Negroponte Offers OLPC Technology For India's $35 Tablet

angry tapir writes "One Laptop Per Child wants to join forces to help develop the Indian government's planned $35 tablet. In a congratulatory note to the government, OLPC Chairman Nicholas Negroponte said the world needs the $35 tablet, and he offered the country full access to OLPC hardware and software technology."

Comments

Oh well

[Vahokif]

I guess it'll be the India's $200 tablet now.

Re:Oh well

[FatdogHaiku]

As long as it will run Windows 7.
OK, so now it's a $450 tablet...

Re:Oh well

[Locutus]

no, the $100 laptop ended up costing $180 but simpletons like to round up to $800. And if you really wanted to use that "logic" then the joke would be, The $35 tablet will end up costing $100.

FYI, the OLPC jokes are sore spots for many because of how Microsoft and Intel came in and destroyed the customer base for the project with false claims of better products which never existed. It took over a year for the great software company called Microsoft to get Windows XP booting on the XO. But that's about all it could do unless the OLPC doubled the RAM and doubled the CPU. You know, like how the original EeePC hardware ended up all jacked up along with the price after Microsoft paid ASUS those nice marketing kick backs to use Windows XP instead of Linux/OSS.

$35 for a tablet is pretty outrageously cheap and very unlikely. Even a $100 tablet sounds too cheap except when you think of how many millions India could build and distribute. Just like how the original OLPC/$100 laptop project was stated as such with minimum order size of a million units and at least a few countries willing to sign up. Isn't the Kindle now priced at $139? It's all about scale but watch out, because when you talk this kind of scale, Microsoft will come in and want to destroy it unless it's using Windows.

Maybe India is just looking for another tens or hundreds of millions from Microsoft to not doing a cheap Linux based device. Isn't this what happened in Thailand a decade or so ago. I remember HP sold out of those cheap laptops and the Thai government stated to sign up Dell to help cover the demand. Then came Microsoft with some kind of deal and the laptops ended up costing more and got Windows instead of Linux. Too bad US school systems to use this tactic since so many are in dire need of cash these days.

LoB

What could OLPC learn?

[KingAlanI]

It seems obvious how this might point the Indian project in the right direction, but will OLPC be able to learn anything form involvement in the ultracheap Indian effort?

Joint ventures FTW!

Re:What could OLPC learn?

[Serious Callers Only]

It seems obvious how this might point the Indian project in the right direction,

What could India possibly learn from the rudderless OLPC project? They've lost their core software team, sold out to Intel then lost their support by foolishly trying to monopolise the low-end, sold out to Microsoft and then have been undermined by the MS drive for Windows netbooks, refused to deal with small deployments, *and* come nowhere close to their target price. About the only thing that has survived that project from inception is the glorious leader Negroponte. His promise today is worthless. The only thing they could learn from Negroponte is what not to do; over-promise and under-deliver, but unfortunately, given their silly promise of a $35 touchscreen tablet which they haven't got the tech for, it seems that boat has already sailed.

What India should be doing with this is creating a smart machine for $35, without a touchscreen (impossible to get a good one at that price), possibly with something like a trackpad, but the input method doesn't matter - make it a good ereader and mandate that it is used by all schools looking to buy tech for education.

That would give them the customer base to create a truly mass-market device, and the groundswell of interest and enthusiasm from bright young Indians to make it a success, and allow them to commission software for it that would really make a difference to education in a country which is dependent on it for its future. English is already the primary medium of instruction, and there are huge numbers of existing free texts in English which would make such a device incredibly useful to students everywhere, not just in India. Even just a web browsing device this cheap with a larger screen than a phone would be a breakthrough for many students.

Re:What could OLPC learn?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're missing the point of OLPC - it's not so affluent people can buy lots of cheap computers, it's to offer access to the less privileged in the world. If the way to do that is to provide mechanisms to prevent these being sold off on the second hand market by corrupt governments or individuals, or to protect the western markets of those who have generously contributed/discounted hardware and software to the project then that's a necessary evil that nevertheless allows some good to be done.

Re:What could OLPC learn?

[shutdown -p now]

I think you're missing the point of OLPC - it's not so affluent people can buy lots of cheap computers, it's to offer access to the less privileged in the world.

Right. And the way to do it that stays is to flood all markets with cheap computers, driving prices down, so that the less privileged in the world can afford to buy one. A successful example of that is the adoption rate of cellphones in Africa.

As for the efficiency of all-planned and overprotective approach... how well is OLPC doing today, again?..

Re:What could OLPC learn?

[jonbryce]

Yes, but allowing more affluent people to buy them as toys doesn't stop the poor people getting them, it helps them as they enjoy greater economies of scale, and more units to spread their fixed costs over.

