OLPC Mass Production Begins

chris_mahan writes to tell us that mass production of the $100 laptop is finally being ramped up. "Hardware suppliers have been given the green light to ramp-up production of all of the components needed to build millions of the low-cost machines. Previously, the organization behind the scheme said that it required orders for 3m laptops to make production viable. The first machines should be ready to put into the hands of children in developing countries in October 2007. "There's still some software to write, but this is a big step for us," Walter Bender, head of software development at One Laptop per Child (OLPC), told the BBC News website."

Comments

So, can we buy civvie models yet?

[jollyreaper]

I want to support OLFM, One Laptop For Me.

Re:So, can we buy civvie models yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, me too... BTW the BBC also has a good feature guide (at least by the standards of the mainstream media)

Re:So, can we buy civvie models yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was about to say, since I'm a child at heart. More importantly, a child at heart without a laptop!

Re:So, can we buy civvie models yet?

[lixee]

I want to support OLFM, One Laptop For Me.

Patience. The Asus EEE is due in a few weeks. It beats the pants out of this one.

Re:So, can we buy civvie models yet?

[rcw-work]

Patience. The Asus EEE is due in a few weeks. It beats the pants out of this one.

Except for two things (for me anyway): a display readable in direct sunlight, and extended battery life (the presenter at LinuxFest Northwest earlier this year claimed he left an XO running for 24 hours once while it was displaying the camera's output on the screen).

Re:So, can we buy civvie models yet?

[Hatta]

Patience. The Asus EEE is due in a few weeks. It beats the pants out of this one.

Is it as durable? I want to be able to kick it through the mud and still get a shell.

Re:So, can we buy civvie models yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what happens when your inner child never comes back from the ice-cream truck.

Re:So, can we buy civvie models yet?

[jollyreaper]

>>Patience. The Asus EEE is due in a few weeks. It beats the pants out of this one.

Sure, taunt me with your vague hints and intimations. So I looked it up.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/05/asus-new-eee-pc -701-joins-the-laptop-lite-fray-with-a-bang/

Asus' new Eee PC 701 joins the laptop-lite fray with a bang
Posted Jun 5th 2007 12:41PM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Laptops

Asus and Intel seem to be bridging the gap between the fairly humanitarian efforts of the OLPC project and their own Classmate PC efforts, and the recent rash of mini-laptop attempts such as Palm's Foleo and VIA's NanoBook. Specs and launch plans aren't entirely nailed down, but this new Eee PC line has quite a bit going for it, even as crowded as this market is getting. The 7-inch ultraportable is based on an unnamed Intel chipset, and runs regular Windows XP or Linux without a problem, but really shines in its "easy" mode that strips things down to a barebones OS mainly for internet browsing (sound familiar, Foleo?). Asus didn't even leave Palm alone with its Wii comparisons either, stating that the Eee name, which stands for "easy to learn, easy to play, easy to work," also conveniently conjures images of the Wii game console, which is known for being novice-friendly. The Eee line will kick things off with the Eee PC 701, which will sport 802.11b/g WiFi, Ethernet and a modem for connectivity, along with a webcam, 512MB of RAM and a 4, 8 or 16GB flash drive for speedy, reliable storage. The real kicker is that prices for the 2 pound laptop are supposed to start as low as $200, and the Intel / Asus duo won't be aiming this at massive governmental purchases, but instead will be offering it to consumers through traditional retail channels. That's the real kicker. My several year old Tungsten E, purchased as an end of model closeout after the E2's came out, was around $250 and I still had to buy an external keyboard, no built-in wireless supported.

This is really killer. I hope they can meet their own targets on this one.

Re:So, can we buy civvie models yet?

[renoX]

Sure but currently to have this nice display and nice low power hardware, you have to use a keyboard designed for children (small keys).
Ok you can probably carry another keyboard with you, but that makes a not very portable laptop.

So in a year or so...

[Stanistani]

We'll shortly know how this massive social experiment works out. If it's even half as successful as they planned, Negroponte and folks deserve a Nobel.

Re:So in a year or so...

[cromar]

Hell yeah!

Re:So in a year or so...

[elrous0]

Call it schadenfreude, but I'm going to laugh my ass off if this grand noble effort just results in a slew of new ID thieves and scammers in Africa, a Muslim backlash against internet immorality, and a thriving black market in OLPC laptops stolen from kids or redirected by corrupt officials. Throwing laptops at kids in shithole countries may sound like a great idea, but that's making a LOT of assumptions (that they'll only use them for good, that the officials in their countries will actually distribute them rather than sell them, etc.).

Re:So in a year or so...

[Dr. Evil]

I look forward to exploiting this low-cost labour for click-farms.

Re:So in a year or so...

[Stanistani]

Walter Bender: "Kiss my shiny philanthropic ass!"

Re:So in a year or so...

[lawpoop]

So in a year or so... We'll shortly know how this massive social experiment works out. In a year or so? What exactly do you expect to happen in a year or so? The end of starvation and civil wars in Africa?

I think a more reasonable time frame is 10 or 15 years. I remember using BBSes in the mid 90s and dreaming about an internet connection and one of those funky email addresses with an '@' symbol in it. I would never, *never*, *NEVER* in a million years predicted technologies such as Wikipedia or Bittorrent. Nobody did -- not Bill Gates, not Negroponte -- not any of the Powerful Old Men in computers. It takes a generation of new kids who can think outside the box and have the free time and audacity to try something that everyone knows could never work. Even now very few wikipedia proponents would ever say that they thought it would be as successful as it is.

If millions of kids spend their formative years with a completely hackable, programmable, peer-networked computer, we are going to see a complete revolution of computing technology. It doesn't matter that they have brown skin, speak no English, or live in a jungle hut. They will do amazing things with programs and computers that the last generation would never think of. If there are millions of OLPCs distributed, the internet will be totally different 20 years from now.

Re:So in a year or so...

[gradedcheese]

Uruguay is a shithole country, eh?

Re:So in a year or so...

[jeevesbond]

Throwing laptops at kids in shithole countries may sound like a great idea, but that's making a LOT of assumptions (that they'll only use them for good, that the officials in their countries will actually distribute them rather than sell them, etc.).

Whereas you are quite happy to assume everyone that lives in a developing nation is corrupt, evil and not worthy of a chance at a better life. Of course all of us middle-class people in the West, our business leaders and politicians are all whiter-than-white. We're incorruptible!

Ever heard of a self fulfilling prophesy? Treat someone like a criminal and you'll generally force them to act like one: but try to help, do some good and a lot of people will respond. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the OLPC--and projects like it--will decrease the amount of crime in developing nations. People will be empowered to work on worthwhile projects, and it will build communication bridges with people in the West.

Wake up and stop dehumanising the rest of the world. There are arseholes everywhere, but there are plenty of good people too. Yes some OLPCs will appear on e-Bay, no doubt a few will be used to run scams (although most scammers already have computers), but the vast majority will be used for education. The benefits far outweigh any potential problems, it's really sad people like you can't see that and insist on branding whole nations of millions of people as scum (probably without having ever even visited the continent).

Re:So in a year or so...

[DogDude]

Negroponte and folks deserve a Nobel.

For what, making cheap shit to sell to poor people? So then, what does Wal-Mart deserve, 10 Nobel Prizes?
All this guy is doing is selling cheap stuff. There's simply nothing at all interesting or remarkable about what this guy's doing.

Re:So in a year or so...

[orasio]

Throwing laptops at kids in shithole countries may sound like a great idea, but that's making a LOT of assumptions (that they'll only use them for good, that the officials in their countries will actually distribute them rather than sell them, etc.). I don't think my country is a shithole country. It's a beautiful place to live, but a somewhat bad place to try and make a living.
I don't know where you live, but unless you live in _some_ countries in Europe, your country probably falls better under the standard definition of what is a shithole, than my country.
Aside from that, we don't have enough money to give equal education to all our kids.
We have too few teachers for them, and giving the kids access to better forms of communication, and all the reading material they need, I thing we are taking a big step towards making education in Uruguay more fair than it is right now.

