Slashdot Mirror
OLPC XO-3 To Debut At CES, Starting Under $100 (But Not For You)
Computerworld is one of many publications heralding the expected arrival next week of the long-awaited OLPC tablet, and making much of one very cool feature: the price. The initial XO laptops from OLPC never quite made it to the hoped-for under-$100 level. But at least with an ordinary LCD screen, says project founder Nicholas Negroponte, the new XO-3 actually has. (An optional daylight-readable Pixel Qi screen bumps the price up, but it's not clear quite how much.) Both OLPC and Pixel Qi will be at next week's CES; hopefully I'll get a chance to provide some first-hand details, and ask whether there will be another round of the Buy One Give One program, so users outside the reach of big government buying programs can both further the project and play with the product; so far, the word is that these will only be available for large government buyers. (TechCruch has better pictures of the new device.)
If you can't buy it, it's kinda nonsensical to say it has a $100 price. It doesn't have a price at all.
Dammit, posted from my ipad 2 and it did it wrong. Maybe I should get the OLPC tablet, would be better than this gunk.
But what do I care? I cant buy one
OLPC really screws the pooch each time by not offering their tech for geeks in the first world. It would greatly increase the volume of production and drive software development, as well as generate a huge volume of fixes and improvements in the appropriate wikis.
While I await my Alan Kay designed fantasy notepad-sized stylus tablet, I really believe in OLPC's fundamental mission.
If I develop for any vendor specific device, it'll be this one. Not the market-hyped iPad.
I hope they have the buy-two-get-one program again. Hopefully I can scratch up the coin to see someone who can't afford a device piggyback off my purchase.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
It's just a tad thicker than the prototype unit they showed two years ago, isn't it?
http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/22/olpc-shows-off-absurdly-thin-xo-3-concept-tablet-for-2012/
In manufacturing it's all about volume. If you make 10 times as many the price per unit drops by half or so. Make it and sell it everywhere. Let first world developers help out the third world ones. I'm willing to pay a little extra for charity, but not twice as much (give one, get one). And don't bump up the specs for windows. History is filled with cheap computers that changed the world.
should i give a romeo alpha?
In the real world, a product isn't a product until it has a part number and a price. The part number is tied to a specific configuration with a committed level of performance. The price signifies that the vendor is putting his money where his mouth is. OLPC is so far (once again) all talk.
I hoped that Pixel Qi could have made a screen that was readable like eInk for ebook readers, but worked well enough in active mode in color with a backlight. I haven't seen a screen in person, but the reviews I've read over the last couple of years said that the Pixel Qi screen is kind of the worst of both worlds, not the best. Not great color or definition in active mode, and not that great in passive, reflective B&W mode either. That was disappointing to me to hear.
Has anyone seen a recent Pixel Qi screen on a device? How well does it work? Is power usage good?
The OLPC projects strikes me as fundamentally useless. On the list of things keeping children in poor countries from getting an education, lack of laptops is way towards the bottom. Now assuming there is a benefits for kids already in school to get access to a computer, a laptop strilkes me as a terribly inefficient way to go. You'd get far more bang for your buck with desktops. And most of all, every time I read about OLPC, it's always about the tech and the specs, not how it actually helps kids. That strikes me as techno navel-gazing at its worst. Until I actually read or see a story that details the benefits to real children (and please, feel free to send those links), I'll keep assuming that this is first and foremost about people finding ways to make themselves feel good about what they do.
Another story: from pcworld
And for an extra $10, you get a much better cpu, a better touch screen, more battery life, etc.
So, forget Canonicals' secret plans to unveil a cheap tablet running linux next week - these run both linux and android, and they're already being sold.
Buy from India - http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/05/us-india-tablet-idUSTRE7940YV20111005 - mark up to $100 - easy.
I was one of the original G1G1 participants, and I'm sorry to say that the gap between what was promised and what was delivered would never have been forgiven in any commercial enterprise. The "20 hour" battery life turned out to be 3-4 hours, and despite much talk about improvements to the power management software, nothing ever came of it.
The biggest disappointment for me was that the much-heralded "show source" button, didn't. I never quite worked out the tortuous explanations/excuses, but one of the original premises was that all of the machine's source would be available for inspection and modification--to kids, if sufficiently bright. In reality, all the enthusiastic video demonstrations of the "show source" feature were just showing ordinary browser HTML source, and as nearly as I could tell, the "show source" button never did anything more than that.
