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Peru Orders 260K OLPCs, Mexico to Get 50K
eldavojohn writes "Perhaps in response to recent news that the lawsuit against the OLPC may be a scam, Peru's government has announced they want 260,000 OLPCs and a Mexican billionaire by the name of Carlos Slim has also asked for 50,000 that he wishes to distribute in Mexico. Things are looking good for the OLPC."
Are we handing them out at the border or something?
http://wiki.laptop.org/
Since Slim owns CompUSA, maybe he's creating new customers.
If people had bothered to read the "OLPC Lawsuit-Bringer Has Past Fraud Conviction" (http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/03/0526202) article, they would have seen that it mentioned Peru's and Mexico's purchasing plans.
I guess Carlos can afford to hand out these $200 laptops.
Dude, you're comparing apples and washing machines. One is a laptop to teach third world children, the other is a PDA killer. Just because they're both small, cheap and run Linux doesn't mean they're aimed at anything like the same market.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
The lawsuit is Nigerian, but it's not so clearly a scam. It seems to be a claim that a keyboard layout (i.e. which key goes where) is a patentable design. Of course in most of the world keyboard layouts are standardized, denying us the fun of learning a new keyboard layout whenever we buy a new keyboard -- but perhaps this isn't the case there. If anything, I would suspect it to be a harassment tactic. I wonder if this Nigerian company has recently started a strategic partnership with a large American software company ...
It would be great if at this point we started thinking how to evaluate the laptops' impact. Surely there won't be enough for *all* children, so starting a data collection effort on the children, maybe assigning them randomly to schools or towns (otherwise, how to ration them?), and comparing results down the line could be an interesting project. Negroponte should think of funding a few data collection efforts, I think.
Peru's government has announced they want 260,000 OLCPs [CC] and a Mexican billionaire by the name of Carlos Slim has also asked for 50,000 that he wishes to distribute in Mexico.
In other news Colombia has proposed to help the OLPC organisation respond to the increased demand by manufacturing hundreds of thousands of OLPC laptops and shipping them to the USA, thereby only letting the non-profit organisation take care of the worldwide distribution of the laptops.
You just got troll'd!
I thought they swore that taxpayers would never pay for OLPC? That was one of the main selling points, originally. WTF?
I suggest you read Slashdot
They are different things, for different purposes.
"The Eee PC is not a competitor to the OLPC XO-1, another inexpensive laptop computer..."
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASUS_Eee_PC
Carlos Slim recently surpassed Bill Gates as the world's richest man. I found it sort of jarring that whoever wrote the summary hadn't seemed to have heard of him.
Carlos Slim is not Mexico, in much the same way as Bill Gates is not the United States.
Troll, you're right, Slashdot doe SUX0RZ, and we need you to keep doing your hilarious customized goatse captions.
Who'd have thought that a troll on slashdot was one of the better parts of my workday?
To me, a language learning software package for deployment in Mexico would be the killer app. Mexico should have a leg up on India and China when it comes to importing stuff to the United States. Mexico is much closer and the time difference isn't much if any. Mexico is getting shoved out of nearly all markets however due to their inability to compete. China is shoving them out of the goods market because of their low prices (and associated poor environmental and human practices). India is beating them on call centers because many Indians are willing to learn English and have a chance to do so- something most Mexicans can not or will not.
Mass adoption of English as a second language could give Mexico the enormous economic boost that India has enjoyed in recent years. Can the OLPC fill this gap in Mexican education? Will Mexicans care to learn English? I doubt it. There may soon be a time when large numbers of Indians stop immigrating to the US because there are plenty of good jobs in India. It would be nice to think that Mexico could get to that point too.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
I don't think its entirely unreasonable to view these as competitors, they are both small form factor computers at
a low price point.
They'll find they can run a lot more programs concurrently. Don't believe all that '640k is enough for anybody' bumf.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Could the poor children get some Macs instead... please save the world!
Lay off the coffee bud.
Some people just want a $200 laptop and to donate some money. I G1G1ed and I hope that some child in "fill in the blank" will get some use out of the XO.
I want one because it should be pretty much be a cheap "Tonka toy" tough laptop for my child to use.
I travelled briefly in Peru in 2005 and saw the crushing poverty both in and out of the cities. It's worse out of the cities, and not uncommon to see houses with no electricity and water delivered from wells.