Re:So in a year or so...

[goldspider]

...and if it doesn't, simply chalk it up to the untold billions of dollars already flushed down the third world toilet.

After all, it's not results that matter, but the perception that you are trying.

Re:So in a year or so...

[Stanistani]

Remember the Peace Corps?
Look down at your sig.

Re:So in a year or so...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think my country is a shithole country. It's a beautiful place to live, but a somewhat bad place to try and make a living. Exactly.

And it's a bad place to try and make a living, mostly, because of the exploitation and resource-draining the third world countries suffered through history from the developed countries. Your "glorious" and advanced nations are "developed" because you sucked the blood out of our "shithole" countries, helped by the corruption and greed of local politicians.

So shut the frag up, you fat "developed" citizens, this is a great project, stop bashing it!

(The developed countries are the responsible for an incredible amount of ecological havoc, too, so your model is not something all "underdeveloped" countries want to emulate. We don't want to be like you. It would kill the planet.)

Re:So in a year or so...

[Stanistani]

He's trying (he might yet fail) to give people the means to more easily educate themselves; to change the dynamics of the educational system in some countries; to enable collaboration between children in said systems through an innovation in applied technology; and give educators a useful tool.

Not precisely what you said.

Re:So in a year or so...

[Stanistani]

In a year or so we'll see if this gets scaled up, if the distributions systems get the laptops where they're intended to go, and whether kids are being taught successfully with them. By no means will we know a final answer.

That, as you said, will take a decade or two.

Re:So in a year or so...

[DogDude]

He's doing it with the biggest PR splash he could possibly make. He's a shameless self-promoter. It's obvious that this project isn't about education. If it were, he'd be busy opening up and staffing actual schools taught by actual local people, not selling plastic gadgets to 3rd world nations. The effect of this project will be negligible, at best for the targets of this "project".

Re:So in a year or so...

[lawpoop]

Well, my personal prediction is that it will be 'successful', but not in the way that the OLPC planners will want it to be. The OLPC project is designed to be some kind of textbook replacement for kids in poor villages going to school. That will be moderately successful in a few areas.

My prediction is that most of these OLPCs will be 're-purposed' by adults and young, budding geeks in small villages. It's like when cell phones came into rural Africa. Mining companies saw it was too expensive to run phone lines all throughout the jungle, so they threw up cell towers. Villagers got a hold of second-hand cell phones, and low-and-behold, they started lining up buyers to buy their crops as they were harvesting them in the field, instead of dragging them all the way to market only to have them rot in the hot sun.

So the success won't be village school children learning from them, but the amazing new programs and communication technologies that both adults and children use *for their own purposes*, instead of doing what we think they should be doing with them.

One of the programming languages that is coming with the OLPC is Smalltalk. That means there will be a new generation of millions 3rd world LISP-like hackers spread all throughout the world. This will be their first computer language. Not c, not BASIC, not visual basic. This, I predict, will lead to amazing new programs.

Re:So in a year or so...

[Stanistani]

You could be right. I hope you're not.

I'm crossing my fingers and hoping this will spur a new learning curve.

Re:So in a year or so...

[mrchaotica]

One of the programming languages that is coming with the OLPC is Smalltalk. That means there will be a new generation of millions 3rd world LISP-like hackers spread all throughout the world.

Since when was Smalltalk LISP-like? They're not even the same paradigm, for crying out loud (huge Common Lisp specification with tacked-on OO notwithstanding)!

Re:So in a year or so...

[lawpoop]

Sorry, I got mixed up. I was thinking of scheme, which is a LISP-derivative.

Re:So in a year or so...

[The One and Only]

Whereas you are quite happy to assume everyone that lives in a developing nation is corrupt, evil and not worthy of a chance at a better life.

No, just their dictators and politicians. And who isn't to say these countries aren't impoverished specifically because of corruption, and not the other way around? In reality, it may be a feedback cycle--corruption leads to further poverty, and poverty leads to further corruption. But as North Korea has proven to us over and over again, simply sending aid to a corrupt regime fixes nothing and strengthens the regime.

Re:So in a year or so...

[mrchaotica]

Ah, yes. Having Scheme on there along with Smalltalk (and maybe LOGO?) would be awesome.

Re:So in a year or so...

[oohshiny]

Call it schadenfreude, but I'm going to laugh my ass off if this grand noble effort just results in a slew of new ID thieves and scammers in Africa, a Muslim backlash against internet immorality,

So, in different words, there are going to be some people that are going to be emulating US con-men and US religious fundamentalists. So what?

Throwing laptops at kids in shithole countries may sound like a great idea, but that's making a LOT of assumptions (that they'll only use them for good, that the officials in their countries will actually distribute them rather than sell them, etc.).

I suspect that, on average, laptops in what you call "shithole countries" are going to be used a lot more productively than in developed nations; thanks to TV and the web, people around the world have seen how the rich countries live, they want their share, and many of them are going to work hard to get it.

Re:So in a year or so...

[Snerdley]

While the term "shithole country" is a bit degrading, I actually have a bit of skepticism about this myself.

I recently got a real eye opening while watching this documentary from the History Channel about Liberia. It shows how horribly wrong well-meaning "social experiments" can go. I later checked out additional information about Liberia from PBS - America's Stepchild and Wikipedia - Liberia.

When society breaks down, all manner of tools become weapons. It will be interesting to see how these (quite powerful) tools are used.

Re:So in a year or so...

[Anonymous Coward]

Throwing laptops at kids in shithole countries No, they do not give them in the USA, sorry.

Re:So in a year or so...

[Anonymous Coward]

What you have expressed is nice, HOWEVER, I happen to live in a third-world country (Colombia) and the MAIN reason why it is a shithole in the first place, is that MOST people are ABSOLUTE FUCKING SCUM.

Some people, I don't know, must be genetic or something, but it is indeed amazing. Nearly 500 years since the place was colonized, and what do they have to show for it?

Watch the news.

You would have to move down here for six months or so to know what I am referring to. They do NOTHING to help themselves, to change.

All they care about is drinking, dancing, not working, not studying, fucking off, and just being absolute pondscum. They think it is cute, they think it is funny.

Amazing.

Re:So in a year or so...

[tehcyder]

Yes some OLPCs will appear on e-Bay

And they'll only be bought by the sort of people who whine on slashdot about how corrupt poor countries are...

Re:So in a year or so...

[TheSync]

That means there will be a new generation of millions 3rd world LISP-like hackers spread all throughout the world. This will be their first computer language. Not c, not BASIC, not visual basic. This, I predict, will lead to amazing new programs.

Like the world needs a billion more people saying "It would be much easier in Lisp, look:"

((((((((((CAR((MAPCAR '(LAMBDA(x) CDR(SETQ CAR(CDR(DEFUN BITEME CAR(CDR(CAR(CDR)))))))))))))))))))

Re:So in a year or so...

[foo fighter]

How do these fabled African cell towers get electricity?

It seems to me (naively, I'm guessing) that if you can run electricity to wherever, you probably could have run a phone line along with it.

Re:So in a year or so...

[syphax]

It's probably called a diesel generator. Fuel comes in on the same road that carried the tower equipment.

Re:So in a year or so...

[lawpoop]

Whatever way the mining camps and buildings get electricity, I guess.

Re:So in a year or so...

[grimover]

> How do these fabled African cell towers get electricity?

I can't say for sure, but a friend of mine is a solar power engineer and his corporation's best-selling third world product is solar-powered cellular base stations (with batteries and "sleep" modes for smooth 24-hour operation). They are built to last 20 years with annual maintenance, and are usually placed in locations so difficult to get to (like mountain ledges) that petty thievery is unlikely (and the major thieves want the cellular system working). Good thing he's a mountain climber...

