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Widespread Keyboard Failures on OLPC's XO-1
otakuj462 writes "Many participants in OLPC's 'Give 1 Get 1' program of last November are now encountering what has come to be known as the 'stuck key' problem, in which one or more of the keys on their XO-1 laptop's built-in keyboard become stuck in an activated position, or are activated when adjacent keys are pressed. As of January 30th, the official word from OLPC is that the root cause of this problem is unknown because '[t]here are several manufacturers of the keyboards.' ('So far we don't know of any _reliable_ method of fixing the keyboard or the exact root cause.') It is unknown just how widespread this problem currently is, as the 30-day manufacturer's warranty has already expired for most G1G1 participants. However, the OLPC forums are full of reports. OLPC is currently deploying the XO-1 to children in Mongolia and Peru, as well as other developing nations. If OLPC is actively deploying units with known, critical hardware bugs, without a dedicated support infrastructure in place, to children who have never seen a computer before, should they still be considered to be a responsible organization? Did OLPC deploy their hardware too soon?"
Amazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzing!
$100 doesnt buy much these days...there is a reason that laptops dont sell for under $450...they cost money
I don't think that it is so much a problem with not testing the hardware enough as it is a problem with how OLPC designed the laptops. These are computers that are being used widely by children all over the world, and, regardless of how you look at it, kids have a tendency to break things. Now, it is obvious that the XO-1 is designed to be a sturdy piece of equipment, but I find it downright silly that the keyboard is non-replaceable. The keyboard, of all things, should be easy to swap out for a new one--it is after all the primary input device on the computer, and if you lose that, you lose the computer. OLPC should have thought ahead to possible broken parts and made everything--from the touchpad to the keyboard to the LCD to the hard drive--removable and replaceable.
Well I guess you get what you pay for. If you go for the cheapest of every single piece of hardware, you're going to eventually have something fail pretty quickly.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
They can rip the key out and use a key remapping tool to get some other key used in its place.
While many wondered about the ultimate durability of the XO-1, it's at least a full-fledged computer at a small price. Just the other day I was wondering if mainstream Internet retailers even had listing pages for OLPC's offerings, even if they couldn't sell it themselves. Doing a search on Amazon for OLPC brings up a page where you see some crappy toys that sell for $50 and look like a real computer, but with a tiny screen and very little capabilities. Have these companies convinced Amazon to bring them up automatically for OLPC searches? Isn't that illegal?
It's not too surprising that they are having that problem. One has to keep the keyboard clean and the conditions where these laptops is not exactly clean.
Dodgy keyboard. Less space than an Eeepc. Lame
A real non-issue. Apple distributed laptops with a 75% failure rate but everyone still loves them.
M kybr wrk fn
It's the geeks playing with their new OLPCs and not cleaning the cheeto/mountain dew residue off their fingers that's causing this.
The idea of the laptop is to make schools and children responsible for and in control of their own technology, rather than being passively spoon fed technology.
Therefore the idea is that people fix things themselves. This is a good thing if things are built with this in mind. Repair your own thinkpad (no problem), repair your own ipod (no chance).
If we have any hope of saving the planet from being one giant landfill dump, then we really need to learn to fix electronic devices ourselves.
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The questions in the original post:
strongly and clearly suggest a particular answer ("no" to the first, "yes" to the second), and seem intended to influence opinions under the guise of honest questions.
Ditto for this story.
Not quite sure what is meant by "we don't know of any _reliable_ method", unless perhaps it means something that works for everyone the same way 100% of the time, and there's some small number of units that can't be fixed by disassembly and wiping the area under the affected key with isopropyl alcohol. I didn't even go that far with mine, I just pried up the edge of the keyboard mat near my stuck alt key just enough to get the q-tip in.
The XO is designed to be like the old Volkswagen Beetle -- cheap and easily fixable by non-experts in the field. Yes, it would have been nice if they weren't prone to stuck key syndrome, but it's not the end of the world, and these are fricken amazing devices at twice the price.
