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.)"

Comments

And since I'm fat...

[RandoX]

...I'll still be around to get mine!

Re:And since I'm fat...

[mrbluze]

To get electricity into all their towns they're going to need electricians, draughtsmen, civil engineers, town planners, surveyors, miscellaneous paper-shufflers and so on. To get those they're going to need education. Not to mention accountants and lawyers, but if they get those before they get electricity, then they are probably never going to get anything, because it would have been deemed too expensive and illegal in any case.

Re:How about

[sm62704]

Yes, but imagine a beowolf cluster of... OW! OW! STOP HITTING ME!

Re:Internet

[physicsboy500]

Do they come with free internet? Or a low cost internet option? yes

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.

Re:If you work in IT, you shouldn't support OLPC

[$RANDOMLUSER]

OLPC is a thinly-veiled attempt by corporations to create the next generation of IT "professionals" they can ship in to work for a third of what you charge. They're really laughing it up that they can do this is under the guise of a humanitarian gesture and get all the tax breaks to boot. There will be no Americans in IT in 20 years.

Not with an attitude like that. You're not entitled to a high-paying job, you have to compete for it. The way to compete is to stay educated. Provide more value than "someone working for a third of what you do now".

But a nice troll, nonetheless.

Re:If you work in IT, you shouldn't support OLPC

[jay-be-em]

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.

Is it just me

[Critical Facilities]

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.

Re:Is it just me

[Dogtanian]

Microsoft already used the "screwed up face with tongue stuck out in disgust" in the name of their successor to Windows 2000.

Re:Insightful??

[jay-be-em]

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.

Some background from Uruguay

[Acer500]

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/