Their second best selling product is solar-powered desalination plants, BTW (which have both battery and diesel backup). Solar power plants run third and have to be customized to the environment and needs of each customer; he mentioned that its often much cheaper to have a solar-diesel hybrid plant than try and build the array and batteries to support 24x7x365 peak usage -- solar-battery arrays cover a bit above average usage and the diesel kicks in beyond that.

Blah

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of these people would probably better off getting $100 which is like 5 years wages where they live.

Re:Blah

[fr4nk]

They seem to like the ability to browse porn too.

Re:Blah

[LionKimbro]

I think the idea is that if kids learn how to code, they'll get far more benefit than getting a handout.

Re:Blah

[d3ac0n]

Heh, I was going to post that link, but you beat me to it.

Personally, I suggest a new slogan:

"OLPC, Bringing Internet Porn to horny third world pubescent boys!"

They could include a complimentary subscription to playboy online and a safer sex care pack!

In all seriousness, Come on. Did anyone REALLY think that these things would be used for only "educational" purposes? Hell, I'll bet good money that the majority of them hardly EVER end up used for education. Unless you consider learning new sexual techniques "education".

Re:Blah

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah they'll be able to code viruses to steal peoples ID's and hack the internets so they dont have to come up with 419 scams!

Re:Blah

[metlin]

THAT IS THERE FUCKING PROBLEM

Quite obviously, western-style education hasn't worked out for you.

Re:Blah

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I can see it now.
 
"We used to starve almost to death, daily. But since I got this laptop, I've been eating arrays night and day!"
 
This either solves nothing, or next to nothing. Either way, your time and money is better spent elsewhere.

Re:Blah

[Rude Turnip]

I think they'll be in for a surprise when they learn that women in other parts of the world aren't mutilated via clitorectomy. So, there's your educational benefit right there.

Re:Blah

[madseal]

Well ... that or take the $3000 for 30 kids and you can probably afford to construct a building,enough used books to teach them all the way through high school and enough left over that you might be able to pay for lunch for them as well for a year.

Re:Blah

[DragonWriter]

Most of these people would probably better off getting $100 which is like 5 years wages where they live.

In what is, IIRC, the largest launch country, Brazil, median income for black women (the worst off racial/gender mix) is $156/month. (source)

Heck, even Rwanda (which is one of the poorest nations that may get it early, through Libya purchasing it for them) has an average per capita annual income of $206 (source), over an order of magnitude higher than you suggested for "most" OLPC recipients.

Re:Blah

[markov_chain]

Heh, I was going to post that link, but you beat meat to it.

There, fixed that for ya.

Re:Blah

[markov_chain]

I don't know, $3000 is a lot easier to pocket than a bunch of purpose-made laptops with all kinds of activation features.

Re:Blah

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually overpopulation and foreign intervention is their problem. Lack of food is the symptom. Giving them more food is like trying to smother a forest fire with dry kindling. If they are having kids, obviously they are eating enough to menstrate! If we stopped the fucking foreign aid, the women would stop menstrating, and BOOM: population drop. I'm so sick of naive liberals falling for the engineered problem of starving african children. It's a fucking con to get the world governments to syphon tax dollars away from me, so they can make the problem worse, so they can get more money. It's a pyramid scheme with the 1st world tax payers and 3rd world poverty class eating the loss.

They never would have expanded their populations to current levels if it wasn't for women making puppy dog eyes at congress or whatever the fuck inspired the most harmful of the meddling. Their governments never would have become as mismanaged and corrupt as they are if it wasn't for FUCKED UP practices used to exploit those countries natural resources.

But of course, FURTHER foreign involvment is going to be the magic bullet that finally works! As Bush would say: a "surge" in foreign meddling! Good plan! If something is going poorly for you: you obviously aren't doing it severly enough! Pray more...

Re:Blah

[that this is not und]

A school building full of used books is more difficult to 'pocket' than a bunch of laptops.

Re:Blah

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, it's about communication and culture, something without which your $100 would be wasted in 2 hours.
Ever heard about the old story of the fishing rod and the fish?
If a poor asks for something, give him a tool for learning things that will pay much more than the money you could hand at that moment. Only stupids and people who actually want to profit from the poor give final products instead of tools and knowledge when they're not absolutely necessary.

Re:Blah

[tepples]

THEY CANNOT COMPILE THEMSELVES SOME GRAIN They can if they compile a program that helps them manage a family farm more efficiently.

When's the "commercial" version coming?

[Ant P.]

IIRC they were saying something about a "buy 3 get 1" thing a while back so anyone could get one. Are they still doing that?

Re:When's the "commercial" version coming?

[charlieo88]

Nope. Scroll down to pledgebank.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Retail

Re:When's the "commercial" version coming?

[Selfbain]

This probably suffered due to lack of awareness. I would have signed up for it but I didn't hear about it until now. I want one of these damn things and I'm more than willing to pay $300 or so for it.

Yay! One PornTop Per Person!

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally, children in first world countries will be able to access pornography!

Oh wait... nevermind.

price

[dotpavan]

FTA: "The XO currently costs $176 (£90) although the eventual aim is to sell the machines to governments for $100 (£50)."

PS: have the queues started yet? with waiting lines being "in", for xbox, iphone and HarryPotter books lately..

kids in the states

[jshriverWVU]

Will kids in the states also be eligible for these? Think WV, Kentucky, or any poor state in central US. Or is it limited to just 3rd world countries like Mexico, Africa, etc

Re:kids in the states

[Virgil Tibbs]

they are ONLY on sale to Government/non-profit entitys. pester your local government about them

Re:kids in the states

[Xybre]

Africa isn't a country. Oh wait, you went to American public schools? I feel your pain.

Re:kids in the states

[kevin_conaway]

Will kids in the states also be eligible for these? Think WV, Kentucky, or any poor state in central US. Or is it limited to just 3rd world countries like Mexico, Africa, etc

Africa is not a country.

Mexico is not 3rd world

To answer your question, somewhat

Re:kids in the states

[CastrTroy]

Since it seems that there are so many people interested in getting one of these for themselves, would it be possible to set up your own non-profit to distribute them to regular people? Possible things include charging extra and donating funds to the OLPC project or other such organizations. Seems like they refuse to sell them to end users, but why miss out on a market that is obviously there? Especially when it means increased production, which will bring down production costs, and allow extra funds to bring down the cost for the 3rd world countries.

Re:kids in the states

[squale]

Neither Mexico nor "Africa" is a third world country

Re:kids in the states

[Anonymous Coward]

Mexico is almost universally considered to be "third world".

Re:kids in the states

[jshriverWVU]

Since people are being pretty harse. From a lot of references I've read over the years most refer to Mexico as a 3rd world country. As for africa, I was referring to it as a continent since pretty much every country (except for Egypt) seems to be at the developmental state. Besides the nit picking, the point is more important. I'm glad they're doing this, as other have posted, it'll give a kid some way to break behind their social barrier. But we should allow kids in the US the same opportunity.

Re:kids in the states

[br4nd0nh3at]

Great response your schooling is paying off.

Re:kids in the states

[DragonWriter]

Will kids in the states also be eligible for these?

There is no such thing as individual "eligibility" for the laptops, so the question is incoherent. Yes, the US Department of Education is as free as any other national education ministry to purchase the laptops for distribution on a one-per-child basis, though of course they aren't the principal target market and the OLPC feature set is designed around use in a very different environment than one of the most developed nations in the world.

Re:kids in the states

[hvrbyte]

I don't know about most of Africa being in a developmental state.

Being from Africa originally (South Africa specifically), and having been to quite a few places there, I wonder at your choice of Egypt.

South Africa in particular has an economy nearly twice the size of Egypt and is pretty much regarded as the most developed (both socially and economically) country on the continent (see Wikipedia), and is something like #28 in the world when listing countries by GDP.

In fact, Egypt is #51 on the list, behind Nigeria and Algeria (two other African countries).