Loose lips lose spit.
Let's be realistic. First off, there is no information to show how common the problem is: 1 in 100, 1 in 1000, 1 in 10,000? Also, note that it appears that everyone on the forums complaining about this is someone in a developed country who bought one via give-one-get-one. The blog at olpcnews.com linked to in the slashdot summary seems to be saying that there needs to be a system for distributing spare parts. Well, actually that wouldn't do any good with the stuck key problem, because the OLPC folks don't have enough information yet to know which keyboard supplier or suppliers are causing the problem. They could ship spare keyboards to Mongolia, but there's no way to know yet whether the replacements would have the same problem. OLPC does have a plan for dealing with hardware breakage. The plan is that they're trying to get the defect rate very low, and then have people in the communities receiving the laptops take care of the small number of defects by cannibalizing machines. That seems like a very reasonable plan for a village in Mongolia where 100 kids have 100 laptops. No, it's not a very reasonable plan for an affluent adult in the U.S. who isn't part of a community that has received a pile of these laptops -- but, uh, sorry, that isn't the main mission of OLPC. Some of the buyers in developed countries seem upset that the warranty period is only 30 days, and that they have to pay for shipping. Yeah, sure, OLPC could extend the warranty to a year, and pay for shipping, but that would cost money, and they'd have to pass on those costs, driving up the cost of the laptops. The goal right now is to continue decreasing the cost of the laptops.
Find free books.
..but the whole OLPC thing really does need a "What could POSSIBLY go wrong?" tag. Sad, sad, sad.
Frankly, I'd guess that the OLPC organization signs contracts with their customers (or customer nations, anyway) which resemble Microsoft's EULA's. In other words, the customer agrees to the fact that there is nothing resembling the support infrastructure which commercial companies supply.
Last time I read an EULA from Microsoft, it said that Microsoft had no obligation to patch any particular bugs which would be found in its software. Very similar to this situation.
The first takers for the OLPC are, in reality, beta testers, even if they are not officially. I don't find it particularly scandalous that there would be some problems with the hardware which only large scale use would uncover. I would think it unscrupulous if no action would be taken to fix the (major) problems which are discovered (that is, just as I would look at Microsoft leaving major known security vulnerabilities unpatched).
Amazingly, there IS a support mechanism in place for the target countries. There isn't one for the people who received laptops in return for a charitable donation. Support for the G1G1 program is volunteer-based. Sorry we're not as quick to fix everything as the billion-dollar companies you morons keep comparing us to. The manpower we have is being devoted to target countries, so forgive us if we seem to be neglecting the rich white demographic who has time to harass us on Slashdot. Posting anonymously for obvious reasons.
I think it can be said now: the OLPC program is really just getting these children ready for the frustrations they will imminently face when they finally get to deal with "bug-free" large scale "western" software and hardware. Vista, anyone?
Seriously, though, the legal concerns of this are what really strike me on an Ethical level. If the OLPC company does get sued, it will certainly be by the individuals that live in the richer side of things, citing faulty development etc. And who benefits from that? Certainly not the people this organization is out to help (or, at least, purports to be).
Hey, at least these people have one :) I ordered my XO on day 1 of the Give One, Get One program and it's still not arrived yet.
At least they are trying to make the world a better place! Results don't matter!
:)
Now, let's all drop our pants and have a circle jerk to the Powa of Da Collective! w00t!</sarcasm>
Of course, right now, some poor little kid in the middle of some hellhole is cursing his America POS computer.
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
My 2-year old son uses his XO several times a week and we haven't had any failures. It has been dropped a couple of times and has lived up to its rugged design promises for us.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Stop pointless speculation in the summary. This isn't CNN or Fox news. Just give us a summary of what the topic is about, give relevant links, and allow us to form opinions. Thank you.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
To say that there is "no dedicated support infrastructure" is rather misleading. When my Thinkpad keyboard glitched out, I sent it in for repair, a depot tech swapped in a new keyboard module, and sent it back to me. The only difference in the XO-1 case is that the user will have to swap the keyboard module out rather than have a tech do it.