In Cuzco begging is rife, and the kids usually try to sell something to justify giving them money. Postcards are pretty popular. These kids are smart too, learning enough English to have a conversation and show their sense of humour. I think that giving them an opportunity to learn valuable skills can only be a good thing for them and for their country.
Intel and Microsoft should be ashamed for their attempts to poison this fantastic project.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Kirby
>> But of course not. This is just another lame FOSSie attempt to force people into using Lunix... which realistically nobody wants
Excactlly!!!! What it really needs is AmigaOS4!!!! Yeah Baby!!
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=764
I've seen the OLPC and I can assure you that it works.
The OLPC is a (non-profit) response to the need to educate children in developing countries. Intel's Classmate is a (for-profit) response to an inexpensive PC that doesn't use Intel's CPUs. Microsoft's $30 Windows/Office package is a (for-profit) response to a free operating system that is "making the news". Can you see the difference? Neither Intel or Microsoft would have created their responses if OLPC did not exist. Why would they?
Hey Troll, hope you read this.
You have one of the funniest long-runnings troll posts on slashdot, keep it up! It makes my day!
The XO is not a computer. It's a teaching tool.
The EeePC is a very inexpensive and small notebook computer.
they are entirely different beasts.
The Eee has ha UMPC screen (480x800) while the XO has much higher resolution one designed to consume less power and to be readable under direct sunlight. It also sports a next to indestructible design and mesh networking hardware. The Eee is just a low-power (and underpowered) notebook.
Not to say I don't like it. In fact, I would like to have both.
But the EeePC's technology points towards the present - there is nothing new in it except the price. The XO points towards the future. And we all know the future is a much cooler place.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
...by the name of Carlos Slim.
Uh, just the richest man in the world. Funny how no one ever hears people refer to Bill Gates as "An American Billionaire by the name of Bill Gates".
Dear eldavojohn... you must be very ignorant.
### The XO is not a computer. It's a teaching tool.
I don't think so. If anything its the software that teaches, not the hardware. The XO is much better for book reading, outdoor use and such as the Eee, but that doesn't make it a teaching tool, it simply makes it the better hardware for such environments.
only one of the richest men in the world link [ wikipedia.com ], richer than Bill Gates.
>> But of course not. This is just another lame FOSSie attempt to force people into using Lunix... which realistically nobody wants
Yeah, of course! why should any child in the world learn on a system which is transparent, and can be explored, when they can be brought up thinking that computers ARE Windows, and that a computer system is something that will ALWAYS be purchased from a single American company and never to be shared, discussed, or cracked open to learn from?
Oh wait, but that will give third world children *more* opportunities than American children! kill the OLPC!
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It's a PDA killer in the sense that the Zune is an iPod killer.
I have to ask. Despite whatever good intentions exist in giving laptops to kids, do all these laptops really go to children? As cheap as they are, and even with the low specs, might they still be of interest to poor nations for government offices, businesses, or even Nigerian (or the like) spammers in poor countries wanting a laptop of their own instead of having to use the ones at the local internet cafe that gets raided periodically?
Hello? They have been speaking English in India for a very long time. And installing a language tutor isn't going to instantly create a population of fluent English speakers. Extensive fluency in a population requires a that they converse in that language.
-- http://thegirlorthecar.com funny dating game for guys
I was going to jump in with the inevitable, "Mexican billionaire? So about $34 American?" Then I remembered the peso's worth slightly more than the dollar now. So... uh... yay... Go him!
How much, do you really think that the raw materials and the cheap underpaid, overworking employee cost the Chinese manufacturer ?
I really doubt that such cable could any way cost more than 1$ to the factory, and I think that I'm still grossly over-estimating the price.
A couple of cents may be a very close to reality figure.
I mean, Chinese companies can make whole DVD players which are sold, including the scart cable (at least as much complex as a parallel printer cable), for not more than 50$ in the shop and everyone along the chain makes profit (they can't sell at a loss something for which they can't apply the same technique as for inkjet printers).
Do you genuinely think that the cable cost 10$ to produce ?
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
> So please... tell us again the OLPC isn't, like Lunix
Please, get it right: It's called Lunizzz
OK. But it was not designed to be used the same way we use our computers - That's not its primary design goal.
In that sense, it has as much in common to the notebook I am typing this as this notebook has with the Playstation downstairs.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Neither Intel or Microsoft would have created their responses if OLPC did not exist. Why would they?
Is it not price discrimination in the USA to sell the same product at different prices based on who is buying it? Time to stick it to Intel/Microsoft in keeping prices artificially high.