"Sugar," which I'd hoped would educate me in a brand new model for computer interaction, was, at the time, a bad joke with poor usability. The only way to locate journal entries was by remember to enter text tags for each one when complete, and doing text searches on the tags. It was explained that "fortunately kids like to describe everything they're doing." All usability objections were answered with the retort that I was not part of the machine's intended user base--true enough, and I have never verified for myself whether eight-year-old kids using the OLPC laptop really do type in text tags to enable them to locate their documents.
The one practical use I meant to put it to, as an eBook reader for PDF documents, didn't work because the PDF reader program was buggy, crashprone, and--even when it didn't crash--didn't save your place in the document (and didn't have any bookmarking mechanism). If you stopped reading at page 56, when you reopened the document, you'd be at page 1 and would have to remember what page you were on and scroll to it.
Hopefully all of these problems have long since been dealt with, but it left me with a bad taste in my mouth.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
The original OLPC made lots of sense, even if they botched the execution... I'll point to the massive success of the EEEPC as proof that they were only slightly off the mark. Personally, I thought going with a dirt cheap B&W LCD screen to start would have solved most of their problems, but I digress.
But this tablet makes no sense. The Aakash / UbiSlate tablets cost half as much (for real, in production) and is designed to serve exactly the same purpose as OLPC. In addition, Android smartphones (with qwerty keyboard, making them vastly more useful) retail for $100 here on the shelves in the US (no contract, not subsidized, not on sale). We're talking about full-featured mobile devices, much like what I use for 90% of my computing purposes, and am typing on right now...
OLPC's main reason to exist last time around was extreme power savings, due to the great expense of electricity in the third world. But now, normal mass market mobile devices now rival OLPC's energy targets, as well as having more than sufficient durability designed-in.
http://www.virginmobileusa.com/cell-phones/samsung-intercept-phone.jsp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aakash_tablet
I don't see any reason for OLPC to make custom hardware anymore, rather than just becoming a software company, possibly + logistical support.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Hmmm, where have I read about Indian cheap computers coming available within a month before?
Oh, right, it was here http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/02/10/07/1233208/indian-linux-pda-for-300
The site's product page talked about how it'd be useful for everyone, Rural Indian, European Student, American Businessman, blah blah. Listed prices and everything, I was never able to buy one.
OLPC at least has a history of getting reasonable priced things into my hands (original BOGO was slightly more than a netbook, lower speced, but far more rugged, portable, and usable outdoor). For $200 at the time (the cost without charity, but unavailable in small/medium quantities, I think 500 was the minimum to buy at cost), it was a great deal, though less general purpose than a more expensive netbook.
I imagine that the XO-3 will be more rugged, more sun view-able, bulkier and slower than a typical tablet, but even at $200 be a decent deal.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Hackers. Lots of them. Is OLPC even really a good idea?
Second, if you read the OLPC article, they don't actually plan on building a tablet if competitors can do it for less ... so that's pretty much the end of that ... the OLPC project is pretty much dead at this point.
Think of it - the iPad didn't even exist 2 years ago. Today, you can buy a linux+android tablet for under $60. Why would any government get involved in a $100+ tablet when they can get them for half, AND manufacture them under license locally, creating jobs in their own countries?
Simple answer - they won't.
It's nice and all, but the XO-3 might as well just be vaporware.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Great story in your G&M link!
I had missed it, so thanks for bringing it to my (everyone's) attention.
Hey everyone.
Although units are very hard to get a hold of, if you're really sincere and interested about developing, OLPC will ship and lend you units free of charge with the promise that you will pass them on to the next developer when you're done with your project.
msobkow, all you need to do is to make a good project proposal and apply for the contributors program:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Contributors_program
They really do send these out. I applied and OLPC sent over some units all the way to the Philippines
You guys can check what's happening with the different OLPC mailing lists here:
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/
And the developer mailing list which is the most active:
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
I've also been able to do some hands on testing stuff on a prototype XO-1.75 which is the Marvell Armada-driven ARM version meant to succeed the XO-1.5 (as well as being the basis for the XO-3). It's been a really interesting experience with the prolonged battery life, but not without its quirks as a "real mainstream linux" OS running on an ARM machine (it's running Fedora ARM, dual bootable to the Sugar UI paradigm or Gnome). If anyone wants to contribute to Fedora-ARM development, this would also be an excellent avenue.
Try to check if there any local groups near your place and check em out. The local group near where I'm at right now (NZ) was kind enough to lend me one of these rare prototypes (and will be returning it soon).