Africa isn't as dark as everyone seems to believe. Some places like Botswana, Gabon, the Seychelles and a couple of other ones are actually quite nice. Granted, they don't compare to the US or (most of) Europe, but applying western definitions to them just doesn't work.

Re:kids in the states

[mrchaotica]

Mexico is not 3rd world

Is Mexico a member of NATO? Is Mexico a former Warsaw Pact country? No?

Then yes, Mexico is considered "third-world" (in the original sense), just like Switzerland, Japan, and a whole bunch of other countries.

Re:kids in the states

[lordtoran]

Or is it limited to just 3rd world countries like Mexico, Africa, etc Mexico is a 2nd world country and Africa is a continent. I think you need to learn more about geography.

Re:kids in the states

[BertieBaggio]

Aw, give the lad a break. Even Drew Carey made that mistake.

"It's also a big continent if you're a geographer."

Re:kids in the states

[tepples]

Will kids in the states also be eligible for these? Think WV, Kentucky, or any poor state in central US. they are ONLY on sale to Government/non-profit entitys. Does a state such as West Virginia or Kentucky count as a government entity for this purpose?

Re:kids in the states

[Anonymous Coward]

God damnit! Africa is not a country you stupid cocksucker!

So who gets theirs first?

[dashslotter]

The kids in the factory that makes them?

Re:So who gets theirs first?

[metlin]

Ouch.

That probably hit a raw nerve somewhere.

Re:So who gets theirs first?

[Anonymous Coward]

haha. clever.

Imagine that!!

[TheDarkener]

An initiative to better the world.

You don't see that much these days.

Re:Imagine that!!

[Neil Watson]

Wouldn't building better water, road and electricity infrastructures be a better way to help the world? Most of the articles I read about OLPC mention Africa which is a place that often lacks the basic systems I just mentioned.

Re:Imagine that!!

[TheDarkener]

Wouldn't building better water, road and electricity infrastructures be a better way to help the world? Most of the articles I read about OLPC mention Africa which is a place that often lacks the basic systems I just mentioned.

Better? I don't know if you can even put them in the same category.

The fact is, these computer hardware manufacturers and the OSS community are pulling their own resources together for the vision of bringing technology and information to parts of the world that don't yet have it.

How about asking the major electricity/water industry powers to pull together like Intel, AMD and others are doing to help better the world with respect to their specialties? I'm sure they have plenty of money to spend, and THEY are the experts in those fields, not AMD/Intel/others in the technology market.

This is very exciting news

[cromar]

OLPC has so much potential for communication and education; I can't wait till this project really gets off the ground.

Will it...

[perlhacker14]

Will it still be used for illegal activities and porn?

Re:Will it...

[yvajj]

When did porn become a bad word? Society's today seem to be fixated on how sex is bad for you.

I don't see how having access to porn should deter these users from eventually using it for learning. Its pretty much the same as when we first got access to computers and the internet (or in my day, bulletin boards). The first thing you do is look for porn, and once you've exhausted yourself, start learning to use the computer for other stuff.

As for illegal activity... the users who would normally gravitate towards this will do so whether they have access to these PCs or not.

Re:Will it...

[AndersOSU]

I think some time around 1837

Re:Will it...

[lordtoran]

Society's today seem to be fixated on how sex is bad for you. What are you talking about? Given that you don't live in some weird country in Northern America.

Re:Will it...

[tehcyder]

The first thing you do is look for porn, and once you've exhausted yourself, start learning to use the computer for other stuff.

But the supply of pr0n is effectively inexhaustible.

Poor child turns down OLPC computer

[fyoder]

"There's still some software to write, but this is a big step for us," Walter Bender, head of software development at One Laptop per Child (OLPC), told the BBC News website. " A 3rd world tyke expressed disinterest in the OLPC initiative, saying "Scratching figures in the dirt with a stick has always worked just fine for me. I'll consider getting an OLPC computer in a few years once they've worked out the bugs."

Re:Poor child turns down OLPC computer

[FreakWent]

That scares me; I hope they get the software ready in time, the quote, taken alone, bleeds a certain naivety.

We're making 3 million of these, and we'll have the software ready before October.

I assume that leaves around 2.5 months to plan, design, code, repeat(test-fix), deploy.

I hope it's not important code.

Re:Poor child turns down OLPC computer

[r00t]

The dirt has lots of bugs. The kid himself probably does too.

Re:Poor child turns down OLPC computer

[Stephen Ma]

The software is stored in flash memory, and the computer has automatic networking. Updating the software should be easy.

Better ways to spend money

[Anonymous Coward]

So how well does this work when someone is living in a grass hut in Africa and they do now have electricity. I guess they could eat the laptop because we all know a laptop is better then food. Also what is the benefit of this? A child has a lap top to use and learn on. My computer has never taught me anything just because it is on and running Linux or Window. It is the power to connect to the internet, download compilers and execute programs and do research online that has taught me. Will these children have the internet in there area or is this just a ti graphing calculator with a bigger keyboard and a few applications. Why not take the $100 and go to that child's town and make a change. Say you have 100 children in a town so, $10,000, take that money and help them redesign the town so crops can grow better. If someone handed me the controls to a Nuclear Reactor I would not know how to use it, much like if you hand a child a computer and the only toy they have is a bike from the 1970's.

Re:Better ways to spend money

[Anonymous Coward]

You're totally right, but since you voiced such an opinion on Slashdot, you'll surely get pummeled by about 200 high, nasal voices accusing you of having your head up your ass because you don't see the value in giving starving children a piece of hilariously useless technology. After all, these are the same people who deride others for not caring in the least about "seeing the source" which may as well be in an alien language (and, effectively, is).

A broad world view has never been a centerpiece of this geek culture, dude -- sorry.

Re:Better ways to spend money

[LionKimbro]

I've read about a lot of failures, when people just give money, or send in teachers, and so on.

I think it is wise to try a diversity of methods, and see what works, especially when traditional failures are being repeated over and over. If this doesn't work, "oh well" -- it won't be the first time someone has failed in an expensive effort to improve the lives of the impoverished. But if it succeeds, it will be (as far I know) one of the first successes.

Re:Better ways to spend money

[sleigher]

I am really sick of reading from all you who think this doomed to failure. You know what??? They are not going to drive village to village and hand them out to the kids playing futbol in the street and say " here ya go kids, good luck!" Can we at least wait until it does/doesn't fail and say "I told you so" or "Great it is working"?

We have been handing money and food to many of these third world countries for decades. Problem is they are still in need. Well I say it's high time we try another method. Maybe this will help, maybe it won't.... but quit the, this will never work and is stupid crap....

Re:Better ways to spend money

[yvajj]

There are numerous benefits to this... sure you could take the money and buy food and / or build a better school, however I don't believe this is the same thing.

You don't need access to the internet to be able to stimulate interest and growth. Having grown up in South Africa where internet was (and still is) very limited, my first computer had NO internet access (thereafter BBS's came along).

I had learned to program my first machine (a ZX Spectrum 48k) using Basic, and then machine code.

I'm sure there are numerous kids with the interest and aptitude to become successful if given the opportunity and the tools. Even if just 2% of these kids end up becoming interested in engineering and / or other disciplines, its a stepping stone for the country as a whole, as their kids will follow in their footsteps.

Just because *you* could not learn anything from your computer without it being connected to the internet, doesn't mean others can't.

FYI... these PCS come preloaded with software that allow programming out the box

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Software_components

Re:Better ways to spend money

[Relic of the Future]

Oh, gee, you're so right, I bet no one thought of that.

Re:Better ways to spend money

[laura_glow]

You are completely wrong.

First of all, there are some intermediate stages of "underdevelopment", it's not black-or-white, it has shades of gray: there are other options other than "big megalopolis where a population with obesity epidemics consume more gadgets than they need" and "living in a grass hut without electricity".

There are lots of children in Uruguay in a economic state you would call "lower middle class".