Negroponte is upping the ante

[kyz]

India is trolling - it can announce $35 tablets, even $0.00 tablets, but it sure as hell can't make any for that price. The components alone cost more than $35, and that's when China makes them with slaves paid less than India will pay.

Negroponte has been there, knows the truth, and knows that India is just there to swindle international news media to get attention for its own country. He's going to co-opt that attention for his own project. Good on him.

Re:Negroponte is upping the ante

[naz404]

This actually fantastic. The developer base left at OLPC is shockingly small and if they join forces with the India effort, they can really do a big impact with low-cost, energy efficient computing.

I really hate how the hardware world has gone into faster, faster, more, more when it should be working on cheaper and more energy-efficient. I'd rather that Moore's law went into making chips at current speeds cheaper than constantly expensive chips at faster speeds. Instead, what they do is phase out slow-cpu tech and keep selling power-hungry speed demons

On a related note, having an OLPC XO-1 unit in my hands, having gone through the internet on a Pentium 1 back in the 90s, I really hate the present AJAXification of the entire web - it's no longer possible to fully surf websites on a 400MHz machine like the XO-1 without having to turn off Javascript and Flash.

Javascript programmers are doing the very same thing that gave Flash a bad name years ago: Bloat.

Re:Negroponte is upping the ante

[JohnBailey]

India is trolling - it can announce $35 tablets, even $0.00 tablets, but it sure as hell can't make any for that price. The components alone cost more than $35, and that's when China makes them with slaves paid less than India will pay.

Wow.. the guy compared prices for the iPad display, which is an expensive IPS panel, and the Kindle display which is an expensive e-ink display. Hardly an enlightening article, more a pratt blowing his own trumpet and being a dick head.

Re:Negroponte is upping the ante

[PopeRatzo]

India is trolling

Can somebody explain why India needs a $35 tablet and the rest of us don't?

India is just there to swindle international news media to get attention for its own country

What does it benefit from this "attention"? Assuming India's press agent is actually the one behind this bogus story, which I doubt, what good does it do India to have this kind of story on obscure tech blogs?

Re:Negroponte is upping the ante

[PopeRatzo]

the cheap and/or free workforce of India

"Cheap and/or free" to whom?

Re:Negroponte is upping the ante

[AHuxley]

The components alone cost more than $35. Govs around the world eat cost to provide work, skills, tech, exports and eduction. They hope to get it back in a generation.
Look at India and its pharma - from generics and anti viral drugs to world class developers in a generation.
They are hoping for the same with this device.
It might be expensive but long term, India learns a real OS and builds it own skill base, free of MS 'charity'.
MS and its 'gifts' are just a gateway drug for back end severs and contracts with user base growth from 'free for now'.

Re:Negroponte is upping the ante

[naz404]

Price.

The price of netbooks has significantly gone up, with the older, cheaper models being phased out, leaving only the more expensive new units on the shelves. The price of most netbooks now equal those of lower-tier cheaper "real laptops" (ordinary large ones) that have more horsepower.

Wat?

[tom1974]

I'm sure he means Intel hardware and MS software technologies.

OLPC did not sell out to Microsoft

[naz404]

OLPC did not sell out to Microsoft. OLPC's policy is simply like this: If an organization buys OLPC XO-1 & XO-1.5 machines, they are free to do with them what they want, even install Windows should they choose (unlike the iStuff Apple does not want you tinkering around with and have to be jailbroken in order to do more stuff). You buy it, you own it and are free to install whatever software you want on it (whether open or proprietary), unlike a lot of gadgets today which you only seem to license from their manufacturers due to their DMCA and DRM hooks.

Moreover, some governments requested that their machines run Windows, so how could Negroponte say no to that request from paying customers? (I don't think it ever happened though, haven't seen any XO-1s running WinXP in the wild. The XO-1.5s should be able to run Windows with their higher specs tho).

I asked, AFAIK, NO ONE at OLPC has been working on Windows stuff, it was all up to the MS folks to make Windows run on the OLPC XO machines. The only work done by OLPC folks did to support Windows was to make the BIOS more compatible. One of the engineers at OLPC said that the changes the MS folks wanted to the BIOS would even prevent booting to anything else than Windows, so what the OLPC dude did was actually fix the BIOS so that it *could be* dual booted to both Linux and Windows as opposed to the MS folks' original plans.

There's been a lot of hate thrown towards OLPC ever since the Windows thing, but really, everything they do is open source over there and nothing really came out of that Windows thing except negative public backlash.

Now about selling to small deployments and individuals, IMHO this is something they need to do to make the platform survive. The smallness of the size of the developer crew at OLPC is simply ridiculous. More geeks need to be able to get their hands on these wonderful machines to get a healthy software and application ecosystem going.

As for touchscreen, having monkeyed around with an XO-1 machine, I'd say it's a must-have when you twist the screen into tablet configuration. The gamepad buttons on it are simply not enough when you need to use the mouse.

