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Mass OLPC Production Begins
eldavojohn writes to tell us that mass production of the first XO laptops has officially started. "The commencement of mass production means children in developing nations could have the rugged, open-source laptops in hand starting this month. The OLPC has already announced orders for kids in Uruguay and Mongolia. (Residents of the U.S. and Canada participating in the Give 1 Get 1 program--which donates an XO to a child in a developing nation for every machine sold online--are expected to start getting laptops in December.)"
...I'll still be around to get mine!
Yes, but imagine a beowolf cluster of... OW! OW! STOP HITTING ME!
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I agree, I probably wouldn't want one much for myself, but I am considering doing
this and giving one to my 8yo niece who is starting to mess around with computers.
I need to do a bit more research about what exactly she could do with the machine
though...
"Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." --Eric Blair
From that article:
However, the latest twist in the story is nothing but positive. T-Mobile is now offering a year of free Hot Spot Wi-Fi access, good at nearly 8,500 public T-Mobile Hot Spot locations throughout the country, including Starbucks coffee shops, Borders bookstores, and more than 70 major airports across the United States.
The offer is only good from November 12 to 26, and considering a 12-month T-Mobile Hot Spot plan would cost $359 on its own, we can see how this could lead to a lot of OLPC purchases. OLPC has set up a Web site, laptopgiving.org, which has more details.
The original generic sig.
After following it's development from concept through revised designs and explanation of the rational for it's features.
Frankly I feel like it's already part mine. Baring unavailability or some weird sales structure, I plan to get one. Or a few.
What choice do I have when my 15 Month old is monopolizing the main desktop at home?
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
But a nice troll, nonetheless.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
You can't blame Slashdot for this one, there was a post about it last week, see the link at http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/27/1935223 for details.
These are the good old days you'll be telling your children about. Make them worthwhile.
They do have a donation-only option, so you can do that if you want.
But plenty of geeks could use the XO for more than a toy. It's screen would make a good e-book reader. It's fast resume and long battery life, light weight, and solid state disk make it better than a standard laptop for grab-and-go type uses.
I won't drag my laptop everywhere, and my cellphone is too small and keyboard-less to use for much web/email or ssh. The XO fits nicely between the two. It looks very useful to me.
I remain at a loss as to why so many of my fellow Americans seem to believe
that by being born within these borders they deserve a job.
Having lived and worked in a developing African country I would much rather
see jobs go to people who work their asses off with few educational and
technical resources than to lazy Americans who don't even appreciate
the educational opportunities available here.
Fortunately not all Americans are as such, and those few will remain
competitive, by working their asses off, just as it should be, not by
being born with the national silver spoon in their mouths.
"Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." --Eric Blair
That's unfair. The problem with the lead in the paint was due to the standards being changed during production. As such, toys that were made prior to the change in standards could not be magically "unmade" and had already reached the retail shelves. Admittedly, some factories in China were using the inferior paint but for those that weren't, they got a raw deal.
Mattel simply wanted a scapegoat.
Excellent. I was getting tired of scam email from people in Nigeria. I look forward to the scams that will be coming to me from Uruguay and Mongolia.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Or is anyone else amused that the name for this laptop, the XO, is an emoticon for a frustrated person yelling? Seems like Microsoft would have nailed that name down. I keed, I keed.
Or thought much about it, or knows what a third world country is like. How can I compete with someone who only pays $30 a month for rent, can take his family to a nice restaraunt for a dollar, or ride anywhere in the country for a nickle? Not even by doing away with such luxuries like electricity and running water could I compete with that!
That was what Thailand was like in 1974 (USAF at the end of the Vietnam war). You can't compete with "dirt cheap".
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Not to worry. Without a Microsoft OS, nobody can get an MCSE using these things. You should be safe :-)
Outsourcing is shitty, but the solution isn't to keep third world kids stupid and computer-illiterate. We need to demand that US corporations take more responsibility for the local workers and towns who have carried them this far. Big business will screw over local workers as much as they can get away with, but we can reign them in as a society simply by demanding more than low, low prices. Support local businesses, boycott unethical/irresponsible companies. We don't need to resort to sabotaging the educational systems of other countries.
Yes, I can definitely imagine that. Running a large cluster off the hand-cranks would quite a nice exercise routine.
I'm buying one of these because I want to have a computer I don't have to worry about. This thing is designed to be dropped, to have stuff spilled on it, to thrown in a bag. I'm buying one of these because I travel a lot and when I travel all I want to do is check my e-mail, read some documents, and maybe take some notes and not worry that every bump or drop of my bag will spell doom for my laptop. And finally I'm buying one because it can do all those things and if I do manage to kill it, lose it or it gets stollen at $400 it's not the end of the world. Call it a toy if you want, but I've wanted something similar for quite a while and I do plan to get a lot of use out of mine.
