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OLPC To Be Distributed To US Students

Posted by kdawson on from the seizing-the-initiative dept.

eldavojohn writes "The One Laptop Per Child Project plans to launch OLPC America in 2008 , to distribute the low-cost laptop computers originally intended for developing nations to needy students here in the United States. Nicholas Negroponte is quoted as saying, 'We are doing something patriotic, if you will, after all we are and there are poor children in America. The second thing we're doing is building a critical mass. The numbers are going to go up, people will make more software, it will steer a larger development community.'"

5 of 338 comments (clear)

  1. Patriotic??? by iamacat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A patriotic thing would be to offer OLPC in US before elsewhere in the world. I am not saying it would be the most practical thing to do, but turning home only after selling everywhere else and some may say after failing to realize the volume is certainly not patriotic.

    1. Re:Patriotic??? by jorghis · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Every time someone tries to sell something to the government they spin it as "patriotic". When Halliburton sells to the government they make noise about how "patriotic" it is that they are selling to them. The same is true of everyone who builds anything from roads to aircraft carriers to now laptops. Maybe I am being cynical, but I do get tired of seeing the word "patriotic" used so many different ways for so many different reasons that it really doesnt seem to have the meaning that it used to.

    2. Re:Patriotic??? by fictionpuss · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I grew up on an 8bit Z80 128k Spectrum (+2). I learned more from that and its single instruction book (no internet) than I would have from an 'industry standard' computer of the time - because I could poke and peek inside it, because it was designed to be explored and played with - the ROM/OS even had little messages inside to reward the curious.

      The point is, that these kids will be able to learn more about computers and technology with the OLPC because it comes from the same sort of heritage, than they could with a box which has any other existing commercial OS (or even just plain Linux) shoved inside.

  2. America's education system by HandsOnFire · · Score: 5, Insightful
    ...to distribute the low-cost laptop computers originally intended for developing nations to needy students here in the United States.

    Wouldn't it have made sense for him to have started in America, seeing as the education system is similar to that in quality of the systems in the developing nations? :p

  3. what the hell... by diewlasing · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...is with the messed up tag: "onelaptopperblackchild"? Am I the only one who thinks that's slightly wrong?