If it turns out that a significant number of keyboards are dying in the field, they may well end up having to ship a few boxes of replacement keyboards to the various deployment sites. Not ideal; but not exactly insurmountable. I suspect that they'll be bumping the revision number on the keyboard module in the near future, as well.
From the perspective of an XO-1 owner in the US, the prospect is slightly worrisome; because we aren't a deployment site in that sense and there is not much tech support architecture in place. Frankly, though, that isn't a huge surprise. Buying a G1G1 XO-1 is rather like buying an OpenMoko dev kit. You don't do it because you want time-tested enterprise grade hardware, you do it because it is cool hardware, a very interesting project, and because you are a geek. My keyboard is ok so far, and I hope it remains so; but I knew what I was getting in to.
Some of the buyers in developed countries seem upset that the warranty period is only 30 days, and that they have to pay for shipping.
Some people are simply delusional. When I participated in G1G1 I assumed there was no warranty. My guess is the 30 day warranty is only there because of some stupid law. The way I see it, I made a donation to the OLPC Foundation, and got a neat little example of the technology I was funding. If mine had experienced any problems I would never have dreamed of draining OLPC's resources by returning it for replacement. I would have attempted a repair and reported on the success or failure of my repair, so that the knowledge could be disseminated to the children using the laptops.
I haven't experienced any problems, and I really wish commercial companies would adopt a technology like its screen or its ability to take falls and keep on ticking, and especially the power-saving technologies which makes this thing the only laptop that has never run out of juice one me; I carry around three heavy batteries with my regular laptop and run it in its maximal power saving mode and it still doesn't hold a candle to the OLPC.
The keyboard doesn't have the best feel, and I would only want commercial companies to copy it when making a keyboard for children. It is spill-proof. When I've spilled hot coffee and cold soda on it, I just had to wipe it off. Again, this is unlike my Sony Vaio and Lenovo T-61 keyboards which I've had to replace when even take-it-apart-deep-cleaning did not restore functionality post spill.
From what I've read, it appears the stuck key problem is fixable with a cleaning. Taking apart an OLPC is _much_easier_ than taking apart a commercial laptop, so I think this whole complaint is completely overblown. I'm not going to go so far as to say the article poster is an Intel sock puppet. I've seen they crazies who talk about having "bought" an OLPC right here on slashdot. Since the OLPC has never been on sale to individuals, you know these people are delusional right off the bat. The apparently large number of these folks either speaks to the success of the G1G1 program at reaching many many people, or it speaks to the sorry state of the war on drugs at it's goal of combating the crack epidemic. Either way, these idiots should be ignored, and I hope the folks at OLPC do not take these jokers seriously.
My only disappointment with the G1G1 program is that it wasn't G2G1, Give 2 Get 1. That could have resulted in more laptops in the hands of children, and fewer laptops in the hands of these complainers.
Part of the problem with the OLPC design and sourcing methodology was that although they wanted to leverage common commodity items to bring down cost, they often ended up specifying specialty items. They didn't have the paranoia or experience of a "good" OEM.
Although they are using older/cheaper technologies in the display, user interface, networking etc. they have not used off-the-shelf implementations or well tested reference designs and have instead requested very non-standard designs. Some of these changes were intended to make the OLPC more reliable, or useful, or easier to fix.
The problem is that on an ultra-low margin/price product with very tight schedules the suppliers had little incentive to do full testing. The OLPC designers also didn't have the experience of a standard OEM to fully test and specify the parts they were getting.
Hopefully, the core CPU/RAM/Disk won't have the same problems. They pretty much had to use commodity specs for those, but low cost providers could still bite them.
At least the software can be upgraded remotely and easily... if they have net.
