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If there are no holes in it, how does it stay cool?

The technology is endlessly fascinating, but the project itself feels a bit like the missionaries of the past.

It is a massive injection of technology into third world countries without any research into the possible range of effects. Our technology works us over completely. It reshapes every part of our lives. Social, poltical, religious and family structures that have existed for generations in these countries are bound to be uprooted. We have a responsibility to at least do some research into the possible effects.

They’ve labeled the One Laptop Per Child project as an exercise in empowering children to learn which sounds great. Who could possibly be against learning right? But the first of the 5 core principles of the project is “Child Ownership”. One of the core values that the project is hoping to teach third world countires is ownership. That sounds a bit weird. The official wiki even goes so far as to say that by owning something the children will be able to learn to share. Owning = Sharing? There’s a bit of newspeak in that sort of equation. The project should be teaching community and sustainability, not individualism and ownership.

I don’t agree with this project. The financing for the laptops is to come from third world countries that need basics like food, water and security. A cool laptop is not their problem but their governments will spend the people’s money on these.

Of course the intention is good but in the case of these countries failed good intentions have dire consequences.

How will these be supported? Do you think Dell and HP have no investment in post purchase support?Maybe in only a year Negroponte has come up with the most usable laptop that will require no ongoing maintenance or support?

I finally saw one of these in the flesh last week. They’re absolutely beautiful. In fact, I’d argue that they’re too beautiful. They’d make great conference machines – I’d be sorely tempted to steal one from a child! Here’s hoping you can buy them in the first world, or there might be a healthy black market on eBay selling them from the third world.

Chris, support is not the third-country term. Here in third countries, where 90% of software is pirated, people don’t call for support to vendors - they ask their guru friends for help. Same thing with hardware - they will maintain their computers by themselves.

As for food, water and secutiry—remember giving fish vs. teaching how to fish?

OLPC is teaching how to fish.

It’s truly an amazing accomplishment if it does everything stated above for an unsubsidized $100. One even more interesting question is if they can build it at that price without exploiting the labor force in the countries they are trying to help. It seems to me this device would have interest in America. Sell them for $300 a “Johnny’s first laptop” and you’d have an extra $200 per laptop to build clean drinking water and AIDS vaccines for third world nations (in addition to still selling them laptops if that’s working).

One even more interesting question is if they can build it at that price without exploiting the labor force in the countries they are trying to help.

Excuse me, you just said against creating workplaces in those contries? If there are people willing to exchange their work (even 24h work) for a better future for their children, that’s OK. Sort of…

Dmitry Chestnykh: OLPC is teaching how to fish.

As long as it’s not teaching them how to phish.

Anyone in Chicago interested in the project should check out: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Chicago_Interest_Group—we’re meeting June 2nd.

Ian: is there a bigger list of interest groups anywhere? Chicago is a bit far for me to go…

Sell them for $300 a “Johnny’s first laptop” and you’d have an extra $200 per laptop to build clean drinking water and AIDS vaccines for third world nations

This is a subject Negroponte touched on in the broadcast; he said if it were commercially available in the US, consumers might be required to purchase two, one of which would go to the 3rd world child.

Simon: the only other interest group I know of is in Toronto, plus each possible target country also has a group. There’s a list of presentations of the XO here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Laptop_demonstrations#XO_demonstrations

The wiki is currently the central location for organization, particularly here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Community_Building

Additionally there’s the mailing lists: http://mailman.laptop.org/mailman/listinfo—olpc-open might be an appropriate place to ask about people in a particular area that might be interested. #olpc on FreeNode is primarily for developer discussion, but if you are looking for individuals close to you geographically you should ask there too.

Bart: the plan is to do very heavy caching between the satellite connection and the laptops, and hopefully queuing large requests (e.g., if you want to get a movie, queue your request and it’ll be downloaded when/if possible). The laptops themselves have mesh networking, where you can use other laptops to route your request to the upstream connection; this way every laptop is an access point, extending the range of the school-based internet connection. Additionally, we’d want to try to avoid upstream requests when a peer already has the content you are looking for.

First off: Well done to Nic Negroponte, I think he’s going to make a big difference here in Africa.

Secondly, I wish Steve Jobs and Michael Dell would contribute by at least charging the same for laptops in Africa as they do in the US. (An older model Macbook costs 36% more here, and an older model Inspiron is almost twice as much).

See my post: Dell Robbing Africa Blind

Olin College is hosting the OLPC Game Jam where volunteers can work on desigining and developing educational games for the OLPC project. Should be interesting to see what comes of it.

After watching the video, I still don’t understand the SUGAR interface in the slightest.

another thing it has (or rather doesn’t have) is lack of a caps lock key, designers saw no use for the key so they left it off. Less is def more

Was lucky to see one of these close up at a refresh-dc meeting. Every part of it is so well thought out, and even though the user interface is different it does make sense

I really really love the OLPC project.

