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OLPC's "Give 1 Get 1" Comes To Europe
Christoph Derndorfer writes "Last year OLPC's XO-laptop was among the hottest Christmas gadgets thanks to the organization's G1G1 program, where you could donate $399 to give one XO-laptop to a child in the developing world and receive one yourself in return. However in 2007 the program was only available for US and Canadian citizens. This year's program, which takes off November 17, is also available to citizens in the EU member states, Switzerland, Russia, and Turkey. This is certainly awesome news for all the OLPC / Linux / gadget enthusiasts here in Europe! P.S. Before anyone asks, these XOs will come equipped with the child-friendly Sugar platform, which is based on Fedora 9, and not Windows XP."
Few years ago the OLPC was my wet dream, but it took soo long for it, to be available for buy, that it's plain crazy. The Eee and ASUS stuff appeared. But they are all plain junk - very heavy, and very short battery life. OLPC at least is rechargeable...
But, oh well, fortunately now there is Pandora, I have ordered one and got to wait until december to receive it. I think that Pandora is revolutionary to Portable / Personal Micro Computers as Sinclair ZX Spectrum was at its own time. I may be wrong, but there's something in it. So it might be true. Time will tell.
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#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
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I've never understood the coy attitude of the OLPC. Why do they go to such lengths to make it difficult for the average Joe to buy one of these things? A couple of years ago this would have been the ideal stocking filler for kid with nerd parents. Actually getting these devices into the hands of the geeks who were clamouring for one would have benefited the project in so many ways. For one thing, by allowing such a group to buy the things, they could have begun to cultivate a hobbyist development scene for the platform.
What possible harm could it have done to make it available to anyone who wanted one?
It's probably too late for the project now anyway. It's lasting legacy might be some awareness of the importance of IT to developing nations in addition to helping kickstart consumer interest in netbooks.
From now on this should be referred to as "pulling an Amiga". I.e. killing off a good idea by restricting access.
Michael Reed, freelance tech writer.
Funny story,
I got laid off at the beginning of the year and took the time to come up with this, with my now-copious amounts of spare time:
www.gentooxo.org
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
-I have managed to upgrade the software exactly twice - a complex, virtual dance of death if the upgrade doesn't take.
-The machine is DOG slow.
- The keyboard is useless for high school kids.
- There is not enough memory for much A/V.
- Connecting to WiFi is counter-intuitive if security is involved.
- There is no native printer support.
Quite frankly, I'm sceptical that this thing can fly long-term because other, full-fledged products are catching up (ASUS) to the OLPC price-point will fully loaded Linux on a better machine.
Now, the positives - battery life has been amazing. The screen is truly a wonder and great as a reader flipped over and turned sideways.
One issue troubles me: In this and other projects, no-one has solved the problem of supplying internet connectivity in remote areas. I know that Google is launching a constellation of Ka band satellites - but they will be commercial. One idea that I saw was to use a WiFi server on either buses or motorcycles. Local servers pump email etc. to the mobile servers which then dump the data when they get to a hot-spot - and visa-versa. Sort of a sneakernet for the back woods.
I'm concerned about the entire support infrastructure. Further to that, why don't these things come pre-loaded with regional Wikis and the full slate of curriculae as set out by the country involved?
*** Don't be dull.***