P.S. Qualifier- Yes I would have loved to work with the OLPC project on a low cost/margin commodity, but when I saw the design specs after we knew the pricing, I recommended a no-bid.
Your post is a useful reminder of why Communism doesn't work. If you don't feel accountable to the people who pay your salary, you don't feel accountable to anyone.
I'm straight, you insensitive clod!
Perhaps in consumerist societies, but I bet they take more care of stuff when they know it can't/won't be replaced.
In "non-consumerist" societies, kids are equally rambunctious and can easily drop or knock things over.
Long before I was a "consumerist" to use your venom-dripping terminology, I was breaking stuff. Haven't you ever heard a parent complain that kinds understand the value of nothing?
If a kid has no real concept of value anyway, what on earth would motivate him to be more careful than with anything else they are used to playing with?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The OLPC project is a shining example of a great idea, implemented apallingly badly. They started out as an idealist business, and turned into a mismanaged charity.
It has been a total fuck up from start to finish, and their cause should be taken up by a competant company.
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
To say that there is "no dedicated support infrastructure" is rather misleading.
Not if you are talking about the other poor (I mean in the sense of income, not that they are getting these laptops!) countries that are receiving the laptops - if a lot of keyboards break there, and there's no easy means for people in those countries to get repairs, then there is a problem.
I had thought though that with large government contracts that some of these countries are purchasing, that support came along with ti.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I thought I remembered there being support for countries that had bought in to buy the laptops for children.
You are right I think that the people purchasing laptops here misunderstood the nature of what they were buying and the arrangement that went into it. But sadly you'll find that many people do not ever read the fine print, and will crucify your company for not being just like every other electronics maker even though you are not trying to be.
I'd recommend starting off with a public plea noting that resources are devoted to support for other countries, along with instructions to service it yourself - and a program that lets people exchange affected units, but explain that takes away from resources that can be used to support other countries. Most people will simply fix the issue themselves then, and you'll get a few laptops back from the more vociferous people who will then have no cause for complaint and will be won over by good service.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Okay, there were some problems. NOTE THE DATE: As of January 30th. Nothing has been posted since March in there. I think it's safe to say the situation may have changed since january, seriously thats almost 4 months ago.
Really why is this even a post today that far back?
Your post is a useful reminder of why I shouldn't try to explain things to the internet. I don't receive a salary, jackass. The OLPC is a not-for-profit, and I am a volunteer.
We feel accountable to our target nations, and we behave accordingly. We don't feel particularly accountable to Slashdot. Sorry.
...spend some of that philanthropy money to fix it?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Time to launch a new initiative: "One Warranty per child"
Now that I think about it...
While expecting children in the developing world to learn to configure X would be silly, perhaps this is simply a UI design problem:
If modifier keys can get stuck and a remap could help, maybe the following sort of prompt can be built into an XO software update:
"Is this key stuck?"
"Press a new key that you want to replace that key with. You can change this later on the key replacement screen."
So the remap happens, and the kids don't have to learn X.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
I have a G1G1 and mine is working fine. Have installed new OS updates (joyride branch) every couple of weeks since Christmas and it keeps getting better. Never had the stuck key problem, though the original release had some trackpad bugs, long since fixed.
I was the first one to report the bug here:
http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/5658
Although the cause is still unknown, I do believe that the way I was holding mine could have accelerated the issue in my case:
I held it in my left hand with the lower left corner of the base in my palm - My fingers being under the base and my thumb being over the base in the left corner. I would then type and scroll with my right hand, so the entire weight of the laptop was being held at the point where my thumb was pressing on the lower corner - The laptop would essentially flex down and to the right.
The problem presented within 4 days of receiving the laptop.
Since I have received my replacement, I have not held the laptop in same fashion - not even once - and will not.
And luckily, so far so good - I've not experienced any problems with it.
-- start rant ---
I was also the first person to send mine back based on the bug, *BUT* I wasn't the first to be mailed a replacement.