Go Linux go! One thing these brain dead $$ execs can't seem to comprehend is that chips and software are commodity items. I remember buying a 8080a for $7. Expect I will see a low power Core Duo Quad at $20 before not too long.
Speaking of which, how useful is the OLPC to a child in an environment where there aren't any other similar machines? I was thinking about getting one to give to a friend's 5yr old child and was wondering how useful it would be. It would be that they would have the only one in the area, so the wireless mesh networking & chat wouldn't be used. They have a wireless network in the apartment, so they could use it to play games and browse some websites. But what else? Are there websites providing educational content just for these machines?
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
I can't figure out if that's 266,240 and 51,200 or 260,000 and 50,000. Oh, it has something to do with computers, so it must be powers of two, right?
I thought it was Knieu/Lunitzz ?
wtf what is insightful about the parents troll post.
Linux is simply a capable operating system with zero licensing costs. Windows simply costs money, even a $30 dollar windows office package would cost Peru on its current order over $6,000,000 that seems like a fairly hefty price tag.
Microsoft quite frankly needs to compete with superior products in all area's, the hidden agenda if there is one will be that millions will manage to do without windows. Some area's it's going to be tough, poor or non existent software packages in some area's will mean some of these poorer country's home grown programmers will need to write software to fill these gaps in linux. Kids will want to play games, and some will write games on linux.
The OLPC project is sowing the seeds for a better Linux experience. Indirectly it will spur microsoft into action and force them to compete to retain their userbase, OSX needs to improve too.
Whatever happens the OLPC project is going to shake up the software industry and thats got to be a good thing.
You are correct. the PDA killer is the Nokia N770 or the N800. They kick the ever living shit out of any PDA sold on the market today.
,"Holy crap! where was that when I dropped $500.00 on this Windows Mobile piece of crap."
Everyone I show my N800 to says
A real screen, real resolution, real hardware... ALL PDA's are crap compared to the N800. Yes even the Holy Newtons.
The Eee is much closer to a cheap subnotebook than a PDA. Why? Try running Mathematica on a PDA.
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
Currently this article is tagged 'tobadsosadms'. Personally, I like the snarky comments people leave in the form of tags, but this one is bad in many ways. Most important, and I hope you all thought the same thing when you saw it, it's not even intelligible English. "To bad so sad"? To what? To infinity and beyond? To be or not to be? What is the tagger talking about? Did he mean "Too"? Seriously, once you're past first grade, the difference between To and Too should be abundantly clear. For the sake of the tagger's brain, I really hope it was a mistake and not a misunderstanding.
Preserved tissue?
I bet it tastes like chicken!
Mammoth steaks anyone?
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
IIRC sony were planning to ship the PS3 with linux so it could be used as a general purpose computer as well as a games console but they bottled out at the last minuite (they let you install linux if you want but don't preload it or provide media for it).
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Preach it, brother! and the N810 firmware is amazing.
Uh, if you don't like the idea of discriminatory pricing, then you probably won't like OLPC. I think the people making it will charge double-price to individuals, with the extra money going to donate one overseas. A nice gesture on one hand, but it means that fewer will get sold overall which means higher prices and thus less children with one overseas...
Take a look here for kidz stuff for the OLPC... http://squeakland.org/
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
Nope, it's a big PDA
errera hunamum ets
I wonder how long it is going to take 1st-world governments, particularly Canadian and American, to get these OLPCs in the hands of *our* schoolchildren. I wonder how long it will take them to figure out that if they don't, our kids are going to continue to be dumb and dumber on average.
The OLPC folks aimed to make a laptop for poor kids. What they have done is make the best tool for childhood education ever created. If you don't believe me, check out some of the features...
I'd love to try out the OLPC software on my ThinkPad, but I've futzed around with couple of Virtual Machines and image files all weekend and only got as far as a plain white window. If OLPC want their play and learn machine to take off, they have got to get their software into the hands of the world's education administrators, the target audience, and the parents and teachers thereof.
So, which VM and which image file should I d/l to attempt to make a LiveCD so I can show this off to my grandaughter's teacher and school administrator?
Anybody got an OLPC emulation to actually go?
They only did it for tax reasons in Europe, where general purpose computers are taxed at a lower rate than "entertainment systems"
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
I prefer to buy laptops that are darker in color than my Mountain Dew.
It's from NIGERIA forchrissakes!--- This is what the Nigerian Prince does when his scam spam server is down...he's a patent troll!