"My computer has never taught me anything just because it is on and running Linux or Window. It is the power to connect to the internet, download compilers and execute programs and do research online that has taught me"
well, try to imagine a much more motivated child that in lack of internet connection, starts to trade software in removable media with other children and adults. That is a whole wide world of learning, including new social contacts and interaction. It was that way before the internet, in the BBS era. A lot of people that are programmers today, started without internet, you know.

"redesign the town so crops can grow better".
Why do you think that crops solve anything? Do you even know if these kids are in a rural area? Why not in a hacinated "favela" like those in Brazil? You know, the millions of poor people that congregates around big cities? And why would they do with crops if they were in a rural area? I'm not saying that having good crops would'nt be good to a starving nation, but what about desertic nations? And why the most developed countries import their grain instead of "redesigning cities" to have better crops? Is it that they are better off if they industrialize or trade other values in this, the information era? crops? Why don't you suggest that poor people in New York are helped by giving them the chance to raise crops? please!

"If someone handed me the controls to a Nuclear Reactor I would not know how to use it"
You are underestimating the intelligence and desire to learn of any child. Give a child the controls to a Nuclear Reactor, they will have the desire to learn how they work, a powerful need that recedes when we become adults.

Re:Better ways to spend money

[DragonWriter]

So how well does this work when someone is living in a grass hut in Africa and they do now have electricity.

I assume you mean "not" instead of "now". In any case, people living in rural villages without regular access to electricity is exactly why the OLPC is designed to use very little power, and to be manually charged.

I guess they could eat the laptop because we all know a laptop is better then food.

Well, yes, as an educational tool for people who aren't starving, a laptop is better than food.

Also what is the benefit of this? A child has a lap top to use and learn on. My computer has never taught me anything just because it is on and running Linux or Window.

The software and educational content supplied with the XO and developed by the OLPC project is not limited to the operating system (though certainly the desktop environment itself is designed to facilitate learning, though not to "teach" on its own.) But, mostly, its a tool for the education ministries to use to enable them to deliver the content they want and conduct the educational activities they prefer.

It is the power to connect to the internet, download compilers and execute programs and do research online that has taught me. Will these children have the internet in there area or is this just a ti graphing calculator with a bigger keyboard and a few applications.

One of the things developed by partners in the OLPC project and being made available for purchase to the participants is a satellite downlink station designed for rural villages; the same provider is donating satellite time to provide internet connections to remote locations. The OLPC project itself will also be making available school-site servers to provide access points, and the laptops themselves can form ad hoc networks. So, yes, the internet will be available (though perhaps not "always on" for most users), and ad hoc networking and other forms of interaction will also be available.

Why not take the $100 and go to that child's town and make a change.

Presumably, the national governments that are the only people spending the cost of the laptop (which is >$100), are generally already spending far more than that on other projects. If they expected to get more marginal value by spending money in other improvements than on the laptops, they wouldn't be buying the laptops. Of course, if you have specific complaints about how particular of the governments should spend their money better, feel free to make them.

Say you have 100 children in a town so, $10,000, take that money and help them redesign the town so crops can grow better.

Presumably, if the national governments thought they had a way to spend that kind of money that would substantially improve agricultural output (especially in the many OLPC countries where that's the main industry), they would be doing that, whether or not they were buying the laptops. But, if you see areas where particular countries that are purchasing the OLPC are missing opportunities in this regard, feel free to point them out.

If someone handed me the controls to a Nuclear Reactor I would not know how to use it, much like if you hand a child a computer and the only toy they have is a bike from the 1970's.

Presumably, governments that are going to be spending, to meet the one-per-school-age-child target, billions of dollars on just the OLPC hardware and that have already had students, teachers, and education ministry staff involved in demonstration projects are going to roll the laptop out with something a little more sophisticated that dumping them on students with no instruction; the whole idea has been to integrate them into the curriculum. Of course, if you know of specific countries that have announced the intention to purchase the laptops and just dump them on school age children, please, feel free to point to them.

Re:Better ways to spend money

[LingNoi]

So your suggestion is that villagers should be poor farmers and not even be allowed the chance to become anything else?

Re:Better ways to spend money

[Anonymous Coward]

besides, i learned a LOT from my computers, and this was before them internets came around

Re:Better ways to spend money

[Anonymous Coward]

who deride others for not caring in the least about "seeing the source" which may as well be in an alien language

they deride people for not caring for the wrong reasons. As you so obviously do.

Can I get the African diistribution?

[denttford]

The one with the preloaded porn?

It's for a... sociological study in aesthetics... purely educational...

Play With the OS Yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to play on your own OLPC you can download the LiveCD and run it on any hardware you want.

http://uneasysilence.com/archive/2007/07/11520/

Greetings from the Nation of Africa!

[locokamil]

COMING AS I DO FROM A NATION OF DEPOSED MILLIONAIRE PRINCES AND BRUTAL MILITARY DICTATORS, I AM EMAILING YOU TO REQUESTING YOUR ASSISTANCE IN MOVING MONEY IN THE AMOUNT OF $1,000,000 (TM) AWAY FROM THE FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF THE NATION OF AFRICA TO AVOID [SOB STORY].

IN RETURN FOR YOUR HELP, YOU WILL RECEIVE AN AMOUNT OF NO LESS THAN 120% (POSSIBLY MORE) OF THE TRANSFERRED AMOUNT. PLEASE REPLY AT THE SOONEST WITH NOTIFICATION OF YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THIS DEAL, BANK ACCOUNT INFORMATION AND SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER.

YOURS RESPECTFULLY,
GENERIC AFRICA MILLIONAIRE PRINCE

1 AFRICA ROAD
AFRICA CITY, 12358
NATION OF AFRICA

Re:Greetings from the Nation of Africa!

[mgabrys_sf]

Actually in the Sunday business section of the NYT they were on about how Africa has only 4% coverage as far as the internet.

Oddly enough - and I'm quite serious - they mentioned the countries along the northern coasts, and south africa (the country - not the general region). Not one - NOT ONE WORD - about Nigeria.

SSSoooooo please - someone - ANYONE - tell me. HOW are these (insert 500 mindblowingly creative and vulagar epithets here - and a few involving fetuses in microwave ovens just for good measure) Nigerians getting out so much email with so little fucking connectivity?

Cause I for one WANT TO KNOW. Why can't we just block the whole country? The whole goddamn country? Just shunt the whole IP prefix off the map? Tell the routers that it's a ping flood and dump the bozos?

Re:Greetings from the Nation of Africa!

[CastrTroy]

Well, Nigeria has a population of about 140 million. If .01 % of the people in Nigeria have internet, then there's still 14,000 people with internet. 14,000 people can generate a lot of email. Even if it's just 100 individuals that are causing all the problems, then they could still generate a whole bunch of email. Plus, you can't just block all email from an entire country, Umaru Yar'Adua (President According to Wikipedia) would probably be pretty mad if he couldn't send out any email.

Re:Greetings from the Nation of Africa!

[Anonymous Coward]

Net cafes. And the vast majority of Nigerian scams do not come from Nigeria.

But if you'd done the slightest bit of research, you'd know.

Re:Greetings from the Nation of Africa!

[lawpoop]

Cause I for one WANT TO KNOW. Why can't we just block the whole country? The whole goddamn country? Just shunt the whole IP prefix off the map? Tell the routers that it's a ping flood and dump the bozos? Do you really want to cut off a whole country because of some bad apples who are abusing the internet by attempting to commit fraud? What if *you* and the rest of your country were cut off from the rest of the world on the internet because the majority of spam originated from your country?

Re:Greetings from the Nation of Africa!

[NachtVorst]

It seems a large amount of these 'Nigerian' email originates right here, in the suburbs of Amsterdam, from where it's probably sent through open relays worldwide, so it's not much use blocking Nigeria. Every Nigerian Internet cafe has 'No 419!' signs all over the place anyway.

And please don't block us either ;) . We're trying to make at least a bit less easy for them here. Arrests of scammers are quite common, though they are mostly caught by immigration officers and returned to Nigeria instead of being prosecuted for fraud.

