is the technical support going to be capable of handling that?
Second, also for overseas use, this will be sent to people who have never seen a computer - big or otherwise - and are probably unfamiliar with the notion of GUIs or possibly even typing. In fact, you can't rely on anything we take for granted being known. Some of it probably will, but you can't know which bits for which people. Is the interface culturally-neutral?
Third, two hours doesn't seem like a lot, when the nearest wall socket in Africa might be several week's walk. Is there an alternative power system? Doesn't matter what - solar cells, power crank, whatever. Without power, it's a lump of plastic-coated spare parts.
Fourth, how is the internationalization? IIRC, Hebrew and Chinese are written right to left - does the typing tutor know this? Are the desktop icons themable to something meaningful in each culture? Did you look to see that the SIL packages and fonts for internationalization were there?
Fifth, you mention wireless issues. But this would likely have been in a home with a wireless access point, or near a metro-provided WAP. This would be pretty useless in a school with no WAP, but only laptops. That would also be useless for mobile populations, where connections between groups will be at indeterminate times and places, but will need to be recognized and supported whenever they exist.
Even in England, you have over a hundred thousand "Travellers" who would benefit from dynamic wireless routing, Mobile IP and NEMO support. Is the wireless support for these sorts of things there?
Lastly, there's the durability. Three kids in a suburban, air-conditioned home is one thing. Whether you are talking about English Travellers, Mexican street kids or Tibetan Sherpas, the climates are more extreme, the stresses are infinitely worse, and the availability of replacements is next to zero.
In the real world, you are looking at external temperatures ranging from -40 to +120. Usually not on the same day, but that can happen. You are looking at shocks that could exceed 6G. Water won't be a spilled glass of coca cola, it's more likely to be monsoon season. The case won't be so much scratched by bumping into a wall as it will be stabbed by the occasional 6' mugger's knife.
When you get into the real-world situations, where "ruggedized" is really pushed to the limits, will this machine really stand up to the punishments it will receive? Or is it merely going to be a way for Intel to pocket some cash, with the customer ending up both financially and intellectually the poorer for it?
All I ask of reviewers, OLPC, Intel or any other person involved is to convince me. Why me, in particular? Because I'm demanding but stay within the limits of what is practical, and am knowledgeable enough to set the limits to what is practical. So can many others - I'm nothing special - it's that I'm posting a set of measurable benchmarks and criteria, and that could theoretically be useful.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You are dead right.
Reminds me of sitting on a flight from LA to Chicago. I was reading a magazine and inside the mag, was a letter from the CEO of that airline asking us to donate awards miles to help children fly to hospitals for treatment. It was a nicely written letter and it sounded like a noble cause but as I was reading this, all I could think was.....why couldn't the kid fly in the empty seat next to me?
(attibute: David Cross)
I have read many of the replies so far, and as a person that lives in the U.S. and has traveled to so called developing countries a handful of times, I feel that I can comfortably say a few things. First not everyone in developing countries live in mud shacks and are covered with flies like you see in the "save the children" tv spots. There are many towns and villages that have at least some electricity, the problem is this electricity is often inconsistant and will go out for minutes or hours at a time. A 2 hour battery life while not perfect is certainly enough to keep things running during a typical 3rd world middle of the afternoon power outage. People that think these computers will be sent home with the students any time in the next few decades are in for a surprise, they will be locked away in the school house next to the 40 year old textbooks and will be shared between at least 6 students. There are also many countries that fall between the so called Western standard of living and stereotypical developing world that could utilize a cheap rugged notebook computer.
Ike
Blackboard. OLPC is designed provide more than just a computer. It'll be a textbook, library, play video, link to scarce resources, link to the world. It can even be used by the parents of these kids to lookup agricultural processes, how to build a pump to get clean water, medical information, lobby the UN and world bank for money, info on micro loans, check to see if their government is lying to them.
That's all nice and well, looks good on paper and flows well on a university whiteboard. Has any study been done to show this is how these kids will use it in the wild? How will the teachers use them? It seems a whole lot of money is being spent but no one has shown what really happens other than saying what ought to happen. They're not the same thing.
In industry we'll do focus group studies with preproduction or similar devices. Often what you get is very very different than what was expected.
My mod points expired yesterday, but this is DEFINITELY worth bringing up. And not just first hand abuse should be worried about either. Someone posted a link in one of the Dell Ubuntu stories about how by giving Grandma Linux could lead to more sophisticated bot-nets. What about 1 billion Linux machines (that are more or less identical, so rinse and repeat if a zero day is found) in the hands of children? The sudden influx of networked machines would cause the potential for more and larger scale DDOS attacks.
In the end this might be a great thing, but I hope the OLPC crew, and everyone else jumping on that ship has plans on dealing with the potential side effects of all this new networked computing power 'out in the wild' if you will.
A libertarian shat on my carpet once. Claimed the free market would sort it out. -Ford Prefect(8777)
Will Intel let them have access to the code and the hardware specs? XO will. The reason to make that a point is that if this really is philanthropic, isn't it better to show them how to make a machine themselves rather than say "you can buy them off us"? If they make their own machines that interoperate with the XO/Classmate machine then they have learned how to enter in to the world market as a player rather than just a consumer.
