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

Posted by timothy on from the xo-is-a-nice-reader-anyhow dept.

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."

9 of 286 comments (clear)

  1. laptop is an e-book reader? by hansraj · · Score: 5, Funny

    I have some beach-front estate to sell. It is not near any beach and it is actually a chair.

  2. Soo... by bsDaemon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Soo... by PaintyThePirate · · Score: 5, Informative

      Oh, I see where the confusion was. As usual, the Slashdot headline and summary are at best vague, and more likely completely misleading. There is better information here: http://blog.laptopmag.com/first-look-olpc-xo-generation-20.

      That article also contains the news that Give 1 Get 1 will be restarting in August or September.

      --
      eclecti.cc
  3. Re:Bye bye books by bsDaemon · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, it is if she were a victim of abstinence-only education which, in addition to being boring and therefor not helpful, also fails to teach kids to put on a damned condom, then it would be the school district's fault.

    or Bush's... whichever option is worth more karma.

  4. Re:Bye bye books by CastrTroy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Even if the schools did spend money on these devices, there would be no content to put on them. The same problem exists for the original OLPC project. Luckily they had Open Source software, and were able to get a working machine with no software cost, but I still don't think there's a lot out there in free textbooks. It's a wonder that the US Government just doesn't hire a few people to write some textbooks that they would use in their schools. For gradeschool and even highschool, the material is simple enough that it wouldn't take that much to get the job done, and then they could have textbooks for the cost of the paper, or if they used ebook readers, then copies would be free. Is there any particular reason textbooks are bought from third parties instead of just written once and used in all the schools?

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  5. Fool me once, shame on you by mlwmohawk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Fool me twice, shame on me.

    I have nothing but rage and contempt for Negroponte and the OLPC project. I will not support a project that betrays its contributors by abandoning the principles that motivated them.

    Windows on the OLPC is an outrage and clear evidence that the OLPC project is no longer about helping children and only about making money and creating a new form "Microsoft Tax" for the poor and developing nations.

    Its bullshit. Its like giving money and time to a charity called "one meal per child" and find out it has decided to use your contribution to bring dollar off coupons for McDonalds happy meals.

    1. Re:Fool me once, shame on you by mlwmohawk · · Score: 5, Interesting

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

      Yes, helping Microsoft expand its monopoly is bad for the world. Its bad for the industry. The amount of money and control that Microsoft exercises because of its monopoly has ruined the ISO, destroyed companies, and kept back innovation in the marketplace.

      Selling "Windows" when they could give away free software is not a good will gesture.

    2. Re:Fool me once, shame on you by IgnoramusMaximus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  6. Re:Bye bye books by jmorris42 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    > Textbooks are clearly a lucrative business...

    Exactly. You could get the top experts to put out free ebook texts that were total works of art, where not a single complaint could be lodged against them and school districts would still buy texts from the usual suspects. Too many bribes to overcome.

    Think it through. Go examime what states (just in the US) spend on texts and imagine how much less exensive it would be for them to pool a fraction of that money into paying quality experts to write really good sections/chapters/units/etc. on every topic, illustrated by top notch artists and have all the supplementary materials created, all as works for hire and then released into the public domain as official government publications. Then each school district could pick and choose the chapters they want and either have em published on demand or loaded onto ebook readers. Either option would be far less expensive than what they currently pay. And since only the chapters actually being used would be printed, kids wouldn't be lugging around so much dead weight.

    Doing it this way would mean that after the initial expense was sunk only minor revisions would be needed in successive years. But it would be a net financial win in the FIRST set of textbooks issued to students and all of the current fights over textbook content would instantly become local issues amendable to the local political process, thus the warfare would end.

    But what I just proposed is totally self evident, so that it doesn't happen and has no realistic chance of happening means the fix is in.

    --
    Democrat delenda est