Re:OLPC did not sell out to Microsoft

[Serious Callers Only]

There's been a lot of hate thrown towards OLPC ever since the Windows thing, but really, everything they do is open source over there and nothing really came out of that Windows thing except negative public backlash.

Which is exactly why they should not have bowed to ms demands in the first place. Ms and intel were never serious but tecognised that co-opting is a great way to kill a project like this. Olpc is already sleepwalking to failure, as evidenced by the size of its dev crew and real world deployments. It died because they were too busy grandstanding and announcing vapourware and partnerships to make something cheap, useful and ubiquitous. Android is already further along than olpc will ever be, and partnering with negroponte would be the kiss of death for any Indian project. Why do they need negroponte when great software is available for free and they have a huge supply of programmers?

A touchscreen device for $35 would be great, but it is not close to reality- the Indian government, who have the money and manpower to really make a difference (unlike olpc), should take that lesson to heart and change the world rather than waste time promising the impossible. They can make it cheap and ubiquitous and truly useful (though limited) or expensive and full-featured and end up competing with all the commercial solutions out there and constantly sabotaged and undermined by companies like ms and intel. I know which I would choose.

Re:OLPC did not sell out to Microsoft

[oiron]

*ahem* The Nano would be a Tata product, and Tata is a private company. It's like blaming Obama for the iPhone's antenna...

And the point of the $35 device is not making money. It's a given that it'll lose money, since it's subsidized. The idea is to use it for education, and the government is willing to spend on that.

Now, whether it'll actually be useful or not is a different question entirely.

Re:OLPC did not sell out to Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like blaming Obama for the iPhone's antenna...

I'm actually surprised the ignorant Tea Party puppets haven't done that yet. Oh Look! There's Russia, right over there!

Re:OLPC did not sell out to Microsoft

[BangaIorean]

Actually, the TATAs underestimated the demand (don't ask me how and why - I don't know), AND had to move out of their planned manufacturing plant in the East Indian state of West Bengal. They threfore, have just one factory in the North Indian state of Uttaranchal to cater to countrywide demand. However, a new factory in West Indian Gujarat is almost complete, and once Nanos start rolling out of there, the waiting list will disappear :-)

Re:OLPC did not sell out to Microsoft

[scribblej]

If "...everything [olpc] do is open source..." then why do we have an article saying Negroponte has offered their knowledge? It's already out there, open, right? RIGHT?

Re: e-reader

[naz404]

Oh, BTW, I've been using the OLPC XO-1 I have with me as a PDF reader. A touchscreen would be amazing for scrolling, panning and zooming. The mousepad and gamepad arrow keys are pretty stifling. The touchscreen would be so intuitive for kids, and best of all, will allow them to take notes in traditional fashion and enable them to sketch diagrams for their notes, something a keyboard and trackpad won't allow you to do.

As for OLPC tech, the Pixel Qi screen is a complete game-changer and something everyone else on the market doesn't have yet (can't wait for the Notion Ink Adam android tablet which will have it). It's simply amazing how you can switch between colored backlit LCD to black and white low-power sunlight readable mode which *extends* battery life. Moreover, even the backlit LCD mode is sunlight readable. If you take your device outside or put it under very bright lights, it will show up as black and white and is still readable as opposed to normal backlit LCD screens.

The wireless mesh networking technology used by OLPC is also something I want to see perfected across the computing world. The OLPC XO machines were built so that you can chain a bunch of them across a long distance to share and piggyback an internet connection that's available to only one machine, kinda like smart dust.

Another thing, I haven't tested it, but under ideal conditions (think line-of-sight straight highway with no obstructions), the XO machines are supposed to be able to communicate across 1 kilometer. I'd believe it though as the XO picks up a *LOT* of wifi signals that my phone can't see. Something like 30:10 ratio.

Encryption

[ickleberry]

Lets just hope this laptop only has support for yesteryear's encryption such as ROT-13 lest the Indian government causes a fuss about not being able to spy on OLPC user's traffic and outlaws its like they did with satellite phones.

Re:Futile

[Shane A Leslie]

The XO was never about "shipping products people could afford and wanted to buy". It was about giving children in developing nations an open platform on which to learn computing, and have access to digitized knowledge resources. Not everyone is out to make a profit, some people just want to do good things.

Re:Manufacturing?

[Chrisq]

Does India have any tech manufacturing base? No troll - sincere question.

I know they've got keen engineering students who want that base to develop so they can work in it, but I can't think of any factories.

Yes, Dell does smone manufacturing there.

And this will differ from the Simputer how?

[WillAdams]

2001:
``A group of Indian scientists and engineers has developed a handheld computer to help the poor and illiterate join the information age.''
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1442000.stm

2010:
``Both licensees may seem to have stopped actively marketing their Simputer devices''
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simputer