To make this less off-topic: no, OLPC won't increase the amount of 'Nigerian' email. But it could educate a whole new generation around the world, it's a daring but hopefully noble cause!

NachtVorst

Re:Greetings from the Nation of Africa!

[denttford]

While I agree that there is no need to cut off Nigerian IP blocks, to claim that it is a "few bad apples" is disingenuous. According to this article, 419 represents the 3rd-5th largest industry in Nigeria.

Additionally, if any country had spam as its 3rd-5th largest industrial sector, I would understand (though disagree with) suggestions of cutting it off from the internet.

Of course, If a private company blocked Nigerian IPs in house, well, that is their prerogative, for all the good it would do.

Re:Greetings from the Nation of Africa!

[mgabrys_sf]

Why hello Nigeria - FUCK OFF!

Re:Greetings from the Nation of Africa!

[mgabrys_sf]

Didn't you hear? Because we have a marketplace other than scams. The summ total internet output I've seen to date from Nigeria - IS - scams. Obviously routed to other locations.

I was so hoping that Bush would blow a fuse and send a few dozen missiles to Nigeria but so far this doesn't seem to be feasible. I've set my router to block all amsterdam (thanks for the tip) and Nigerian traffic.

I've also sent word to one of my ISP's (a small one that's privately held) that this also might be a good idea.

Feel free to do the same. If Nigerians found out that no one was listening to them - at all - EVER. Perhaps that might be a better tool for change than missles.

Re:Greetings from the Nation of Africa!

[1u3hr]

Cause I for one WANT TO KNOW. Why can't we just block the whole country? The whole goddamn country? Just shunt the whole IP prefix off the map? Tell the routers that it's a ping flood and dump the bozos?

For every African 419 scam, I get dozens of stock, viagra and penis enlarger ads from American spammers.

Re:Greetings from the Nation of Africa!

[Vintermann]

Those scams have been going on for a lot longer than email. I have recieved them in snail mail with postage indicating that they were sent from the UK. My guess is that the people in this business have made a fair profit for many years, and can easily afford the infrastructure necessary to spam, open small offices in foreign countries etc.

Re:Greetings from the Nation of Africa!

[mgabrys_sf]

Think fuckhead above your post has been getting Herbal Viagra ads back in the 1970s from America?

Hello again Nigeria. FUCK OFF!

Re:Greetings from the Nation of Africa!

[Vintermann]

?

Anyway, it goes way beyond that, too. My wife's great-grandfather had an oyster company, some years after his death (and many years after the closing of the oyster company), his daughter recieved a nigeria letter adressed to the company.

We are talking about advance payment scams here, not herbal viagra.

Yes you do.

[Anonymous Coward]

But most /.ers bash the members of the groups.

My favorite is www.fh.org (www.fh.org)

Of course, suggesting people join in the service of a benevloent king who wants to bring people life and freedom is apart of it. :)

How did this get in production so quickly?

[mpapet]

Anyone that's done any business in government would anonymously back me up when I say that this whole project moved into mass production so quickly I find it hard to believe. From the olpc wiki, they list some countries.

        * 2.1 Romania--No
        * 2.2 Argentina--Yes
        * 2.3 Brazil--Yes
        * 2.4 Korea---driven by a few citizens
        * 2.5 Libya--Yes
        * 2.6 Nigeria--Yes
        * 2.7 India--No
        * 2.8 Uruguay--Yes
        * 2.9 Rwanda--Yes
        * 2.10 USA--Talking

Anyone that's worked government IT would tell you that it's incredibly difficult to get paid in a timely manner. On top of *just* getting paid, they've been paid so much the entire OEM chain is ready to mass-produce?

Someone somewhere has a lot of influence (e.g. money) to get this going because OEM's certainly don't work for free and governments rarely, if ever, are enlighted enough to see a good thing an let it pass. Who's pushing this and where's the money coming from?

Re:How did this get in production so quickly?

[griffjon]

Not to mention, the laptop's yet to be piloted in any real-world implementations, so wherever this money's coming from, it may not really be going anywhere.

Re:How did this get in production so quickly?

[CAIMLAS]

My opinion is that there is something more going on than what we see on the surface. That much money doesn't just fly around unless Human Nature is involved. Someone, somewhere, is going to be making money off of this; companies don't just operate humanitarian efforts for fun, effectively wasting valuable resources which they could be better putting to use increasing their stock value (stock holders would have a fit if it wasn't otherwise). And I highly doubt they'll be "creating a new market" with these at this price. The overall shitty nature of Africa will remain the same, because they're not fixing any of the underlying social problems which have attributed to the poverty, lack of education, and warfare. (Same goes for the free food programs.)

Just wait: 6 months to a year after they make their way to Africa, there will be a huge scandal.

At the very least, we'll see a lot more "Nigerian scams" popping up. For school children my ass! (Like the adults wouldn't just take them...)

Re:How did this get in production so quickly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's suppose that the laptops make it to Africa. Furthermore, let's suppose that they get into the hands of villagers and aren't hoarded by the government. Finally, let's suppose there's Internet access available (Though I'm not sure quite how viable this one is).

Wouldn't having more access to information help overcome the lack of education?

Re:How did this get in production so quickly?

[Wesley Felter]

Someone, somewhere, is going to be making money off of this...

Duh. The component vendors and Quanta are all making money; only OLPC itself is a non-profit organization.

Re:How did this get in production so quickly?

[DragonWriter]

Not to mention, the laptop's yet to be piloted in any real-world implementations, so wherever this money's coming from, it may not really be going anywhere.

While it hasn't been used on a large scale, it has been piloted in real-world, classroom implementations in several of the participant countries (including, at a minimum, Brazil, Peru, Uruguay, Nigeria, and Thailand [the last of which backed out of the project after the recent coup]).

Re:How did this get in production so quickly?

[griffjon]

And? did it work? How many OLPC staff were there handling the implementation? How many trained people per school will a full roll-out require? What hiccups occurred, what's being done to fix them? What is being done about Internet connections for the laptops (without which, bitfrost is not very able to deactivate stolen machines)? It's great that a few classrooms have had OLPC days, what are the results?

Re:How did this get in production so quickly?

[DragonWriter]

And? did it work?

Yes.

How many OLPC staff were there handling the implementation? How many trained people per school will a full roll-out require? What hiccups occurred, what's being done to fix them? What is being done about Internet connections for the laptops (without which, bitfrost is not very able to deactivate stolen machines)? It's great that a few classrooms have had OLPC days, what are the results?

The pilot sites, except for Thailand where participation has ended, are ongoing and expanding, and intended to be absorbed into the full deployment of the systems in the countries where it is being piloted. For example, the Nigerian pilot site was initially 3 grade levels and expanding to 6; the Uruguay pilot is a full school.

Responses from parents, students, and teachers have been positive, and some issues have been identified and resolved through the process, so I'd say its worked. If you want more details, you probably need to go through the OLPC website yourself and, failing that, ask them.

Re:How did this get in production so quickly?

[marcosdumay]

OLPC is a non-profit. It is easy for the governments to give money to non-profits.

And governments are on it because the press is on it. The press is on it, obviouly because those companies that will manufacture the OLPC need publicity...

At least that is what is happening around here, at Brazil.

Re:How did this get in production so quickly?

[griffjon]

Last time I asked Nick about pilot projects he went on a long rant about how they were irrelevant and unnecessary.

Critical mass for sapience by 4/17/08

[StefanJ]

Millions and millions of little processors hooked up by a ad hoc wireless network . . . I figure we have nine months until it gains consciousness and starts organizing legions of Third World kids.

ha ha

[fattmatt]

Put me on the list of people who will be laughing at this when we reminisce about the Web 2.0 bubble burst.

heh.

[apodyopsis]

"The first machines should be ready to put into the hands of children in developing countries in October 2007..."

