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Give One Get One Redux, OLPC XO-1 Now On Amazon
404 Clue Not Found writes "The One Laptop Per Child project's XO-1 laptop is once again available to the general public via its Give One Get One promotion, where $400 will buy two laptops, one for the purchaser and one for 'a child in the emerging world.' Having learned from their delivery and fulfillment headaches the first time around, this time they partnered with Amazon.com to handle shipping. But a year after its initial release, the market has become saturated with Eee-wannabe netbooks from every major manufacturer. Can the XO-1's charitable appeal, unique chassis and dual-mode screen compete with the superior performance and standard operating systems of its newer peers?"
If you want to donate a PC you can always just buy a single PC for $199 and not bother with getting one for yourself.
They never wanted to make a machine that can compete with the other laptops. They wanted to make one that'd be good for kids in a 3rd world countries. Not one that'd be great in your living room. The only reason to get one has always been the uniqueness of it, not it's specs.
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
If they just sold the thing for $200, they might get enough volume to get down to the $100 laptop.
The real problem with the OLPC, though, is that it's now a 3 year old design. The OLPC is being overtaken by commercial products.
Paper and pencils are one thing. Books are an entirely different beast.
Sure, you could get a lot of physical supplies for the cost of an XO and in that light it isn't a good deal.
The number of e-books and online information the xo can access versus dead tree books is the kicker. Size and weight matter for shipping, transport and delivery. A collection of bits is a lot easier to move around and copy than ink on paper.
Paper and pencils - a whole lot of both.
Books - now there's the clincher. With a internet-enabled XO (or any other computer), you can theoretically access any and all knowledge that's out there, including a whole lot of books (textbooks or other kinds). Now, if you had $199 to spend, could you buy enough books to give you the same variety of knowledge? Could you carry it with you as easily?
Ok, maybe you and your neighbor in the next hut get together - you buy some books, and he buys some others, and now you have access to both collections. But what if, one day you are interested in 19th century literature, and the next day introductory computer programming? Shall we ask a third neighbor to step in? What if you want to know what the latest commodity prices are, to figure out whether to sell your crop now or hold it for another week - what printed book would tell you that? Do you have access to today's newspaper in your village? Now, $199 dollars doesn't seem to go as far.
Scale it up to an entire country, where millions of dollars are available, and you can have a pretty good library that captures a good portion of human knowledge in books. But, now you have the problem of distribution - everyone from around the country has to come and get the books. There's also the problem that you only have or two copies of everything, so only one or two people at a time can access it.
Buy yourself an EeePC through regular channels and send a donation cheque/check to OLPC.
Or just send them a cheque...
Engineering is the art of compromise.
We have the OLPC to thank for this year's Netbook explosion, as manufacturers discovered that there was a real market for modestly spec'd machines in a tiny form factor. Unfortunately, the OLPC looks lame in comparison. It's a great example of how academic projects have difficulty competing in a commercial environment. And, no matter what idealists might proclaim, any time you get into large-scale manufacturing you are forced to operate in a commercial environment. Producing millions of machines "for academic use" requires the same skills as running a for-profit company. You need a sales staff to convince countries to buy the machines by the millions. You need financing for R&D and production. You need hardware and software engineers, and you need a clear roadmap.
Doing this stuff is tougher in academia, and OLPC was hamstrung by a heavy dose of ideology (we've gotta design really clever custom software, make it cute and bleeding-edge, etc.) that commercial manufacturers could side-step. As a result, the OLPC crew futzed around with a very ambitious software framework. They futzed about endlessly tweaking the hardware design. In comparison, Asus actually built a cheap little machine and threw it into the marketplace as a crude first try. It ignited the imagination of manufacturers and consumers alike. Asus is now on their third generation (I think... I've lost track) of netbooks in a little over a year, and others jumped into the fray as soon as they could get their hands on Intel's Atom processor. There is no way that OLPC could keep up with such an aggressive hardware program. The result is that their once revolutionary device now seems quaint.
The issue is access
How many of us would have jobs if we were not computer literate, and how many of us started our computer literacy before we reached out teens years? Be it a teletype, a dumb terminal, or a microcomputer, how many of us were able to do significant things with computer because we had years to play with them? How would our lives be different if people had thought 'they are just playing with computers' and 'it isn't worth paying for such technology.' For myself, I grew up with seven segments displays, so I know how they work.
Like a tuppence for paper and string, a small amount for a computer and an occasional internet access can open up a world. Sure some will sell the machine. Most will just play games. But many will use it to learn. Download GIMP and draw. Download Maxima and calculate. Download qucs and build circuits. Download eclipse and program. Download novels and read. Download LaTex and write. Sure most of this can be done with paper and pencil, but where are the transferrable skills?
I am clearly talking about the above average student, but, talking to people from developing countries, these are the students that attend and succeed in many of the village schools. I can't imagine these students not using the tools to help them succeed. From the stories I hear they do not destroy books as first world students do. They do not throw away food knowing the government will supply them with more. And overall, they are not forced to waste their time at school sleeping when a field needs plowing.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Just curious... How do you think it would go over if those textbooks were digitized then put on the laptop?
How many pads of paper, pencils and books does $199 get? Maybe be of more use than a computer?
False equivalency. You can't video conference with a pencil. Or make (decent) music with a piece of paper. The OLPC's capacity for re-use is also somewhat superior.
I live and work in the South Pacific. Let me assure you that, while paper and pencils are in short supply, it's mostly because paper doesn't last very long in any useful state in a tropical climate.
The OLPC, on the other hand, is standing up quite well to the elements in the pilot project we're running here.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.