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92,000 LEGO Robots To Take Over Peruvian Schools Alongside OLPC

Posted by Soulskill on from the resistance-is-futile dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The president of Peru, Alan Garcia, decided to celebrate the 500,000th One Laptop Per Child XO laptop in that country in style, announcing orders for half a million more and 20,000 additional Lego education WeDo robot kits for public schools, bringing the total number of kits for distribution up to 92,000. The latest OLPC laptop, the XO-1.75, has the lowest power draw ever thanks to a Marvell Armada 600 ARM processor and runs Fedora GNU/Linux with dual desktops Sugar (in Spanish, Aymara, and Quechua) and GNOME. For the first time, the XOs will be manufactured locally; the previous 2 million, including the blue high school variant with grownup keyboard, were all made by Quanta Computer. Meanwhile, parallel development continues on the upcoming XO-3 tablet; OLPC's New Technologies director is exploring software paths including GTK3 for Sugar, Android and Chrome. I, for one, salute our new plastic Peruvian overlords."

6 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. obligatory by Drakkenmensch · · Score: 2

    I, for one, welcome our new LEGO overlords!

    1. Re:obligatory by biryokumaru · · Score: 2

      Good thing you didn't read the last line of the summary before posting this, or else you wouldn't have been able to make it to first post... oh, wait...

      --
      When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
  2. Available for purchase by hufman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When will these OLPC XO-1.75 be ready for general consumers to buy? I have decided that this 2W laptop with 20 hours of battery shall be my next purchase, but when will Amazon or any other store carry them?

    1. Re:Available for purchase by Charliemopps · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree, I think the markets really underestimated the publics desire to have something like this.

  3. Not trolling but... by hjf · · Score: 2, Insightful

    American schools want kids to have iPads, and Peruvian schools give kids laptops and robot building kits. I wonder which one will help their development? The closed platform where they could spend the day playing Angry Birds, or the open platform where they can actually do USEFUL things. With robots!

    Anyway, keep in mind... Peruvian kids (or latin american kids in general) are too ugly to use Apple products. They must look just awful in black turtlenecks, right?

    I hope someone reads this before I get downmodded by the Hipster Fanboi crowd.

    1. Re:Not trolling but... by MBCook · · Score: 2

      I was about to mod you insightful for your first paragraph. Then I read the rest. Way to prevent any chance of a good mod.

      --
      Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.