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Negroponte On OLPC's New Path, Plans For XO 3

Posted by timothy on from the he-oughtta-know dept.

waderoush writes "After laying off staff and splitting the organization in two, Nicholas Negroponte and the One Laptop Per Child effort may be hitting their stride again. In an interview with Xconomy, Negroponte says he has a new model for getting XO laptops to kids in Gaza and Afghanistan — and reveals more ideas about the planned XO 3 tablet and the future of books. 'Paper books are really dead — they're gone. And they're not being killed by tablets, they're creating tablets,' he says."

22 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. I like paper books by Nursie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And seeing as I have no tablet or kindle or iPad or nook or whatever the hell, I shall keep reading them.

    From my cold dead hands Mr Negroponte.

    1. Re:I like paper books by DeadDecoy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I actually like both for aesthetic reasons. If it's for leisure reading a book can be cheap and easy to pack away. If it's for art, having a giant-sized coffee book with glossy pictures is nice too. However, if it's for work, I find it's useful to have both. The computer can keep track of the pdfs I accumulate better (citations, sorting, categorization, searching, etc) while printed-out paper offers a nicer form-factor for writing notes and really digging into the text. I'm guess though, that I'll start using ereaders, as opposed to laptops, when the newer generation of devices comes out: lighter, with color, capacitive touch, and a very good battery life.
      I imagine though, that this is how the apocalypse starts: we all convert to ereaders, and a galactic EMP knocks out all our electronic literature.

    2. Re:I like paper books by arth1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I like both too, but for technical reasons.

      With an e-book, I can tap a word and get a dictionary entry for it. And I never run out of bookmarks. And I can read in the dark.
      Not to mention carry 250 books in my pocket.

      With a real book, I most of all never have to worry about whether the format it's in will be supported ten or twenty years down the road. The only hardware requirements are eyes and hands, and the only software requirement is a brain, neither of which will go out of style in my lifetime.
      And I can lend it to whoever I want, or even sell it.
      Finally, depending on the paper quality, it has other uses too, which an e-book never will be able to help with.

  2. a visionary by RapmasterT · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "'Paper books are really dead — they're gone. And they're not being killed by tablets, they're creating tablets,' he says.""

    He sounds totally rooted in reality to me.

  3. Focus! by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 4, Insightful

    OLPC needs to reel in its ambitions and focus on something it can deliver as promised. These guys are starting to corner the market in low cost vaporware and pipe dreams.

    1. Re:Focus! by cgenman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      To be fair, when the OLPC program was announced, a laptop less than $600 was considered absurd. But the threat of the OLPC program lit a fire under Intel, and created their low cost platform initiative. Negroponte, in many ways, is responsible for the $200 netbook that I'm typing this on right now.

      He seems aware of this phenomenon, when he says that threatening to build a $100 tablet may be enough to spur private industry to build a $100 tablet. He's learning.

      I don't know. The OLPC project is basically founded on dreams and whimsy, but has become very real very quickly. They seem to be much more savvy now than when they started. I'm willing to give them a learning curve, especially with how grounded the XO 3 project seems compared to XO 2 or XO 1.

      --
      The ______ Agenda
    2. Re:Focus! by grumbel · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Have you ever looked at the software? There is still a lot of areas that are simply incomplete. The button to view source for example still hasn't been implemented as far as I know, the pressure sensitive areas left and right from the touchpad that can be used for writing with a pen remain unused as well. I haven't seen a good book reading application for the thing either and the whole Journal still feels like an unusable mess.

  4. delivery by cluster bomb by name_already_taken · · Score: 3, Funny

    Seriously, why doesn't paste work in this stupid box any more? (Google Chrome 6.0.472.63, btw)

    Anyway

    Negroponte says he has a new model for getting XO laptops to kids in Gaza and Afghanistan

    Now you see why the US didn't sign on to the treaty banning cluster bombs - they are planning to use them to deliver XO laptops.

    It's cheaper, faster, and much safer for the delivery person.