Not the only thing to be in their hands according to reports of them checking out www.filthyinternetporn.com.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/ 21/1353241&from=rss
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070720/od_nm/nigeria_ pornography_dc;_ylt=A0WTUfF176FG8XwBExgZ.3QA
http://digg.com/tech_news/OLPC_Brings_Porn_To_The_ Third_World

Why the grubby wee bastards. Oh wait, this is slashdot and I'm preaching to the choir. Shock horror, boys are the same everywhere...

Re:heh.

[CaffeineAddict2001]

Well, considering it has a "pull-string power charger", one could argue that the laptop is actually fueled by porn.

Re:heh.

[Anonymous Coward]

A few months back a virtual manager image of the OLPC was out. I downloaded it and put it into VMWare. I surfed to my server and grabbed the UA from the logs. I sent an email to a site that lists user agent strings.

In the last few months, I have used wget identifying itself as the OLPC browser on numerous sites. Typically sites that block wget's UA string. Some have been porn sites. I remember which sites I used the changes on. I like to change up my UA string from time to time when surfing for porn. Sometimes I am in the mood to be idiotic.

Old Amiga strings or Windows 3.1, and many more not common UAs.

The Diamond Age

[MobyDisk]

The OLPC project reminds me of "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" found in The Diamond Age. In the book, a poor girl is given a nanotech book that basically teaches her everything should could ever want to know. Later on, it gets mass-produced resulting in an army of intelligent young girls. The OLPC is kinda like that.

Re:The Diamond Age

[nuzak]

> The OLPC is kinda like that.

Fiction?

Re:The Diamond Age

[wall0159]

I've thought about this too, and I agree wholeheartedly.

At risk of sounding starry-eyed, I think it's an incredibly exciting prospect -- computers providing a tailored education to children would do more for human society than probably any technological advance since agriculture. Imagine a whole planet of people who had been educated by their own personal tutor!

There are projects working on the development of a dynabook (the illustrated primer) - one is squeek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeak) and it looks like it's got potential. Get onto it kids!

Not really

[WindBourne]

1. if they produce electronic text books on this, that it will be lower cost education than what is currently happening. IOW, the country will have more to spend on improving total education, on health factors, etc.
2. This is a case of give a man a fish vs. teach a man to fish. It is difficult to get an education in many countries. If this raises education levels, then it will raise the country as well.

Considering that you are a brave AC, I am guessing that you already know this, and are just opposed to THIS project.

Nigeria

[Superevil]

can we opt out of sending these things to Nigeria? I get enough junk email as it is.

Re:So, can we buy civvie models yet? Please

[Anonymous Coward]

I want one, want one, want one.

And if'n I don't get one, I'll thcream & thcream & thcream til I'm thick.

Seriously though, I really do want one & would be prepared to cough up 200 squids for one. Where do I sign up?

Neil

Hmmm

[WindBourne]

If Mexico is NOT 3rd world, then what is your definition of such?

Re:Hmmm

[Shag]

If Mexico is NOT 3rd world, then what is your definition of such? That's an easy one, seriously.

The UN maintains a nice list of Least Developed Countries. (That term is, by the way, the politically correct equivalent of the politically incorrect "third world.")

I've only been to one of them, and it's one that is on its way toward getting off that list... and Mexico looks positively futuristic by comparison.

If your capital city has electricity that stays on for 24 hours straight at least once a week... you're probably not "third-world."

If you live 5 miles from Parliament and still have hot running water... you're probably not "third-world."

If most of the new vehicles on the road belong to anyone other than UN agencies and international aid agencies... you're probably not "third-world."

Re:Hmmm

[WindBourne]

Thanx for the head's up. I thought that were slightly off base, but after Googling it, it appears that what I was taught as a kids, is now incorrect.

I would guess that thtat is the same list....

[WindBourne]

that said that NSCA web server and then this a patchy server joke would NEVER take off.

Re:So, can we buy civvie models yet? Please

[jollyreaper]

Seriously though, I really do want one & would be prepared to cough up 200 squids for one. Where do I sign up? `0.o Er, do you appear on one of those Japanese competitive eating shows? I'll give you the laptop for free so long as you promise not to do that.

ebay!

[Frosty Piss]

We'll shortly know how this massive social experiment works out.

Yes, I'm going to try to pick one up on eBay for cheap, too. Wonder how much they will end up fetching?

Re:ebay!

[networkBoy]

Why not buy them from the program its self? Or are they not offering the buy one for you and one for "them" yet?
I want one as a WiFi monitor alone. It'd be perfect as it's already ruggedized and low power.
-nB

Re:ebay!

[Anonymous Coward]

> Or are they not offering the buy one for you and one for "them" yet?

They never were. That was a third-party thing, it had a target amount as a goal, and it failed to meet it.

Mod parent up

[IgLou]

You really have stated the whole point of this project quite nicely.

I'm guessing this is going to be high risk but considering how (IMHO) education is the root to solving so many problems I'd say it's worth the go. Seriously, can it get worst for them??

Re:Mod parent up

[WindBourne]

Sadly, it will. The countries with the lowest education levels are those closest to the equator. And it will get MUCH worse if even a partial of the global warming models come true. As it is, darfur is a glimpse at what we are going to see (new comers wanders over owners lands that is currently suffering due to drought). The best (and probably only) way out of all this is via education. Funny thing, is that education helped to create EU, America, and Russia. Now, it is helping to lift China and India out of the abyss. Education IS the key. And yet, you have so many who fight not just moving to LOW cost computers, but the very education that will help. Considering that AC is likely a fellow countryman of mine, it is sad. I guess many ppl prefer a case of "let them eat cake".

You haven't heard then...

[Anonymous Coward]

They run GNU+Linux.

That does not compute

[davmoo]

Why do all these stories keep calling this the "$100 laptop", when it actually costs $176 even in quantity?

Re:That does not compute

[Anonymous Coward]

yes I agree, looking that the specs/photos of the things they look more like toys than laptops, we would be better off cleaning up old computers from the USA and shipping them over. otherwise we would have a huge amount of computers going into the trash that would be just fine running linux.

Re:That does not compute

[delphi125]

Probably because all these stories call this One Laptop Per Child, and only a few of them mention a $100 target cost.

Considering what a 1GB storage laptop would have cost 10 years ago, let alone 20, I think we can safely say that the COST target will be reached relatively soon - within 2-5 years.

As for the "per child" target, it may take a bit longer. Maybe 20-50. Consider the ever-increasing changes since 1945, less than a lifetime ago. If Nigeria has a million OLPCs next year, it will have close to a million times the processing power of Bletchley Park in WWII.

Re:That does not compute

[curty]

From TFA:

The XO currently costs $176 (£90) although the eventual aim is to sell the machines to governments for $100 (£50).

Re:That does not compute

[Xeth]

It seems to me that it's been largely replaced by the "OLPC" acronym.

Where's the LiveCD?

[Qubit]

Ummm... there's no LiveCD there.

All the article mentions are "a pre-configured VMWare image of the OLPC OS" and some information on how to "download the OLPC OS from Red Hats [sic] servers...and configure it in Parallels."

A few months ago I downloaded a LiveCD of one of the OLPC builds and couldn't figure out why it wasn't booting on my desktop... of course, then I realized that my desktop hardware was just a wee bit different from the OLPC's hardware... :-)

Does anyone has a GENUINE link to a x86 build of OLPC OS/Sugar?

Re:Where's the LiveCD?

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically, all official builds are x86 builds, since the OLPC uses an x86 AMD Geode chip, but these wouldn't help you because they are tailored for the OLPC hardware and don't include support for much else. You can, however, download a general-purpose LiveCD from the OLPC wiki, but it is very out-of-date:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/LiveCd

The preferred way to try out the OLPC software is to download one of the virtual machine images and run it in an emulator like qemu or VMWare:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Emulating_the_XO

And if you have a Linux system and are feeling adventurous, you can try building the OLPC software from source:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Setting_Up_a_Sugar_Devel opment_Environment_on_*IX_OSes

Keep in mind that the system is under heavy development over the next couple months. If something doesn't work one day, it may well be fixed in the next day's image.

