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OLPC Launches Buy One, Give One Free Program
Tha_Big_Guy23 writes "For the first time, and for a limited period only, people in North America will be able to get their hands on the XO, MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte's rugged little laptop that's designed specifically for children. And for each cutting-edge XO purchased in the West, another will be given to a child in a developing country. For $399, customers can order a laptop for themselves; bundled into the price is the cost of delivering a second XO to a child a poor country."
For those interested, here's a link to the actual order page.
The two laptops will cost $399.00 USD, and shipping is $24.95 USD (for a total of $423.95 USD). Open to residents of US and Canada only. Paypal is the default payment option (credit cards are also accepted). Of that, $200 is considered a tax-deductible donation. Your contribution also gets you 1 year of free Wi-Fi access at T-Mobile hotspots.
The website says that they will try to deliver the laptop before the holidays, but that initial supplies are limited (TFA says 40,000 units in this first month, with 20,000 ready before Christmas), so if you're keen to get one of these things, you should order sooner rather than later.
I'm certainly curious to see how many orders get put in. If a large number of geeks buy these things as hacking toys, then they could very well become the best platform for a variety of tasks. For example, maybe this will finally be a viable e-book reader (portable, rugged, long battery life, display that can be used in ambient light, etc.). Should be interesting.
Maybe you went to the wrong site, but it's quite obvious here. $399 for two laptops, one is given to a child in a developing nation. The cost of the second laptop is considered a charitable donation and is tax-deductible. The T-Mobile info is on that page, too.
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
Yes, OLPC is focusing their efforts on third-world countries, but also the US education system is mostly ignoring OLPC. The "why" is fairly simple: it's not because US children do not deserve a good education, and not because they wouldn't benefit from computer access. But, the fact is that the US is structured such that OLPC may not be the "best fit." For instance many libraries in the US have computers in them, and many schools do also. It would appear that in the US the effort is being put into these kinds of educational resources. Whether or not that is the best way to spend US education dollars is of course up for debate.
But it's not really fair to imply that OLPC is ignoring US education. As I said, educational institutes in the US are free to make a case for funding such projects. OLPC will gladly ship the units.
First, you make it sound like being a geek or philanthropist are bad things or deviant from normal behaviour.
Second, are only the God-fearing allowed to help others? only tech-loving people should play with gadgets? You wouldn't bother helping others unless there was some strong incentive to do so? Your curiosity is only limited to that which you are familiar with? I don't wish to judge you from the few words you have typed in the comment, but the world-view presented within them seems to be extremely narrow and dogmatic. If makes you sound like the people I see who'd go bargain-hunting at charity auctions.
I am sure you are a good person in your daily life.
First, it should be noted that OLPC is targeting developing nations where there is some momentum to improve things, but where access to technological resources and information are limiting growth. They are not focusing on the "desperately poor" countries where starvation is the overriding concern (take a look at the participating countries). Second, the XO laptops are meant to work side-by-side with other forms of relief, aid, education, and infrastructure improvement.
Saying "why bother with OLPC when people are starving?" is like saying "why bother sponsoring a local child to go to a swimming competition when people are starving?" We can simultaneously be philanthropic in different ways to different groups. Moreover, focusing only on the "most dire" problems (and ignoring everything else) is not a good way to help the world as a whole develop into a safer, more equitable place. So, I view OLPC as a part of the overall puzzle: a positive step that can be implemented in some countries, and which will help stimulate those countries to become more prosperous and independent.
But the 'Wally World' laptops don't come with a nice warm inner glow of having helped lift some third world child out of information poverty (and you don't get $200 per tax deductable as a charitable contribution)
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
Yes it is.
I sponsor a teacher in a school in South Eastern Madagascar. By this, I mean that I pay for her board & lodgings. The government pays her salay (approx $500/year) I have done this for the past 4 years.
The village where she teaches is 4 hours by 4WD vehicle to the nearest tarmaced road. They have plenty of food, clean fresh water etc. What they lack is the rest of the things that connect them with the outside world. There is 1 TV in the village. I supplied it alone with a solar panel, some car batteries and an inverter. They have a pirated Satellite encoder and can now stay in touch with the outside world. The thirst for knowledge of the children is fantastic. If I were in the US I would buy several of these units for the village.
The lack of infrastructure(ie no Electricity) is irrelevant for the OLPC. That said, next year I'm hoping to get a small water turbine installed and connected up to a generator. They will have electric light for the first time. Then we can start to make changes to the houses so that the epidemic of lung diseases can be tackled. This is due to the houses not having chimneys and all cooking is done over an open charcoal fire.
I visited the village again in October. I took supplied of pencils and paper (bought in-country) I also took pictures of the children and printed them out in front of them. They took them home to very proud parents.
The OLPC concept will help bridge the gap between the 1st world and the bottom parts of the 3rd world.
I have held both an XO and an Eee in my hands (and a ClassMate, too), and the XO clearly beat the competition in term of built and robustness. It was built expressly for the purpose of surviving usage poor condition (dust, humidity, heat) and are totally centered around the needs of kids, while the Eee and ClassMate where built to be a shrunk-down imitation of full-sized laptop and be as cheap as possible.
As an adult, I prefer the Eee though, mostly because I do not like the XO rubberized keyboard.
:wq
I would order one in an instant!
They haven't had a built-in hand crank since the first prototype. The North American ones will come with a standard wall adapter. They are exploring all sorts of power generation ideas, such as a yo-yo shaped pull cord generator. Check here for many of the other ideas.
Because you want to do good (whether OLPC is doing good or not is your call), and because you want a piece of tech history.
The XO basically revolutionize the low-end portable computer market. They where the first to talk about ultra low cost, ultra-portable, low-power computing, and as such kick-start the movement which gave us recently the Asus Eee and the Intel ClassMate. Without them, the market would have slowly converge toward cheaper and cheaper hardware, but I think we would still be a couple years away before the laptop industry change its mindset from "let's pack more power for the same amount of money" toward "cheap enough to be ubiquitous". I doubt OLPC and the XO would get credit for that, unfortunately.
The XO is also a marvel of engineering. The Sugar interface is the first completely kid-centric interface to come out of Open-Source, and leading the pack on that front. The hardware have been carefully thought-out, and it show. It may not be the best laptop for an adult (it is completely kid-centric), but this not just a bunch of discrete parts thrown together by an ODM. Finally, as if it was not enough, five words: built-in Wifi mesh network. If that does not scream "cool" to you, you need to hand over your geek card right away.
So go grab a rebranded Asus on Black Monday and enjoy your crap imitation of a real laptop. In the meantime, I will continue to use my five years old Thinkpad, which will probably outlive the pathetic knock-off you can buy in the price range you quote.
:wq
"It's an education project, not a laptop project." -- Nicholas Negroponte
If you want a cheap laptop, buy the Asus or Dell for $400+. If you want an educational computer designed for kids, buy the OLPC.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Here's a pointer to a method for ordering one if you are located outside the USA and Canada.
There are also reports that folks in Europe have been able to place orders by phone. This would only work for phone orders - the web site (PayPal) only allows USA and Canadian shipping addresses.
For that price, there has to be either some philanthropy involved, or just some geekiness in messing around with the machine. I got a laptop that is much better for about $CDN 450. If you just need a laptop, and don't care about giving to third world nations, or the geek appeal, there are many other better options. However, with that said, I think that this concept might sell quite a few laptops.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Currency From: CAD
Currency To: USD
Exchange Rate: 1.03014 From our friends at the Canadian Revenue Agency:
"Generally, you cannot claim donations made to U.S. charities on your Canadian income tax."
I'll take that 3 cents on the dollar though!
(If you have US Income, you can use the donation to off-set that...)
Dawson
Yeah, it's hidden in their wiki:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Give_One_Get_One
Will the North American Laptops include any human-power system?
no.
You mean by guaranteeing something like ...
... from the Terms and Conditions of the Give One Get One program.
The underlying window manager is Matchbox.
There is a Developer Console activity which provides a shell, log viewer, X resource meter, and memory usage meter.
If you want a more adult interface than Sugar, you might be more interested in PepperPad. They are providing an OLPC compatible pre-release containing both a 1.5 JVM and a more adult-oriented environment.
I set the alarm clock for 5:40 (EST), and refreshed the order page a few times ... but discovered I had to update my PayPal info, so I missed my chance to have the order in at 6:00 am on the dot ;)
One thing I'd like this for is to take on my next (very infrequent) plane flight -- the cheapo laptops I have right now have both terrible battery life and more heft than airline trays like. (Oh, and don't open well in that tiny space the airlines call enough room for a passenger.) With the T-Mobile deal, it also means I can take it to the local Borders bookstore.
If I were more employed than indebted, I'd have gotten one for my niece, too; maybe next year they'll have another (next-gen) sale of XOs, if the project is still around.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
The pullstring hand generation unit (that is designed to go with the OLPC) is from Potenco: http://www.potenco.com/
Unfortunately you'll have to join the mailing list (http://www.potenco.com/contact-us) to find out about availability since they are focusing on the kids (away from the grid) first.
Complexity Happens
I was unable to find out whether Negroponte ultimately changed his mind, but it's unfair to say that US schools just aren't interested. They do want the OLPC, but foundation said "no" (at least in the beginning).
Yes, you can easily run the emulated Sugar environment on a variety of platforms. See this page for emulation instructions.
The core developers run Sugar directly on their Linux desktops. Those instructions are here.
Yeah, it says it has a touchpad suitable for finger or stylus use, and nothing about a touchscreen. But, since it can convert into a tablet formfactor (if not an actual tablet), and has a directional pad and buttons in the bezel, it should be great for reading ebooks.