I’m the cuprit who made the demo video linked-to in this article. I should mention that it’s a video of an old build and some of the “facts” are wrong.

1. In the web browser, the title bar doubles up as the address bar. 2. The web browser is not firefox. I think it’s going to be Opera (not entirely sure though). 3. etoys doesn’t make much sense run at this resolution. It’s a fixed resolution app that is ‘cropped’ around the edges in this demo.

This aside, is the UI too adventurous, and too much of a gamble?

More concerns here (my blog):

http://www.90percentofeverything.com/2006/11/23/why-the-olpc-needs-lots-of-usability-work/

See this post: http://ko.offroadpakistan.com/computing/2007_02/one_laptop_per_child.html

One of the common critiscms of the OLPC is that Laptops aren’t food. Children in third world countries need food & medicine, not laptops.

This is a commonly stated argument, and is so childishly wrong that the proponents need their own 100 dollar laptops to learn some of the facts of life. Most children in third world countries aren’t starving, and while they sure could do with better food and medicine, the old adage comes to mind: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”. Most Pakistani children aren’t starving, and there are already a thousand odd NGO ’s and charities thinking about how to help those who are, and yet more working on medical aid. Heck, even the Pakistan govt. is making noises about food and medicine. What we don’t have, and desperately need, is a way to empower power to rise out of their poverty. I think the OLPC project provides children a chance to do that – not all, perhaps not even 10 percent of the recipients will use the laptops, but that’s where future solutions will come from – not the thousands of NGO ’s shoveling aid every which way. Africa is a prime example – the continent has more food than it needs, yet people still starve. The massive quantities of foreign food aid have undermined local agriculture and wrecked their markets, with countries like Ethiopia locked into a vicious downward spiral of food aid dependency. Even than, countries like Ethiopia already have more food aid than they need, so this argument is just plain nonsense from armchair aid warriors. Countries like Brazil, another participant in the OLPC program, certainly doesn’t need any food aid, and for that matter, even Pakistan suffices without any.

Click on the name above to see answers to most of the common critiscms of the OLPC .

What I don’t understand is why they don’t sell them. I would buy one to read my mail and write documents on the grass, in front of my house, just by the river.

If it is a good product, why they don’t let the market work? Why they only sell them to governments?

A few things…

There is a liveCD available. Boot from this iso image and you can use the Sugar interface firsthand. It’s a bit frustrating to use the LiveCD without the network collaboration (as pictured above), but you’ll get an idea of the interface. (Get used to using the F1-F4 keys)

Also, the web browser I saw used was definitely firefox (or a flavor of Mozilla, not Opera)

And, I heard that you could purchase one of these laptops for yourself as long as you bought a second one for a developing country. Have not been able to find any proof to back that up, but I have heard it from a couple different people.

Yeah, they will be on sale, but you have to buy two. From what I have heard they are going to be about $175 each.

Bart: Please contact me – I can put you in touch with a friend of mine who is currently installing high-speed internet at a school in Guatemala. I have also been involved in satellite and computer projects in Haiti.

Providing access to technology – especially technology that facilitates learning – is a Very Good Thing. Wealth and technology are unevenly distributed because of unstable government and poor education. The effect of good education in a community is amazing – in my own experience in Haiti I have seen drastic differences in the mindset and well-being of people who have access to education vs. people who don’t. As someone commented above, not everyone in a ‘third-world’ country is starving. In fact, food subsidies and prolonged economic aid tend to have a detrimental effect on local economies. This project is really exciting because it represents an opportunity for people who otherwise have no hope to elevate themselves and their communities out of poverty.

P.S. My info is here: http://www.artofmission.com/about

So the Hundred Dollar Laptop is $175?

It sounds like the consumer both has to pay $75 extra each, and then buy two of them too. I don’t get it.

I share the same suspicions of this project as many others—it seems like the benefactors are confusing the needs of the children with their own wants.

Maybe I’m wrong. But it seems like a hugely egotistical assumption: movers and shakers at the center of the tech industry claiming that the mere presence of computers and the internet will solve major woes for poor countries. “Don’t worry—we’ll save you by giving you more STUFF !”

The price is supposed to come down to ~$100 within a couple of years, according to the 60 Minutes piece.

So can Apple likewise announce the iPhone as the ”$200” Smart Phone, since the price will eventually come down? It seems like they missed their primary goal of affordability. Was there really THAT much need for a built-in camera etc?

On 60 minutes they stated that the price will drop because of volume. I assume that when you are buying flash memory and other parts/pieces to assemble it is much cheaper in larger quantities. Right now they don’t have the orders they projected so the price has gone up due to the lower quantities of parts needed.

The browser is Mozilla (Seamonkey) – Opera would be unsuitable for the machine, as it’s not free software – no point giving kids software that can’t be hacked on.

In order to sell these for $100 they must be mass produced. Mass production indicates they will all be identical. Are they all English based? Is this, in reality, a plot to teach all children of the world English?

The interfaces use icons, not English.