Cheers!
-Naz
http://twitter.com/object404
I'm tempted to head down there and interview them. They've got a compelling story, they're actually in production, the world is beating a path to their door, and it was something that they decided to cough up the $100,000 bid bond to enter the bidding war almost on a whim at the last moment.
What's really interesting is the Ubislate - $10 more ($60) - a Cortex A8 cpu, a video accelerator, HD video, and Gingerbread. Sure, it's not ICS, but Gingerbread for $60???
And of course, we all know what that means - within a few years, ICS for under $100.
What's really interesting is the Ubislate - $10 more ($60) - a Cortex A8 cpu, a video accelerator, HD video, and Gingerbread. Sure, it's not ICS, but Gingerbread for $60???
I wonder how open / hackable they (Aakash & Ubislate) are? Could one theoretically buy a device and install their own Android / Ubuntu on it? Seems like they've got kernel hackers tweaking away to make it work properly, so I doubt a standard kernel would work, but maybe they'll open source it? (Ask them if you interview them.)
And of course, we all know what that means - within a few years, ICS for under $100.
Ah yes, but ICS will be at least 2 versions old by then. OTOH, hopefully Android will be better polished (I thought previews of ICS looked fugly) and Google will have done something to block the carriers from preventing updates, etc. by then.
Maybe CyanogenMod could be loaded onto them? That would be cool.
I've got Fresh Zodiak Fruit ROM on my Wind Huawei 8100 Android phone and mostly love it, except for the randomly appearing apps in the task list. I'm always killing apps that appear in there that I didn't launch. :(
How is this AW remotely relevant?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
XO<3 is like a little kid with a heart above the head. "kids love OLPC!"
They even fail at marketing.
I'll buy again. Heck I even would buy a give-two-get-one. The original machine had huge gaps between promise and delivery, but worked nicely reading blogs in bright sunlight. What I would wish for howerver is some documentation which batch my donated machine(s) would go to. I actually would be ready to chat with the receiver from time to time. Sutra Mitra had identified this as a booster for learning. And IMHO learning is key to anybody's future.
Did M$Âalready hijack the project or what's the score exactly nowadays?
OLPC's customers are educational organizations that can implement "one laptop per child".
A lot of the OLPC software effort is easing the hard work of a deployment: managing reflashing hundreds of machines at once with a new distribution, restoring to a stable image, device backup, school servers, service & repair, etc. That's more involved than "selling low-cost computers" and it's different from "the democratization of computers". Android and ChromeOS have some similar facilities and someone could base large educational rollouts on them, but there's little money in it, so it seems if a non-profit is still the way to go.
You're confused (or writing poorly about fish). OLPC never "jettisoned" Sugar. The OLPC software distribution now offers a choice between the Sugar UI and a Gnome desktop, and supports running a version of Windows XP from SD card; OLPC provided these choices in response to those education customers. Of the 2.5M XO laptops out there, no large deployment is running Microsoft Windows. In many Sugar activities, pressing View Source (Fn + Space) opens up the Python source code (it's pretty cool!), and the source code from the firmware up is readily available.
=S
Why would any government get involved in a $100+ tablet when they can get them for half, AND manufacture them under license locally, creating jobs in their own countries?
More "sophisticated" answer:
OLPC systems are designed for education. The hardware is designed to be tough enough to last years in a school environment where most hardware is designed to survive just beyond the guarantee period as long as you treat it right. The batteries are designed with different compromises; the don't charge to the maximum so they last much longer, but have a worse headline performance. The main operating system has the full source code under an open source license so the students are guaranteed to be able to modify it if they want to learn how it works. They come with a whole integrated anti-theft system which, combined with their abnormal hardware, makes them much more likely to stay with the school than other systems.
Overall this means that OLPC systems deliver much more for much less total cost. You or I may not know or understand this. We aren't specialists in educational systems. On the other hand education ministries have people who know exactly this stuff. The question then becomes; "why would an education minister buy anything else". The answer to that is either that they have different circumstances (OLPC is not really designed for use with rich students who can be expected to have their own computer at home) or, more often, that the politicians are in bed with big business.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
I wonder how open / hackable they (Aakash & Ubislate) are? Could one theoretically buy a device and install their own Android / Ubuntu on it? Seems like they've got kernel hackers tweaking away to make it work properly, so I doubt a standard kernel would work, but maybe they'll open source it? (Ask them if you interview them.)