If you read the threads on the bug you'll one of the tech guys next-day-aired some other dude a laptop after his was returned for testing - I was a little bummed!
All of the official messaging from OLPC says that a replacement cant take as long as 30 days. I waited for 30 days and then called support.
They informed me that it would be several more weeks before they shipped my replacement.
Actually, I received it less than 48 hours after getting off the phone with them.
By the way, the support staff are incredibly nice!
-- end rant --
Cube On! (http://stores.ebay.com/PuzzleProz)
Prior to G1G1's launch, I was hearing a lot of concerns to the effect of "G1G1 exposes to consumer criticism a product that was never intended for consumers." Ultimately, I think these concerns have been validated. Every month since its launch I have seen an article questioning the entire validity of the project because...what? Some people on a forum are complaining about a stuck key and a poor warranty? It's absurd, as are the comparisons to ultra-portable laptops such as the EEEPC, products which the XO was never intended to compete with. The EEEPC is a for-profit product that, while a superior consumer computer, does not meet many of the goals (E.g. dust/environmental protection) of the OLPC project. They are only similar in that they both have a small form-factor case; it's apples to oranges.
No donation for you!
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
Now that they've outsourced tech support to the third world, guess they'll have to fix it themselves.
It is silly to think that only the Americans are deserving of quality products. The XO target market are increadibly cost consious. $100 is well over a month's income for many people. While an American might get slightly pissed at throwing away $100, that $100 quite likely means a year's careful saving by a whole family - equivalent to many thousands of dollars for the average American.
Saying "You get what you pay for" etc is not constructive.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Nothing is stopping you from just sending them some money.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The keyboard is all but unusable for an adult with sausage-like fingers, such as myself. However, the XO recognizes my Apple USB keyboard with MS Mouse very well.
There is a bug that causes the mouse pointer to jump to the edge to screen. That's pretty darn annoying.
Also, I recommend the hack of putting an SD drive more or less permanently in the XO for additional swap space. Use a USB flash drive for more disk space.
Heck, I manage to get a VPN client to install on the thing, so it's almost suitable for work.
There's no doubt that Sugar UI needs refinement, but that will come.
I'm glad to see this hit /.
:(
my first xo developed the stupid stuck key problem after about 2 months of light use. cleaning under the rubber cover didn't fix the poblem, so I tried peeling apart the mylar(?) sandwich where the contacts and pads reside. in my case the problem was there wasn't enough clearance between the contacts on the bottom half and the conductor on the top.
the closest I got to a working keyboard was when I cut small sections of post-it note and built "walls" around the problem keys. however the process of testing, peeling the layers apart, adding more post-it note and testing again lead to the malfunction of most of the center section of the keyboard.
olpc has no clue as to when replacement keyboards will be available, which is the most frustrating part. on top of that, if you read the developer notes, they have known about this issue for a while. their silence on the subject is adding to the insult.
the xo is an amazing piece of technology, but if it can't last for more than a couple of months with careful use, it will never survive use in a mud hut in the middle of nowhere. I just hope they preload the overseas units with the disassembly instructions.
btw, this comment was pecked out on my second xo, which I just pulled out of the box yesterday. this keyboard seems ok so far, but I fully expect it to become useless just like the other one in about 2 months, 3 if I'm lucky
That's exactly what I did: G1G1, then donated one out of sheer guilt.
is really just a novelty item as far as I'm concerned. I use it to browse the web at some times, but I don't do anything with it.
I agree with the person who said the keyboard is small and difficult to use for some adults. I can use it, but I know I won't be typing very fast with it. Which might be why I'm not expecting a keyboard problem. I hardly type on it at all.
But heck, I just hope that the project is at least achieving some good, if nothing else, by being a proving ground for what problems can show up. It does seem to attract people's attentions. Having a regular laptop out...nobody says anything. The XO? People ask me about it a lot. I wish I could be more enthusiastic about it, but I just don't know how much good it's doing. Oh well, not like I've been in a third world country to see.