So that's why all those (cough!) undocumented workers in the US have to send all that money to their families back in Mexico --- to pay the phone bills!
But guess what: in absolute numbers, today more people in the USA speak English than ever before. What the hell are you complaining about, then?
No, you don't. Did you read what I said?
The Spanish menus are for people who speak Spanish, regardless of whether they speak English or not. In fact, many companies that market their products in Spanish are primarily trying to reach Spanish-dominant bilinguals and full bilinguals. Why? Because the bilinguals as a group have better jobs, and thus, more money to spend than the ones who only speak Spanish.
Do you seriously think it's easy to live in the USA without knowing a fair amount of English? And care tell me, why are the Spanish-language TV networks so full commercials for home courses in English? (The latest one I saw, the course is in MP3s, and they throw in a cheap MP3 player for you to play the course in.)
You know, American xenophobes think we live in a fantasy world where recent immigrants that move into the USA and militantly refuse to learn English or assimilate to American society. At the same time, they believe that in the glory days of past, when their own immigrant ancestors came to the USA, they integrated trivially and effortlessly into the USA. Neither of these is true.
Are you adequate?
No... I can't see the difference. OLPC is, supposedly, "for the kids". So, if it's some altruistic attempt to simply get computers into the hands of kids... why does it matter if their $200 laptop has Lunix or Windows? Why does it matter if the $200 laptop has Open Office or MS Office? What difference does it make if the $200 goes to a for-profit or non-profit? Wasn't the whole POINT to get computers to KIDS?
As I said... the OLPC is simply a not-even-veiled attack on Windows and Intel. It's a bald-faced lie, and exploits kids in poor countries in a lame attempt to push FOSSie-ism down their throat.
Indeed, the Stallmanistas know no shame.
Lunix is a complete and utter failure in the first world, so they are trying to force it down the throat of the third world. And the REAL crime is that it's not even a functional version of Lunix, it's some kind of poorly designed crap they hacked up in a few weeks. Then... if the OLPC breaks after 3 months, Negroponte's "support plan" is that, basically, he hopes the kids can figure out how to fix it.
So by your own admission, OLPC has nothing to do with helping to educate poor kids.
It's all about the Lunix crusade against TEH MIKKKRO$$$LOTH!!!!! and commercial software in general. Typical Stallmanista party line crap.
If you want kids to learn to use real computers, get them a Classmate with Windows on it. If you want them to learn how to be good little FOSSie code slaves... get them an OLPC. Assuming the OLPC can survive longer than it's 3 month warranty, that is.
You can connect to a jabber server over ordinary wireless to "mesh" with distant computers if you don't have nearby XO's. There is quite a bit of interesting software packaged with it even in prerelease versions that you can try out on a vmware image to see what you think. The other reply about squeak is right on. Also see the tutorials about squeak etoys at this url: http://waveplace.com/movies/
Yes, I'd like a screen readable in sunlight and with a resolution of 1200x900 pixels (in black and white, even if the resolution in color is closer to 400x300). A waterproof laptop would be great.
wow, I think we found the idiot who wrote the "tobadsosadms" tag. I think you need some education.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Hey Mr Troll, in Mexico, you too can be a peso menunaire!
Go ahead, indulge in refried chorizo tacos with a dash of medium-rare pork's ass.
Then have a blast with whatever comes out the other end and report back to us.
(BTW, if any mexican geek out there caught the Santos vs La Tetona Mendoza reference, I salute you!)
"a Mexican billionaire by the name of Carlos Slim"
LOL - he is the richest guy of the world, not some Mexican billionaire.
Hahaha! Referring to Carlos Slim as some run-of-the-mill Mexican billionaire is funny. You do know the man is one of the absolute RICHEST MOTHERFUCKERS ON THE PLANET!? Like, number 3? Just give credit where credit is due, is all I'm saying.
> Things are looking good for the OLPC
On-Line Porn Collection? Let's hope things are looking good!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
PS3 doesn't have enough memory to be a credible computer. It makes an OK thin client though. Shame about all that processing power you can't really use for anything but games or HPC due to the low memory.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
256 is a bit low by modern standards but provided you avoid the big name megabloat desktops and applications (KDE, GNOME, openoffice etc) it should be usable as a desktop.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
where is that vmware image? at the sqeakland.org site? Thanks for the response.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
You can get the vmware image here: http://dev.laptop.org/pub/virtualbox/ I haven't tried the latest one, but had success (minus the sound) with the next most recent when I downloaded it and ran it under vmware server. But you don't need vmware to play with etoys. Follow the instructions in the waveland tutorial (essentially install what's at the first link -- versions for windows, os/X and linux are there) and then fetch the second squeakland link to be executed by the program installed when you download the first squeakland link).