I'm looking for a laptop which runs linux and has wifi / ethernet (all my work is done over SSH or VNC), and is as cheap as possible once those requirements are met -- both these seem great, but can I buy either yet? Even at an inflated price to subsidise educational discounts?
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
I run Windows XP on my desktop at home sometimes. I had to install two proprietary drivers to get accelerated video and support for the wifi. Windows XP does not install these by default. If I were a complete novice I'd have no idea that this would solve my problem nor would I know how to do it.
I have been trying Windows off and on for many years and still see areas where if it were "just a little better" I could replace my Linux with it.
You go left-to-right, rotate the page 180', then go right to left, rotate the page 180', and so on. This is the only script I know that does that, but there ARE a number of scripts which go left-to-right and right-to-left on alternate lines. Neither of these would be difficult to support in any system that already supports bidi.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Yes the OLPC and Classmate are not targeting homeless kids that need first to get some food. ...BUT...
There is still the problem of power.
Electricity is something you can find in the targeted population : they target population where the more basic needs (like food, shelter, medicine) are fulfilled and that now proceed to higher needs (education, etc.)
But STABLE electricity is not something that is as widespread.
I mean, even countries in eastern Europe after the political change, had such frequent outage, even if they weren't exactly "third-world".
You can see developing cities, that aren't that much poor, where the power still drops from time to time and there are occasional power outages. Such unreliable power may not be critical for some usages. For food storage, even if some home fridge may preserve food not so good if there are 1-2 hours outage everyday other day, big cold storage as found in shops, can still maintain temperature low enough so the food don't rot.
But it is absolutely critical for computers. If power can miss for a couple of hours every other day, and you have a low battery span under 1 hour, that's bad, because you're going to be constantly interrupted in your work, or risk loosing data.
A computer targeted toward developing countries needs to have a very long battery life, and some kind of auxiliary power source (like the planned foot-krank on the OLPC powerbrick) which can be handy in case of power outage or while on the move.
With a tested life of 2 hours (according to TFA), the Classmate definitely doesn't fulfill this requirement.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
OLPC seems like a righteous project, so this may not apply herein, but not every not-for-profit group is as with it. Very few people proposing competing with a non-profit, but just because something is free doesn't mean that it's any good. There's no reason not to demand excellence from our charities as well as our corporations, and unfortunately a lot of charities own monopolies in their fields under the assumption that one group doing something is good enough. Privatization likely isn't the only answer, but competition itself isn't inherently a bad thing.
A great way to raise money for the project. And if it had a fast enough connection to remote a desktop, what more laptop would I need? Sounds great.
The only reason I can thing of for why they haven't done this yet: They'd have to release a streamlined version of windows without all the usual bloat, and hackers would very quickly turn it into the Windows that the rest of us always wanted.
Tech Public Policy stuff
You talk about the 1st world, and you make yourself part of the problem. Yeah, scammers are illegal and immoral. A lot of what goes on on wall street (and its equivalent in other countries) is immoral, and likely illegal, if somebody with enough money were willing to prosecute it
Money is like pus. It tends to accumulate around social injuries. That's why sick companies like Microsoft have so much of it. Why do you want more?
as a red herring.
Or is it the purloined letter?
There's a lot of worry about XOs ending up in the black market. With the iNTEL's low-price, low-performance model on the market, the black-market value of the XO might actually remain low enough to make it not worth stealing candy from babies.
Well, if the Classmate cannot solve educational issues for third world country children then at least it could be the anchor point of a humorous movie.
From reading TFA, all the comments there and most of the comments here, I am getting the understanding that the OLPC is aiming for the lower common denominator. If it can work in the worst conditions and provides for the most impoverished situations, then it would certainly work for any other situation. The Classmate is providing for a subset of that all-encompassing goal, but I think there are some situations where villages/towns do have power and proximity to an established or developing infrastructure and could utilize the Classmate.
Given the choice, though, the OLPC promises are most definitely outclassing the Classmate: longer battery life, recharge w/o an outlet, sealed/weatherproof, more affordable.
Right now, novices have an easier time installing Ubuntu than they do Windows, so I don't have the foggiest idea what you are possibly complaining about.No, that's exactly what systems integrators do.
When I go buy another 30 servers, I don't purchase whatevers the newest or the cheapest, but the hardware I have found the most reliable and that I am the most comfortable with. The fact that AMD makes both compatible and incompatible hardware for my network is irrelevent. I do some of the duties of a systems integrator to make certain that I'm happy.
If you're going to do some of the duties of a system integrator, I commend you. Comparing your lack of experience doing that with Ubuntu with Toshiba's great experience doing it with Windows is ridiculous.You already noted that Ubuntu does support your hardware with third party drivers, and are probably aware that Windows does support your hardware with third party drivers, and yet somehow you think the way Ubuntu is doing it is "wrong" by letting you download it using synaptic, versus Microsofts way where they send you to a different manufacturer's site for each piece of hardware.
You won't say it's Windows's fault that broadcomm shipped unsigned drivers and needs to disable driver signing as part of their bluetooth installation, but you'll say it's Linux's fault that Toshiba used the winmodem-equiv of wifi.
Real users aren't like you. They're more than happy to blame Linksys for making it confusing for them to find hardware support information, but people like you confuse them and say it's Linux's fault.
Check out bogolight.com for a tech device that actually reduces misery in the third world (nytimes article will last for a while: here