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?

[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).

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...

[Dr. Evil]

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

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...

[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...

[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...

[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...

[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.

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

[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

[metlin]

THAT IS THERE FUCKING PROBLEM

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

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

[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.

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

[Xybre]

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

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

[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.

So who gets theirs first?

[dashslotter]

The kids in the factory that makes them?

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:When's the "commercial" version coming?

[charlieo88]

Nope. Scroll down to pledgebank.

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

Can I get the African diistribution?

[denttford]

The one with the preloaded porn?

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

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!

[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

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?

[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...)

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.

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.

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?

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

[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.

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.

Re:heh.

[CaffeineAddict2001]

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

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".

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

[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: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....

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."

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