Sign of project failure

[WrongMonkey]

So they couldn't get 3 million orders, so they decided to go ahead with production anyway? That might sound like a good plan from a cheery-"We're going to save the world" point of view, but that would be a bad sign in any business situation. They've basically tested the market, found that there's not as much demand as expected and chugged ahead regardless. Along with the failure to meet the actual goal of a $100 laptop, this has all the earmarks of a sinking project.

I'm surprised Microsoft wasn't involved because this is exactly what happened with the Zune and Vista.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the OLPC will end with a massive taxpayer bailout when congress is asked to spend $300 million on laptops that no one wants.

Re:Sign of project failure

[DragonWriter]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the OLPC will end with a massive taxpayer bailout when congress is asked to spend $300 million on laptops that no one wants.

Why would Congress bail out either the asian manufacturer or the nonprofit? Congress' boondoggle bailouts are generally restricted to for-profit US firms.

Education project

[this great guy]

You idiots honestly believe that some laptops and an internet connection will help them.

Of course it will.
Nicholas Negroponte: "It's an education project, not a laptop project."

Re:Education project

[TheSync]

Nicholas Negroponte: "It's an education project, not a laptop project."

If so, the OLPC should come with a e-textbook on economics, because that is what the developing world really needs to learn before it can fully utilize other knowledge.

To clear up a couple points...

[Anonymous Coward]

First, those are not OLPCs in that article. The article is about donated PCs (e.g. used first-world PCs) and OLPCs are not donated. But the article quotes an OLPC official, so the Slashdot summary confuses the two.

Second, this is a behavior of all kids everywhere. If you give them a computer and an internet connection, some will look for interesting and perhaps forbidden content. Likewise, if you give them cell phones, some will try to text each other and cheat on tests. If you give them paper and pencils, some will try to pass notes to each other. And yet first-world schools manage to cope, so there's no reason that other schools cannot, should they desire to make computers part of the learning environment.

Communication

[sssssss27]

It was my understanding that these laptops can form mesh networks so while they might not be able to connect to the Internet they can still connect to those around them. It is my opinion that the best way to bring about change is through communication. If you can unite people and allow information to flow freely then these people will be empowered.

No duh.

[mpapet]

-Quanta wouldn't put up the **significant** investment required to get a production sample out the door.

-Quanta doesn't control or otherwise have much influence with the component vendors.

-No one is getting rich in a $200 unit.

-Your premise suggests a massive cooperative effort the likes of which has never been seen in history. Unlikely :(

Re:No duh.

[foo fighter]

-No one is getting rich in a $200 unit.

What to know one way to become a millionaire?

Sell for $2 a million loaves of bread that cost you $1 to manufacture.

Here's another: Sell for $200 a million laptops that cost you $199 to manufacture.

For the record, I still consider a $1 million net worth to be rich.

get in early, volume, and low standards

[r00t]

Imperfections, like dead pixels, are OK.

This is volume, big time. It stabilizes a company.

how many will be sold? Merrill Lynch takes a guess

[AaronZ]

Merrill Lynch takes a look at the market potential (their forecast of less than 40 million units in 2010 is considerably less than the estimate of over 60 million by TRI) and then recommends some companies that stand to benefit. Here's a link to the report.

A lesson in economics.

[mosb1000]

Isn't is strange how the cost of 1GB of storage has has gone down orders of magnitude over the last decade, and yet a computer still costs about half of-what it did then? Sure, you can put more transistors on a piece of silicon, but it still costs the same to put all that silicon together into a computer and get that computer into someone's hands.

OLPC in Uruguay

[Acer500]

I'd like to point you out to the Uruguayan OLPC blog, http://olpc-ceibal.blogspot.com/ (English version), which has been keeping up with the developments in my country's project, which aims to give a laptop to every school-age kid, and has started with one of the 19 subdivisions - "departments" - in the country, with a trial already being ran.

This was covered by Slashdot under the heading OLPC Project Rollout Begins In Uruguay: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/12/077205

Lisp as default coding language.

[Anonymous Coward]

But that would be sweet! A lisp language, as a default with all the manuals, to be the first introduction to programming available budding geniuses. No cruft or legacy presumptions to suffocate the creativity. ...

Re:Lisp as default coding language.

[mrchaotica]

Yeah, functional languages are good (at least, for some things -- one of which is introducing novices to programming). I wouldn't want to start kids off with Common LISP itself, though; they're better off with cleaner, simpler implementations such as Scheme or LOGO.

If you are right...

[StarKruzr]

I suspect it's cultural, not "genetic."

Want to give any more details?

BillyG, are you worried?

[theolein]

If there is any one thing that will end Windows dominance amongst the teeming masses of people who don't live in developed countries and who, if they can afford it, usually run pirated versions of Microsoft software, then the OLPC is it. The machine looks like a wonderfully designed machine with some extremely practical features that make it useful in harsh environments where there is little power or infrastructure. It stands to very quickly make Windows a non consideration because the millions of pupils who use the OLPC will ask for siilar environments, and above all, the legal freedom to view and modify the source of the software they are using.

People seem to think that all third world people are criminals who couldn't care whether the software they use is pirated or not. This is, in my experience, not the case. Most of them simply don't know. If, when the OLPC is used in classrooms, children are made aware of the fact that the software they are using is freely modifiable, then the chance of them looking for the same legal freedoms is much larger. The danger to Microsoft is that in the future, any attempt by Microsoft to buy favours in developing countries will be met by demands that their software provide source and be freely modifiable, something that Microsoft will not agree to.

Given that any one of these countries where the OLPC is to be implemented could become a large developed country in the future, Microsoft should start worrying, and probably already has. The OLPC would even be an enormously practical machine for technicians and others in developed countries, where power saving is a premium due to enhanced energy costs.

I'm waiting for the OLTRA...

[Vintermann]

... the One Laptop To Rule them All

Re:I'm waiting for the OLTRA...

[wild_berry]

...and with DNS h4x BIND them.

Mexico and all African countries

[tepples]

Neither Mexico nor "Africa" is a third world country Mexico did not fight in the Cold War (WWIII); therefore, Mexico was in the Third World. No country on the African continent fought in the Cold War either.

Welcome to the real world, moron!

[Anonymous Coward]

"So how well does this work when someone is living in a grass hut in Africa and they do now have electricity?" (sic)

It you had RTFA, you would know that it comes with a pedal or clockwork charger/supply.

"..My computer has never taught me anything just because it is on and running Linux or Window. It is the power to connect to the internet.."

It you had RTFA, you would know that it comes with a built-in wireless Internet connection...

In fact, if you could read, you would not have written whate you did. Perhaps you can't read? How did you post your crap rubbish? Did your mummy do it for you?

There needs to be a commercial version of this

[DrXym]

People who just want a cheap laptop for the coffee shop / train / bus or plane would kill to own one of these things. Preload it with Linux, Openoffice, Firefox and a few other things and these things will sell like hotcakes.

I really don't understand why they don't do it. Selling a consumer version would fund development of the educational version. It might also lessen demand for the educational ones. Bitfrost or not, you just know these things are going to be cropping up on eBay with frightening regularity.

Re:There needs to be a commercial version of this

[Anonymous Coward]

Quanta -- the company making the OLPC XO -- is planning to sell a consumer version of the XO, licensing the important technologies (display, etc.) from the OLPC project (effectively funding OLPC development, I assume). At least, that's what I get from this Ars Technica article:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070329-olpc -xo-manufacturer-to-sell-budget-portables-in-devel oped-countries.html

Re:There needs to be a commercial version of this

[DrXym]

It would be great if true. I'd be happy for the consumer version to be identical to the educational one, except maybe for having function keys and a not so garish colour. The whole appeal of the educational one is it's an extremely rugged, power sipping laptop that can be thrown into a bag or case without the hassle of a normal laptop and literally used anywhere.