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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.
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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.
Having learned from their delivery and fulfillment headaches the first time around, this time they partnered with Amazon.com to handle shipping.
You mean the cases like one of my clients, who ordered two, and received none?
When he called and asked WTF was going on, they couldn't "find" his order, and refused to refund his credit card, despite proof they'd charged him. He ended up having to do a chargeback.
If OLPC couldn't ship 'em to donors, what makes anyone think they're shipping them to kids in the '2nd world'?
Please help metamoderate.
The number 1 problem with the XO-1 is the keyboard. The machine just wasn't made to fit adult hands. For a child, I'm sure everything is perfect, but don't expect to do any large amount of work on it without an external keyboard, which kind of defeats the purpose.
Other than that it's a perfectly comparable to other sub-notebooks. Obviously twice the price of what it should be, but it's extremely light and rugged. It's the ideal machine for anyone wanting to run linux, since the entire machine is completely open, including the BIOS. The dual-mode screen could really be useful for if you want to work outside one day, which is pretty much impossible with my T60.
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.
For that matter, how many third-world children can you get for $199? These bobbins aren't going to thread themselves.
> I remember back in the day when these cute girls would come to my door and try to sell overpriced cookies.
I remember back in the day selling cookies to fat, middle-aged men who'd answer wearing nothing but boxers and a stained sports t-shirt while my mother waited impatiently in the car. If you ask me, they didn't charge enough.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Its specs make it attractive not for the living room, but for the camp site. I took mine to Starwood and Free Spirit Gathering and Playa Del Fuego, and it was great - easy to recharge off of a 12 volt battery, capable of picking up wifi from one campground's office, resistant to the elements. Hooked it up to my cell phone as a modem, and I could handle any work emergencies that popped up.
For some of us who want a simple, rugged, portable box, it fits the bill nicely. Load XFCE on it rather than (shudder) Sugar, though.
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You cannot wash away blood with blood
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
I'm typing this from Kagando Village, Uganda. I've been touring the local primary and secondary schools here and I can tell you that these children don't need laptops. Forget about the fact that the adults would probably use them instead of the kids if they were brought here. The reason they don't need laptops is because they much more desperately need good textbooks for every year of school. No amount of educational software is going to make up for the fact that the kids don't have good (or usually even enough) textbooks. $200 a kid could EASILY buy every kid here textbooks for every year of their schooling and would be money MUCH better spent. Maybe this isn't the case in other developing countries but here I really don't think that laptops are the answer. It's a nice gimmick and a nice thought but not the right answer.
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.