..back in January. This is news now? The review is here.
I received a replacement unit in about two weeks.
Over the last 20 years, I have had problems like this from HP, Zenith, IBM, Dell, Acer, Cisco, Alcatel, Sony ... even M$, Atlas, Linix products have been the cause of a few global problems for me.
... folks that bad-mouth OLPC need to GTFU.
So if you're surprised or think that the planning or testing was poor, then your Technology Experience and Knowledge is exceedingly poor due to youth, a very sheltered life, and/or stupidity.
Every time for hardware it was a sub-component product design/quality fault, not intent or poor planning on the part of the OEMs. Do a reality/logic check.
The OLPC program is still of great and significant value to humanity. The problem must be found and fixed. Maybe the Pope will put his money where his mouth is by buying OLPC for all the Catholic school kids around the world. Then governments and other religions can buy OLPCs and start improving learning/simulations for schools' curriculum.
This is not flame or troll
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Since I have basic shop skills and know how to solder I did just that, spending about $35 for the keyboard and about 4 hours making the modifications. I couldn't be happier with this modification. The action of real keys doubles the usability of the XO, especially for people like me who have big, clumsy hands. I used to dread having to enter enter text on the old keyboard. The new mini keyboard is a joy to use and I can type in my normal style and rate. Highly recommended if you are up to the task.
I'm personally quite disappointed in both the OLPC manufacturers as well as the response by some of the G1G1 donors. The faulty XO-1 keyboard may be the downfall of the whole project and all we in the US can do is whine, and hope a factory in China can fix the problem.
I fully disassembled my original XO keyboard and found the sticky key problem is clearly a design flaw in the way the two membranes are held apart. The bottom membrane has a serpentine array of traces which are exposed to contacts attached to the upper membrane and are arranged in small groups under each key. The top membrane has small circular contacts, with clusters of 2 -17 contacts under each key Separating the membranes, and holding the contacts apart from the traces below, is a pattern of rubbery glue, printed into linear traces between key rows and small diamond shaped dots internal to the rectangular groupings of contacts above. Most keys have an array of 4 contact dots with a 2mm, diamond shaped spot of glue directly between all 4 contacts. However the Ctrl, both Hand and Alt keys as well as the ] key have 6 contact dots with only 2 super tiny dots of glue to hold the membranes apart. Apparently these keys are the ones which stick the most often. For these keys, the designer placed the center pair of contacts in the group of 6, directly over a trace below with little separating glue. The only possible repair would be to separate the membranes and place additional dots of glue over the traces on the sticky keys. OLPC need to come clean about this mistake and build a better, more robust keyboard and make them available to all XO-1 owners.
(PS. This message was entered on my hacked XO, under Opera)
What could posibbly go wronggggggggg.
Have gnu, will travel.
It was inevitable that there would be _some_ sort of issue with the initial massive deployment of a new product. If this is the only problem they ever have, it'll be a stunning success.
But like some other posters have said--this is about self-sufficiency, in any case. Speaking as someone who has kept old CBM hardware alive for decades--it's not a big deal. The owners will figure out how to fix it.
expandfairuse.org
Bigoted and ill-spirited posts such as this one are no credit to the other OLPC support volunteers. Please don't assume you speak for anyone but yourself. Those donating to OLPC contribute greatly to its mission, with their enthusiasm and their sharing of the projects ideals as much as with their donations; aside from which they deserve the same respect and consideration you would give to anyone.
I don't know your reasons for posting anonymously, but it seems to me this is rarely appropriate and never obvious. You should be proud to take responsibility for your statements, however controversial. Posting openly, as a long-time OLPC supporter and current staff member, I see the honest and considered feedback from the Slashdot community as important to the refinement and amplification of the project's mission.
SJ on en:
Like every other liberal cause of the week we can not dare judge the project for its unintended consequences. We may only judge its intentions which of course were pure and just.
Look here.
You can defy gravity... for a short time
real good!