Don't mess with the bunny, outsideworld.org
There are a lot of arguments relating to this in the book Guns, Germs and Steel.
...)
I'd recommend checking it out if you haven't. According to the author it comes
down to geography and (related to geography) the availability of native domesticable
plant and animal species -- which is the one resource that matters most. The Eurasian
continent had them, the Americas, Africa and Australia did not.
It's a fascinating book with loads of information. I understand the difficulty
people have with the question you pose -- it's not at all obvious. While treating
these peoples (Native American, South American, Native Australians, Africans
as inferiors for so long was/is not justified, it's understandable why
so many people assumed they were an inferior subspecies -- it in fact takes a lot
of analysis to figure out why their societies are so behind Eurasian based societies.
Now, I agree the OLPC may not do anything. I think it depends on what is included a lot.
I worked as a mathematics and physics teacher for a few years in West Africa. In my opinion
if the OLPC can serve as a substitute for the relatively expensive school books students
are expected to purchase today it would be a massive help -- and in fact cheaper, OLPC and
co wouldn't need to give these machines away if they could show the value of them. That's
all of course beyond the IT educational component of the thing, which seems to be the focus
at OLPC. From what I've seen on the wiki it looks like the ebooks component of the project
is pretty undeveloped.
If the thing was packed full of 12 years of well made interactive textbooks, it would be
a Godsend. I'm a bit worried though that it's going to be more of a toy that kids play
around with -- IM, WWW, email, etc.
Just my 2 cents.
"Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." --Eric Blair
It's got a nice processor, the Geode LX-700.
That's a lot of oomph actually. I know we're all used to our 3ghz desktops, but think about how nice 700mhz(equiv) actually is. I've got a refurbished eMachines 650 in my basement. It plays divx video with no problems.
You could use one of these as a portable entertainment center easy. Or how about a router? The thing is designed for minimum power draw. Use one in your basement as a router that works the way you want it to work.
A sub $200 x86 with that kind of horsepower and power specs has hundreds of uses.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
We have become a nation enslaved to our government through entitlements. The politicians daily spout that YOU deserve this and this, these people over here deserve this, and those over there get to pay for it because their too rich. When jobs are lost overseas the politicians trot out declaring evil corporations are to blame and that these entities need to be penalized; taxed more; to set the balances right.
We are encouraged to run up debt and then disclaim responsibility for our actions. We can engage in risk behavior and blame does who don't stop us (bartenders, smoking, riding without helmets, etc). We are told constantly that so and so wasn't at fault for murdering people because society, movies, video games, Iraq, etc, made them do it.
We are bombarded by the very people we elect to believe "It's okay, the government will make it all right" and people buy into this. Its easy to do when your not footing the bill for your actions. Unemployed because you won't learn a viable trade? Its okay, we got help for that. As such we see business practically driven overseas or the jobs go there.
An entitlement state only exists for as long as the people stuck paying have the means to do so. We won't run out of people to vilify soon, but it is still wrong.
No, we don't deserve jobs just because we live here, we don't deserve health care, we don't deserve cell phones, we don't deserve fancy cars, we don't deserve high speed net, we don't deserve a lot of things but it never ceases to amaze me what order people put their priorities.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Those aren't children. They're young women. Get some glasses.
Software patents delenda est.
All of this babbling about hard work misses the point...if hard work was what determined value then fruit pickers would make a ton of money. It's not hard work, it's your ability to provide value that matters. As work currently done by americans is offshored we need to respond by providing higher value services. Less simple code jockeying are more software architecture and design, that kind of thing. Keep upgrading your skills, they set you apart much more than simple hard work ever can.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Does your regular laptop have a daylight readable screen? Can you chuck it in the back of your car without a second thought? Does it have a sealed keyboard so you can use it at the beach without a worry? How much does your regular laptop weigh and what is its battery life like?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Yes, but does it run Li. . .OW! OW! Hit him! Hit him!
"If your parents never had children, chances are you wonât either." -Dick Cavett
I'm from Uruguay (the country that has actually gone out and bought the XOs), and... it's not at all like you imagine it.
:)
We have electricity and running water everywhere, better literacy than the US and public education for everyone (better than that of the US if Slashdot whining is to be believed !)
On the other hand, average wages are about U$ 300/month, and so a computer is a luxury item for most, and very especially for parents of school-age children like the ones which will be the recipient of the XO.
You can read at the unofficial Proyecto Ceibal blog (the Uruguayan OLPC initiative) about how this has the potential to be a nice step forward
http://olpc-ceibal.blogspot.com/
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
None of those are a problem for an ebook reader with some extras. The sunlight readable display is very useful compared to most laptop screens.
If I got one, I would use it for reading books out in the field when I am doing some Wildland Firefighting. Low power consumption, nice display, and durability are of more use there than the keyboard layout.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me