    --
    Putting moderation advice in your .sig lowers your karma!
  5. I used a book today by Mprx · · Score: 5, Funny

    First I had to get up and retrieve it from its special storage shelf. I was surprised at how heavy it was. It didn't have any search functionality, so I had to manually find the index, and then find my search term in the index. The pages didn't have any backlighting, so I had to move it to face the light so I could read it easily. The contrast ratio was rather poor. Most of the words in the book were not indexed at all, but luckily my search term was present. I couldn't click it, and I had to manually find the correct page again. There wasn't any highlighting either, so I had to manually search the page too. I read my information, and them put the book back onto its storage shelf where it uses a ridiculously huge amount of space.

    On the plus side, the resolution was high, but that's not enough to make up for all the other annoyances. Books are obsolete.

    1. Re:I used a book today by oldspewey · · Score: 5, Funny

      Another large annoyance with paper books: when Amazon goes out of business (or changes their T&C), they will send squads of armed goons into your home to rifle through your bookshelves and remove all the books you ever bought from them.

      --
      If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
    2. Re:I used a book today by Obfuscant · · Score: 2, Informative
      I opened up my PRS-505 today looking for a book. I could write a tome twice as long as yours detailing the problems dealing with that little beasty and completely ignore the benefits of the format, just as you have. Just to mention a few: no backlight, so I had to turn the page towards the light to read it... and it crashed while rendering the page I wanted to read, so it took five minutes to reboot, rescanning every document to extract titles from each PDF. After it rebooted, the clock was off by ten years, which for most things would be a detriment, but for this it is a benefit: the DRM on "library" books checked out is based on the reader clock, and I now have 1000 more days to read the books I checked out for two weeks (three months ago.) Oh, while it was busy scanning every document, it consumed 1/3 of the charge on the battery.

      Or a kewl final problem: you can plug it into a computer USB port and it will recharge, but if you plug it into a USB POWER source (no computer) it will happily keep running the CPU trying to enumerate itself on the bus, never allocate power for itself to charge, and drain the battery in an hour or less. BUT, you can plug in a coaxial power adapter right next to the mini-USB connector and it will happily charge up quickly. ($24.95 for the AC adapter from Sony. $2 for a USB-coax cable from electronics shop.) And if you use the "safely disconnect" option under Windows to safely disconnect the beasty from your computer but don't immediately disconnect it, it goes back to "trying to connect" mode and discharges the battery.

  6. Paper books are easy by digitaldc · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Books are quickly accessible, portable, need no batteries and just feel good in your hand while reading them.
    I doubt books will ever die, unless we elect Sarah Palin for President.

    --
    He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
  7. Re:Gaza? by Narcocide · · Score: 2, Informative

    According to TFA they've already placed around 3,000 there, so... yes?

  8. Irony by zooblethorpe · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm sure this prediction will work out like many of his other predictions and ambitions. About as vaprous and fragrant as what comes out my ass after eating a nice large beany burrito.

    You must eat a different kind of large beany burrito than I do, because the end result is usually much more liquid than vapor.

    Indeed, and liquid is not vaprous.

    BA: Baldric, do you know what irony is?

    BR: Yeah, it's like goldy or bronzey, only it's made of iron.

    Cheers,

    --
    "What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
    "A four-foot prune."
  9. DNF by MrEricSir · · Score: 2, Funny

    I wonder if you can run Duke Nukem Forever on the XO.

    --
    There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
  10. Exactly: Paper books are like vinyl records by zooblethorpe · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Or like radio, yeah, remember how TV killed radio? Or the VCR, remember how that killed the cinema?

    Meh. Sure, the market for paper books might shrink back from its peak, but it's not disappearing, and certainly not overnight.

    In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, What a maroon!

    Cheers,

    --
    "What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
    "A four-foot prune."
    1. Re:Exactly: Paper books are like vinyl records by Coeurderoy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, my first reactio was similar, but living in a 3rd world country where access to book is diffucult and "piracy" normal (including on books) I think he might be "righter" than we think.