Remote Backup Service
This is the only post that actually shows first hand information on the problem, instead of pure guess work and speculation.
I'm not sure the price point they're aiming at is possible without selling it to these 'consumerists' you seem to enjoy belittling so much. I'd call them sponsors, supporters maybe benefactors?
More over, it seems OLPC are starting to work the economics of this out. Hence their management re-jiggles. Ideals are great. At the end of the day you still have to engage with the constraints of physical reality.
Do you think that kids in developing nations should 'make do' with second rate kit that their country has paid for? This seems to be your message. What are you trying to say? Do you think they should take it apart & wipe the back of their keyboard with alcohol, or risk permanently damaging it? (as you did in your fix it link. Did you link to your own post? (^_^)) Is this the non-consumerist philosophy you're espousing?
Actually from all reports OLPC seem to be handling the problem well. If OLPC does regret the support of their G1G1 sponsors after they've pointed out flaws in a design that they are selling to developing countries, then shame on them. I doubt it though. They seem to be struggling to get pay checks from developing nations (whoda thunk it)
If developing nations are finding the money to invest in laptops for their children, then they should be worth every penny. If people are volunteering contributions (in whatever form) to assist those developing nations, then who are you to run around labelling them 'consumerists'? Are you still trying to get your keyboard back in? Maybe you should have opted for return to base & let the pros handle it.
thx e
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Six years is the limitation period for making a claim, not a prescribed period for goods to last.
Six months is the period in which it will be assumed the defect was present at the time of sale, so it will be for the shop to prove otherwise. It's still possible to show goods were not of the required standard if they break down after the six months.
It doesn't matter if it's cheap enough for people in poor nations to afford it if it isn't durable or is subject to failure.
Did OLPC deploy their hardware too soon?
As one of the tens of thousands of donors who had to wait over four months to receive their Give One, Get One laptop, I can only respond: HEEEEEEEELL NO.
Seriously some of the debaters in this discussion are so ignorant. Picking on a charity organisation... shame on you Even kids can fix these keyboards: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Image:007_Arahuay.JPG
I'm disappointed. My first XO lasted about 30 hours and then failed with stuck Alt. I RMA'd it in early January and a replacement machine arrived about two weeks later. I used this machine for around 100 hours until that keyboard failed (stuck Ctrl) on 4/13. However, there seems to be a lot of mis- (or dis-) information surrounding the problem. First, chase the first link in the article and you'll discover that the failure mode *is* known -- insufficient or missing "foam dots" between the layers of the membrane keyboard. And user repair is *not* recommended. Second, on 4/19, I opened up my (second, failed) XO and examined its keyboard. Yes, some of my left-edge keys had NO dots and the failing key (Ctrl) had tiny ones, compared to nearby keys such as Shift and A. This appearance is consistent with the failure mechanism OLPC postulates. So the RMA process appears to have been to swap one failed XO with an XO that probably has a keyboard with the same manufacturing defect. (Whether this RMA process has changed since mid-January, I have no idea. If not, I expect that the RMA'd machines will eventually fail, too.) Third, after reassembly my keyboard works again. I did *not* attempt to "clean" the contacts (or to separate the keyboard beyond peeling back the top rubber keytops sheet a couple of inches so I could see the key contacts). So I conclude that I must have flexed something or shifted something enough to releave mechanical stress to some degree. I doubt that the "fix" will be permanent, but I could get lucky. In any event, if OLPC ever gets a spare parts supply system in place for G1G1 donors, I'll be ordering a keyboard.
We feel accountable to our target nations, and we behave accordingly. We don't feel particularly accountable to Slashdot. Sorry.
As an Anonymous Coward, you have no justification for saying "we". You do not represent the position of the OLPC Foundation, even if you do happen to not get a paycheck from them.
Thank God that the OLPC program has other volunteers who, unlike you, actually respect and value the people who have believed in and invested in the mission.
Please see my response here: http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/community-support/2008-April/001922.html