I have a creepy supiscion that what you pay in the US for a OLPC is the actual cost for getting you that Laptop. Or at least 80% of the cost is for your laptop, I hope I'm wrong.
GPL v3 protects your right to tinker, and OLPC is supposed to have , if it is in in the final version I don't know.
PS you can use the id in too link within a page.
PS you can use the id in div id="muu" too link within a page.
O RLY? These guys don't seem to think so, because I don't see it there. But what do they know?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
He is not just a Mexican billionaire, he became the richest man in the world this year.
Amongst many businesses, Mr Slim owns Telmex, the Mexican telecoms monopoly (bought from the government at a bargain price).
Most Mexicans pay the guy some dosh daily, depending of the goods and services you get, but anybody with a phone is paying him.
Makes the MS tax pale in comparison.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Some of them are immensely rich, but the balance of wealth as moved to entrepreneurs, oligarchs and a few pop and sport stars.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
He got the company lawfully.
It is disgraceful that politicians literally handled it to him in a silver plate, but the guilty party is Mr Carlos Salinas and his corrupt government who were the people responsible to ensure proper privatization should have taken place (i.e. ensuring fair competition would arise at some point).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You could have paid US$30/month for ADSL and then got yourself a calling card.
But I agree, that price is comparable to the ones paid in developed countries, a real rip-off in relative terms.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The Spanish speaking people will have enough muscle (cultural and political) to be able to keep their culture inside the US if so they wish.
At some point Hispanic culture will be so overwhelming than nobody will make a fuss about it. The US will become part of the Latin sphere of influence and that frankly would not be a bad thing (you know, we are tired of the US trashing our countries every time it feels like it).
Being now the biggest minority (at least in the derided way in which minorities are counted in the US, in which "Hispanic" related mostly to a shared common language is treated in a similar way to African-American, which is a racial stereotype), Hispanics should not trouble themselves much with integration. They have never been welcomed anyway, so they can as well get on with life on their own.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Mexico has had a ministry for the environment for ages. Although it is far from perfect it has real teeth and promotes numerous environmental projects and is willing to listen to ecological organizations (several development projects in places where endangered species would have been put at risk have been stopped, this includes protecting whales in Baja California, Monarch butterflies in Michoacan and teporingo rabbits in Mexico City).
In recent years also unleaded gasoline was forbidden and the conversion of cars (in the government and public transport) in Mexico City has progressed as fast as possible. Mexico City was in a siuation similar to the one in Beijing now but people got of their asses and tried to do something about it.
As for human rights, you surely are joking. Although Mexico's record in human rights is not as good as the ones of some EU countries, we don't execute people like China (or the US), have a free press (unlike China), levels of censorship have been steadily falling (I don't think there has been a movie or book banned in Mexico for at least 20 years) and have an independent Human Rights commissioner ensuring that the governments respects them.
Mexico is signatory of all kind of treaties regarding the protection of Human Rights, unlike China (and in some cases, unlike the US).
So yeah, Mexico is not perfect, but it is ludicrous even to attempt to compare it with China in these two topics.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Honestly. Take a trip down to Mexico some time, it is not that far.
Which exploding birthrates are you talking about? Birthrates in Mexico have been falling since the 70s, as well as life expectancy has been rising.
Lack of natural resources? We have oil, gas, coast, silver. I could go forever.
The only valid points you make are capital and health and sanitation (up to a point, all Mexicans have accesss to a lesat basic medical services now, provided by the state).
So now, pray tell me, who would want to invest in Mexico (the capital bit) if there is not an educated population to take those new jobs?
China and India are creating thousands of Engineering graduates, in Mexico out of 100 only 4 or 5 students get an University degree, forget about relevant disciplines to allow the country to grow its exports (sorry, but a degree in history or philosophy, although important, will not help much to bring the bread to the national table so to speak).
Medium to highly qualified jobs go vacant in Mexico for months, that is a problem that only education will solve, but education starts at the very bottom. Many people of my generation still find computers puzzling and technology threatening, having a new generation of kids comfortable with technology, independently of their economic situation (not all are in abject misery, and even those that are may benefit from this) is a huge plus.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.