They have to opensource it. The Linux Kernel is licensed under the GPL, which means that if you modify it and use the resulting binaries in a relased product, you must provide the source code for your modifications.
There still can be other barriers:
* locked bootloaders - migh not be present in such cheap hardware
* binary only drivers - though they have to release the source to their kernel changes, they might not release the source code for certain device drivers
So WHITE people (and Asians) create technology for sub-70 IQ blacks, who are too STUPID to create it, WE working class whites have to pay for these useless losers to be given free computers, so they can 'rise up' and improve their miserable lives.
Will the OLPC magically improve their DNA so their IQs will rise above 70? Of course not.
I know! Let's just allow all the blacks on the planet into previously WHITE countries, and then they can benefit from the luxuries of a first world civilisation, without actually having to produce it themselves! And then they can turn our first world countries into third world hellholes, like the shitholes they came from! Yeah, that's great!
How many of you idiots will give knee jerk reactions about how 'racist' I am? Can't you even THINK about what's going to happen to YOUR children, when they are a white minority in their OWN country, which YOUR parents and grandparents built? What happened to the whites in Haiti?
The systems that the Indian government commissioned the competition for, and which they are buying millions of these $52 devices, and subsidizing them, as so that all students in India at every level of education will get one. In other words, India is now closed for dealing with the OLPC.
At $52 for a color touch-screen tablet, they can buy two, so if one breaks ...
Also, they're already offering a next-gen device for $10 more. Expect the trend to continue, so that 3-4 years from now, you'll be able to buy the functional equivalent of an iPad2 for $80-$100.
The $52 tablet runs linux and android. So what's your point again?
The Indian government is making sure that everyone can get one - which is why they're subisidizing it to the point where students (university first, then high schools, and then grade schools) will be able to buy them for between $20 and $30. What's the point of stealing one when everyone has one?
The whole point of the program is that these are not JUST for use for "school work". They're to end the digital divide for the entire Indian population.
And they're the ones who decided that this was the right way to go - that the OLPC is not suited for the real-world needs of university students, etc ... a low-cost, general-purpose tablet device for every student, loaded with educational software and ebooks, access to the net, etc., and eventually every citizen, to do with as they wish. So, again, what's your point?
So the OLPC just got kicked out of the second-largest market in the entire known universe. And it's not going to make any headway in the largest market. And the countries that WERE considering it are asking to get on board the $52 tablet instead. If they had 100 million devices, they could sell them all this year, the demand is that high. Even Sweden wants them.
OLPC is finished. So is Canonical after the weeks' CES ("oh look at the Ubuntu tablet that our partner is going to be selling") , but that's another story. Think of it - 2-1/2 years ago, Canonical announced that they would have android running on Ubuntu. Then they had to abandon it, because they don't have any real software engineering expertise. Along comes a company with 150 employees, 50 of whom are engineers, and in a matter of months, they develop a cut-down version of linux that can run android on a $52 device they designed in-house. Who has more linux street cred? Canonical, who have to re-badge Amazon EC2 and sell it as "Ubuntu Cloud", get someone else to re-badge and run "Ubuntu 1 Music Store" or whatever they called it, etc., or a company that has actually designed, produced, and shipped linux devices?
OLPC and Canonical are so last-decade.
You see, the question of derivative works, under copyright law, is only triggered when the "derived work" is saved in fixed form - so anything done in ram, such as dynamically linking, simply doesn't count. In other words, I can dynamically link to ANY code, including gpl code, and NOT supply source. That's the law as it has stood for decades, and affirmed by the courts.
Now consider this - if they make NO changes to the actual source, just removing stuff, even Larry Rosen has argued that doesn't trigger "must distribute the source on request", because NONE of the code that remains has actually been modified. Sure, as a whole, it's different, but the kernel source is actually an aggregate work - that's why it's possible to remove stuff w/o breaking everything. So if all they did was remove code, and dynamically link to what's left, their distribution requirements could be met by distributing the unmodded kernel source (since that also includes 100% of what was left in).
Of course, the REALLY smart move would be to just have used FreeBSD, like Apple did.
Or its a scull and crossbones with a heart over it.
Hell why is nobody else coming up with that kind of design? I love to have a tablet that I never need to log around a charger. Hope they get a buy one give one program going because am getting at least two.
Looks more like somebody projectile vomiting... but I guess I turned my head the wrong way.
Maybe giving it a perfectly reasonable name rather than something that you'd expect to find on a packing list would be better marketing altogether.