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Venezuela Purchases a Million Intel Classmates
An anonymous reader submits news of the million-laptop order from Venezuela of Intel's version of the kid-friendly laptop. The computers are produced in Portugal. "The machines, rebranded 'Magellan,' will also come with Linux pre-installed as opposed to Windows XP. This order alone is 50% bigger than the entire OLPC project has managed to sell worldwide."
Part is true. I'm from Portugal and all over the media you hear everyday everywhere "The first Portuguese computer ever made (...)". They don't even mention it's a Intel Classmate. http://ww1.rtp.pt/noticias/index.php?headline=98&visual=25&article=356756&tema=29 Not sure about the scale of the order in comparison to OLPC.
Actually the name isn't "Magellan" but "Magalhães", and it dual boots (at least in Portugal) Windows XP and Linux CaixaMágica (a portuguese distro) as you can see here http://www.eescolinha.gov.pt/equipamento.html.
It's being sold to kids in primary school for 50 euros and it comes with an option for mobile internet, which you can buy from mobile carriers. If you're not a primary school student, well you've got to pay 285 euros for one.
Even though TFA doesn't mention it, it's true that the computer being sold is called Magellan. It's basically a rename of Intel Classmate, with 1/3 of it being produced in Portugal. It was launched a few days ago over here (Portugal). The computer is being given (almost free) to kids in the 5th grade, and sold to the public for ~285 euros. Imo, it's just sad to see what I believe is a waste of public funds! First, the government is pouring cash into Intel's pocket for a sub-product, when it could've allied itself with the OLPC. Second, they think that by throwing fishing sticks at people, they'll learn how to fish. The computers will most likely be used for IM (MSN), social network (hi5) and warez. As for this deal with Venezuela, Chavez and Socrates (portuguese prime minister) are having some deals, and this is just another one. Portugal also has a huge community in Venezuela (around 1 million iirc).
"na Venezuela o sistema operativo Canaima (baseado em Linux)"
http://ciberia.aeiou.pt/?st=10098
Linux is the operating system of the Bolivarian Revolution.
"Canaima is a GNU / Linux distribution based on Debian which is emerging as a solution to meet the needs of end users office of the Venezuelan National Public Administration (APN) and to comply with the presidential decree no. 3.390 sobre el uso de TecnologÃas Libres en la APN. 3390 on the use of Open Technologies in APN."
http://canaima.softwarelibre.gob.ve/
> The machines, rebranded 'Magellan,' will also come with Linux
I tracked down an attribution - with pictures of the device
"This is effectively a second-generation Classmate PC, and integrates a Celeron ULV part and uses Linux, although down the line it is expected to migrate to a fully Atom-based system with a "lighter version of Windows" (whatever that is)."
The Portuguese have also bought 500,000 of the same devices.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter