Slashdot Mirror
OLPC Unveils Plans For Tablets By 2012
adeelarshad82 writes "The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative outlined its product roadmap for the next three years, a plan that includes the release of tablet-based OLPC by 2012. During the next three years, OLPC plans on releasing two laptops, the first two years' priced around $200 and $150 respectively, before launching a tablet in 2011 for less than $100."
now that microsoft CEO/suspected cyborg Steve Ballmer nailed this thing, who on /. will care about it anymore? nothing to see here
Don't they know that the world is going to end that year? What are they thinking?
This is clearly just a ploy to inflate their own stocks before planet X smashes into the earth in 2012. They don't even need to develop anything at all!
OLPC announces vapour-ware.
ASUS releases actual product a year or two before.
OPLC never materialises.
The cycle continues.
The question is, will Arrington sue? After all he must hold the patent on having "thought of that there nifty gadget" first.
Nicholas Negroponte plans on massive deflation of the dollar in 2012.
Oh look, it's the obligatory "The whole of the African continent resembles the Serengeti, and everyone lives in a mud hut" comment.
NO U
I still am not entirely sure about this project -- there seems to be more of a reliance on technology as an end in itself, simply crossing fingers for some kind of digital third-world transformation to occur.
Instead of outcomes, they seem to be focusing on outputs, namely laptops distributed. But what are they supposed to do with them practically? Does it give them a pocket library, replacing books if not thousands of books? Will this help them with agriculture? Are there any structured curriculums for learning? Can it do anything with disaster recovery, like help locate food and water? Are there guides on it for setting up sanitation systems and preventing disease?
It seems just to be a bunch of vague educational programs wrapped in sweet talk without any specific outcomes intended.
If you want to see how this turns out, look at America's school system, for example, where there's been at least a 20-year focus on giving every child a computer for the sake of it. Granted, some school systems use technology in an excellent fashion. But how many billions were spent on computers that did nothing more than, on occasion, provide a replacement for typewriters when students needed to type a proper paper?
Let's hope the same doesn't happen here.
I know! The entire developing world is living in mud huts with no electricity nor running water, while at the other extreme are first world countries with all the modern conveniences. Yep, there's nothing in between those extremes.
Really, someone should hit you with a clue-by-four.
Weren't these prices posted when OLPC first came out?
Negroponte, please.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I bet a majority of children who recieve a tablet will go to town and sell it so that they might be able to one day buy a goat.
Certainly, it should help their private, er, social life.
Tablets are a solution searching for a problem. The XO-2 was supposed to be a 2 screen (top and bottom) touch-screen computer with no keyboard proper. This is basically a 1 screen version of that.
Now, perhaps the idea is to be a complete paper replacement, but IMO, a lack of physical keyboard just hinders a computer it for any serious use. You just can't input that well without a keyboard and the original design could always be update with a touchscreen without changing much else. They should have kept concentrating on getting the original one down as cheap as possible. Possibly with an ARM chip since they are getting so cheap, on something like a beagle board and making it so cheap that countries wouldn't even have to think about acquiring one. Way less than a $100 even.
At 3x the projected cost, and 4x the timeframe..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This is about half the price of a PS3. Is it realy that good of a value for what you get, expecially since you cannot buy one in the US, just to mess around with, for that price.
Oh well, just imagine a beowulf cluster of them anyway.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Oh look, it's the obligatory "The whole of the African continent resembles the Serengeti, and everyone lives in a mud hut" comment.
Yeah, it would probably shock most Americans to learn that there are actual cities in Africa with skyscrapers and neon lights and cell phones. They just don't see those on National Geographic specials -- no doubt because Kenyan accountants aren't as colorful as herd-following Maasai tribesmen, to say nothing of not being very effective at arousing paternalistic western feelings.
A more constructive observation might be that creating jobs in Africa by manufacturing the damn things there would help to address the other problems that stem from poverty, to say nothing of getting around the excessive import duties that will otherwise make even $100 computers unaffordable to most Africans.
Now, mind you, there are Africans living in utter destitution, and we should by all means remember to help them out, too, but if we have higher hopes for our African friends than leaving them waiting for the latest UN food convoy, lending a hand to help their less-deprived neighbors build a stable urban life is a good idea. I'm not sure the OLPC is the way to do it, but it's not a bad idea, and certainly more productive than carping from the sidelines.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
But in 2012 I will no longer be a child :(
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
> ..making it so cheap that countries wouldn't even have to think about acquiring one..
Exactly. But Negroponte is about PR and vapor, not producing actual solutions or products. It isn't a coincidence that he worked for the UN, a useless institution known for exactly the same flaws.
At his point it should be possible to build an ARM based OLPC style machine for $100 in quantity one, far less when sold by the cargo container.
And once you get past the poorest of the poor, where even basic sanitation is scarce and electricity is virtually unknown, most folks manage to wrangle a TV set. So why not build a $25 computer for them by tucking an ARM into a keyboard and using that existing TV as the output. Not as sexy as pitching a tablet that will likely never actually be built (like his last big idea) but my idea would get a computer into the hands of a billion people by this time next year if somebody ran with it.
Democrat delenda est
Now, perhaps the idea is to be a complete paper replacement, but IMO, a lack of physical keyboard just hinders a computer it for any serious use.
Hmm. For the past 3000 years, we've been told the key to education is reading. For the past 30 years, we've been told the key to education is memorizing the UI for a recent version of Excel.
No keyboard means no ability to write, but despite the best daydreams of bloggers around the world, until you're educated you probably have nothing useful to write about anyway...
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I hear it also runs Duke Nukem Forever like a dream!
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
For some reason everyone seems to think a tablet is the holy grail of computing. I can tell you, for most uses they don't add any value. I have owned two of them, and found both to be uncomfortable, and difficult to use. On the other hand, my HackBook Mini (AKA HP Mini 1000 with Snow leopard) gets used daily, and is an absolute pleasure to use.
Tablets seem like a solution in search of a problem to me.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
Sugar works fine on other platforms. At least we have that.
Bruce Perens.
Different hardware models every year, different complete form factor when the tablet gets out... surely these people could take a page from the people who design for corporate laptop orders, and make a rugged model that simply doesn't change for 3-5 years? These poor countries have enough trouble paying for these up front without having to worry about not being able to cannibalize parts among the models when some break.
Not to mention the possibility that the hardware user interface may change enough among the models to require some extra training for teachers of classrooms with mixed hardware.
Oh, and will it will be harder to care for tablets, which don't have a protective cover over them when being carried around? They might be "unbreakable," but what about unscratchable?
Get off my launchpad!
How about we get the 1.5 and 1.75 boards/machines shipping before this absolutely insane concept gets press releases. Looking at the specs and mockups, I think Ol' Nick has completely lost it. He's doing more damage to an already ailing charity, someone needs to shut him up.
--- Do you believe in the day?
The problem with the OLPC is the Negroponte is an ivy league moron IMHO. He could have sold it to the first world, gotten the economies of scale on his side, and used the profits to subsidize the third world sales, possibly even bringing the price down to $100 each like originally planned. But what does he do?
He tries to "force" charity with the G1G1 program, instead of selling to the first world in a normal manner (like we don't have poor kids? WTF?) and let the EEE and other Netbooks steal any momentum he could have had, he burns and pisses off the FLOSS community, which he frankly needed more than air to get decent performance out of such a tiny machine, by going with MSFT and putting XP on the things, which BTW as someone who has used every version of every MSFT OS, including WinFlip and XP Embedded, putting MSFT anything on a flash based device is suicide because MSFT never made an OS that don't hit swap like there is no tomorrow, and has just generally burned his bridges and missed every opportunity to make the OLPC into a true "laptop for every child".
So I hope when they go under, which with Negroponte at the helm they will, someone buys the OLPC designs and sells the OLPC to the world. Because there was some really great ideas like the mesh network, the daylight readable screen, and the crank for providing power when in BFN. But sadly it looks like Negroponte has done missed the boat and it will end up being ARM Netbooks that end up breaking the $100 barrier and thus becoming the "laptop for any kid". Sad to see such potential wasted, but Negroponte has pretty much proven, at least to me, that he just don't have what it takes to lead the OLPC to greatness.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I agree.. We up here in Canada would love to have some tablets, but where would we plug them in? Our igloos have no electrical and solar chargers are out since we don't get sun for 6 months of the year.
"I agree, EH.. We up here in Canada would love to have some tablets, but where would we plug them in? Our igloos have no electrical and solar chargers are out since we don't get sun for 6 months of the year, EH."
FTFY
But, how can we show them goatse, if they have no computer?
You print it out and erect a billboard?
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
over at PC World. Actually, I like the idea of the XO-3. Sure, it's totally blue-sky, but it's great to have at least one outfit taking a completely clean-slate design approach to mobile computing.
I like the hinged-panel XO-2 and MS Courier better, however. I think it's just more practical to have one part of the screen that can tilt up into the light. That said, the ring thingy of the XO-3 is interesting, too. I hadn't really thought about the mechanics of trying to hold a panel with one hand while touching with the other.
Remember 10/GUI, Clayton Miller's 10-fingered touch screen interface? Imagine a flexible 10/GUI touch pad that could be pulled out from under the XO screen. That might be interesting.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Big Something Nowhere?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
If I can't buy it, and you can't buy it, then it's vaporware as far as I know.
CherryPal just announced it's Africa Netbook available for sale today through it's website for a retail price of just $99, something that OLPC had promised years earlier and failed to deliver upon. While it is certainly not developed to live up to the specifications of the XO, the Africa Netbook does boast:
7-inch display
400MHz processor
256MB memory
2GB flash storage
Linux or Windows CE
4 hour battery
olpcnews.com
He could have sold it to the first world, gotten the economies of scale on his side
Possibly not. If I understand right, lots of the reason they can be as cheap as they can is that they don't have to pay patent royalties. Most often this is because they are a charity and not directly competing with the patent owner.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
BTW as someone who has used every version of every MSFT OS, including WinFlip and XP Embedded, putting MSFT anything on a flash based device is suicide because MSFT never made an OS that don't hit swap like there is no tomorrow
I have Windows 7 installed on my Eee PC 901. All solid-state drives. Runs fine. It's a little sluggish at times, but perfectly usable. In other words, the cyanide isn't working.
Breakfast served all day!
The developing world is not composed exclusively of places with "very little water" and "very little food", and, really, the parts of it that meet those descriptions aren't the principle target for the OLPC. The OLPC is targetted largely for countries where basic subsistence needs aren't the primary concern (if nothing else, because countries where those are the primary needs aren't likely to be able to purchase even cheap computers, though there has been some discussion of the possibility of other countries purchasing OLPC laptops for some of the poorest-of-the-poor countries.)
I think the country currently closest to deploying OLPC on a "one laptop per child" basis is Uruguay, which is -- while a developing country -- far from the kind of situation you describe.
So, ignoring the rest of what OLPC has delivered, the 380,000+ computers in the hands of Uruguayan students that have raised the average computer literacy of 8 year olds to the average level of 18 year olds prior to the project aren't "actual solutions or products"?
(And, yes, while XO are used, the local project is a lot broader than just getting OLPC laptops -- which is exactly the point of the OLPC project, to enable broader projects in the countries that use it.)
Just don't work with Fusion Garage.
http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/11/30/1731239
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/12/07/2046242
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/12/11/1655204
Or anyone named Negroponte. Oooh, too late.
Really? Because I can remember writing without a keyboard.
In fact, plenty of touch-sensitive devices without keyboards are designed for accepting writing as an input method.
I'm sorry, but "goatse" and "erect" simply don't belong in the same concept.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
It all sounds so fantastic, that all children should have access to a laptop.
Well, recently I was in the tiny Pacific country of Niue, where every child actually has a laptop.
More than that, basically the entire nation (of 1,500 people) is a wireless hotspot, so every child can access the internet.
But don't be misled, the laptops given to the children perform about three functions. They do connect to the internet, but even doing something as simple as a google search is next to impossible, because the speed is so slow.
If you don't mind using a keyboard that looks like a child's toy (huge letters that require a few fingers to press, thus making typing impossible) and a screen that is tiny, I guess you could use a notepad to write a school essay.
Perhaps they achieved what every third world nation seems to want, one laptop per child, and have bragging rights as the first place on earth to do this, but surely the next step should be "one half decent laptop per child".
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
Did you disable swap? Because there has always been that option. Also I only got Windows 7 in Oct and haven't tried it on flash, so maybe they have gotten better. Of course Windows 7 doesn't really come into this as we are talking about the OLPC which uses WinXP, embedded I do believe.
I have had to work on XP embedded machines and just like the other XP versions it just doesn't matter how much RAM you have (of course with the OLPC we are talking 256Mb which nobody in their right mind would want to run XP on) it is gonna pound the swap like a red headed stepchild. And since we are talking about a device which was intended for the third world, where I doubt easy flash drive replacements are on every corner it seems like the height of stupidity to run XP on such a tiny device with such a small solid state drive.
But I will agree Windows 7 is nice (I can only comment on HP x64, not starter, which would be the Windows 7 you would run on a Netbook) but I doubt VERY seriously you could cut Windows 7 down enough to fit onto the OLPC, and if you did it would probably thrash like mad. The OLPC was just made for an OS with more of a cell phone footprint than a true desktop OS. Hell I Wouldn't even want to run stock Ubuntu on that thing. DSL or Puppy maybe, but not a full desktop OS. It is just too tiny.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I live in Peru, and I work with a number of Native Communities here. That is exactly what is happening with many of the OLPC's that get passed out. They get sold for nearly nothing to buy food, clothes, shotgun shells, or pirated DVD's. I get the joke, but there's a lot of truth in your post.
Here in Austria we now invented flowing water.
We also import chewing gum now.
Still, no Kangaroos here. Thats another desert.
What prevents some other organization/company from producing OLPC laptops? Suppose someone approached OLPC with a request to license the designs and manufacture them for sale, with perhaps some part of the profits going back to OLPC?
In fact, Negroponte's comment seems to indicate that he would be fine with someone else manufacturing the OLPC 3. This might mean that you could actually buy one directly.
If it is released December 20, 2012, make sure the games menu only includes "A nice game of Chess".
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
They did. It's called Windows CE. It used a fixed amount of memory, so it won't page to disk/flash.
I wonder why they chose XP over CE on the OLPC devices. Because CE would be a better fit here.
Then again, CE is just similar to desktop Windows, and barely compatible (besides some special readers for MS formatted files, and ActiveSync to transfer those).
So, ignoring the rest of what OLPC has delivered, the 380,000+ computers in the hands of Uruguayan students that have raised the average computer literacy of 8 year olds to the average level of 18 year olds prior to the project aren't "actual solutions or products"?
I happen to be Uruguayan and currently live in Uruguay... and while I endorse the OLPC project in my country (Plan Ceibal), I'd say you're grossly exaggerating its results - we already had a very good literacy prior to it (as in, better than the US), and the XO itself might not even have been the cheapest option.
Though if the OLPC project had not existed, I doubt such a far-reaching and ambitious plan would have been implemented, so even if it was more PR than anything, it WAS important, in making the politician's minds open to the possibility (and it was a HUGE selling point for politicians of the current party in power at the recent elections which they won).
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Internet = Porn. Masturbation is the only real cure for overpopulation.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
The assessment from the study cited in the article I linked to might exaggerate the results, but note that the reference was to computer literacy, not literacy -- there's a pretty big difference between the two. (And, incidentally, the US has pretty abysmal levels of functional literacy, so if you are using any meaningful measure of literacy to compare with, I wouldn't classify "better than the US" as necessarily "very good" when it comes to literacy.)
The XO may not be the cheapest (or even, what is more important, cost effective) option, perhaps -- though "might not be" isn't the same as a credible basis for believing that its not -- but certainly, the existence of the XO has spurred lots of efforts by big players in the hardware and software industry whose place would be threatened by widespread adoption of another platform to compete directly with it, and those other companies are defending long-term profit interests that go well beyond the immediate market for the XO and similar devices. But those other choices wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the OLPC project.
And, whether its necessarily the best product or the best solution, its hard to call the XO's that have been delivered, and what they have enabled, not a real product or a real solution.
we already had a very good literacy prior to it (as in, almost as good as the US), and the XO itself might not even have been the cheapest option.
Fixed that for you.
Advice: on VPS providers
I am using a cut-down build of Windows 7 Professional on the Eee PC. I had to vLite it because the flash-based Eee PC's boot drive is only 4GB (no matter which configuration you buy). Is the OLPC's smaller than that?
Yes, swap is disabled. It didn't seem to confer any advantage, and there's not really any space on the flash drive for it, so off it goes.
I really do use it as my carry laptop, though. It does what I need it to do (which is MS Office, e-mail, and Web, pretty much).
Breakfast served all day!
IIRC the OLPC..let me check...yep, it only has 1Gb! WTF? Hell I wouldn't run an Nlited 2K on just a lousy 1Gb, much less XP or Windows 7! Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my Windows 7 HP X64, and am in the process of switching over all my families PCs over to Windows 7, but with specs as low as this thing has I wouldn't run anything past Win98SE! Just look for yourself, oh and Merry Xmas!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.