2nd Generation "$100 Laptop" Will Be an E-Book Reader

waderoush writes "At a conference sponsored by the One Laptop Per Child Foundation this morning, OLPC founder unveiled the design for the foundation's second-generation laptop. It's actually not a laptop at all — it's a dual-screen e-book reader (we've got pictures). Negroponte said the foundation hopes that the cost of the new device, which is scheduled for production by 2010, can be kept to $75, in part by using low-cost displays manufactured for portable DVD players."

Comments

Soo...

[bsDaemon]

OLPC's goals have gone from providing a platform that allows full intellectual expression and room from growth and development, to running XP so maybe kids and type a book report or something, to now merely being a way to passively consume printed media?

And last week I thought that this project couldn't get any farther from good.

Re:Fool me once, shame on you

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Really? Rage and contempt? Over a value priced computer aimed at educating kids who otherwise would never get to use ANY computer?

As has been pointed out repeatedly, "educating kids" is an utter impossibility when OLPC+Windows combination is involved. The term you are looking for is "indoctrination". It is so for many, many reasons mentioned already a million times here, not the least of them the lack of any useful free "educational" software for XP, never you mind the storage for it on the OLPC.

Using "ANY" computer, "education" does not make. If that was the case, a far more cost effective way then the OLPC would be to simply ship used throw-away computers that clog our city dumps here (some of them far more powerful then the OLPC will ever be) to Africa in bulk.

You are confusing granting haphazard access to some fraction of the Western commercial technology, which requires a (very expensive) ecosystem of other commercial technology to be useful and which will never be available at the prices those kids can afford, with "educating" them. This is a purely corporatist view of the world and if it were up to people like you, education in the West would consist of giving kids a brand-name calculator (with no instructions) and calling it a "mathematics and electronics course" and as the parent poster insightfully mentioned, "a cooking course" would consist of a bunch of McDonalds coupons, etc and so on.

And there is of course the wee little bit of the matter of active mis-representations Negroponte has engaged in over the years on behalf of the OLPC project, but I guess that is far too esoteric for you to grasp.

You should see a mental health practicioner and get your priorities in order. Your stupidity is clouding your view of reality.

In the light of the actual facts you should take your own advice on this.

Re:Bye bye books

[xSauronx]

Textbooks are clearly a lucrative business, good luck getting enough people to care about the costs to overcome whatever lobby various publishers would put together to keep the status quo.

Re:Bye bye books

[Lumpy]

nope. it will never happen. Professors and their desire to rape the students by publishing slight revisions of their drivel year after year for insane prices are what keeps ebooks from being common.

If I could carry my entire semesters books in one reader I would be in heaven. All college students would love this.

Re:Bye bye books

[mollymoo]

The form factor is that of a dual-screened eBook, but they have a popup touch-screen keyboard as an application.

Arrrgh! There was some future computing expo featured on /. a few weeks ago that was full of touchscreen keyboards as well. It's a horrible idea. There's no tactile feedback and no give to absorb the impact, so your fingertips will take much more of a beating than using a conventional keyboard. Touchscreen keyboards are fine for, say, typing a few numbers at a checkout, but for anything like serious input they're just an awful idea.

I never really understood why the OLPC project insists on reinventing the wheel. The mesh networking and screen were impressive tech, but why reinvent the computer desktop in the form of Sugar? Now they're going with an untried form factor. Just build a decent, inexpensive, robust laptop and ship the damn thing. I find it more than a little patronising that kids in less developed countries apparently can't be expected to use similar software to kids in the first world. When they grow up chances are they're gonna be using Windows, Gnome or KDE (or Aqua, if they're incredibly rich by local standards). They're all more like each other than they are like Sugar. I say start 'em young.