      Currently there are "roughtly" 1 billion people living in countries where the majority reads at least "some" and 5 billion who live in counties where only a minority reads.
      (nb: of course india, china, etc have great literature, and la hogera in santa cruz is trying very hard to get good interesting local writers to the local market, but the realitly is that the wast majority of people in emerging countries do not read for "fun", they read if they are ordered to by their employers...., because:
      If you are poor and a "cheap low quality pirated book" cost 4 to 5 hours of work you will not offer 100 hours of work every year to your child, so the child will not connect "reading with fun" (exept the statistical "lucky" one outlier)).

      Moreover there is little avaiability of recent outside book (a hard cover foreign book can cost about 50% of a basic montly salary).
      So execpt the pirated copies of some blockbusters made popular by pirated copies of foreign movies, you do not read recent foreign books (softcover classics are about the end of it).

      But "everybody" has access to computers (mostly of course in cyber cafés)
      and most students use pirated PDF's of school books, not just because they cannot affort the 30..40$+ * 10..20 they would need, but because:
      Amazon do not deliver in many 3rd world countries
      and other providers can take up to 2 month to get the book to you (assuming you have an internationally valid credit card)
      and the local bookshop are not very efficient (or just would not bother because they know you will hassle them when they ask 3..4 time the "amazon" price because they have to pay: the book, the transport the customs (40%)..

      So ebooks are the best way to get books to these 5B people

      And in 10..15 years we might see that 80% of the population reads about 50% with a 90/10 cut for ebooks and 20% will have a 30/70 cut because they only use it for brain sugar and techno books, but at the end ===> more ebooks than books, and more "influence"

         

    2. Re:Exactly: Paper books are like vinyl records by grumbel · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Or like radio, yeah, remember how TV killed radio?

      You can't watch TV while driving a car, but you can listed to radio just fine, which I guess is one of the main reasons why radio still exists. I haven't listened to radio outside a car in ages. Same with VCR and cinema, different tools, different purposes, just with a bit of overlap.

      eBook vs paper books on the other side is different, same job, same requirements, really no fundamental difference. eBooks still have to become a bit faster and cheaper to fully compete with regular books, but once there, there is really not much reason left to get a regular book.

  11. Someone is going to be horribly dissapointed by pseudorand · · Score: 2, Interesting

    > 'Paper books are really dead -- they're gone. And they're not being killed by tablets, they're creating tablets,' he says.

    Meanwhile, elsewhere on the /. home page...

    Oxford University's Bodleian Library has purchased a huge £26m warehouse to give a proper home to over 6 million books and 1.2 million maps

  12. Paper books are not dead yet by sea4ever · · Score: 2, Interesting

    'Paper books are really dead — they're gone. And they're not being killed by tablets, they're creating tablets,' he says."

    Um, just yesterday I ordered a paper book for myself. About 2 weeks ago I loaned a whole box of books to someone (I'm expecting them back in January) and my university booklist threatens to take the rest of my money.
    I don't think paper books are dead at all.
    I know someone that has a tablet, and I've fiddled around with it for a while. It's not nearly as good as a physical paper book. I usually spread my books out while reading so that I can compare things, and a tablet would not allow that. The tablet I saw just doesn't have the reading space that my books have. It being smaller and so on. I'm sure there's tons more reasons why paper books are still better than tablets.
    Tablets are pretty cool things though. They could replace books one day, but goodness knows they'll get locked down like so many other modern devices. At least I am certain that my physical books will always belong to me, and that I won't get sued for using it in a study group where everyone can see.

  13. Really? by Tiger4 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    'Paper books are really dead — they're gone. And they're not being killed by tablets, they're creating tablets,' he says."

    Do people really take such over the top wheedling seriously? And why would an otherwise pretty sharp guy say such a narrowminded blindered thing? Books are doing just fine, despite the coolness factor of OLPC or tablets or handhelds. People like them, use them, buy then, and keep them. And 100 years from now they'll still have them, unlike most digital ephemera. We're still working on getting good conversion of writing to text, but preserving writing on paper was mastered a few thousand years ago.

    --
    Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
  14. The machine that never was by Ranger · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As long as Negroponte remains in charge of his baby the OLPC will never really take off. Eventually iPad technology will become cheap enough for the Third World. Too bad we have to wait for that to happen.

    --
    "You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"