OLPC News September 2006

Classmate PC vs. 2B1 Children's Machine

Posted on September 29, 2006 by Wayan Vota in Prototypes: 2B1, Sales Talk: Intel, Countries: Nigeria

Paul Otellini + Classmate PC

Capping a South American educational donation and implementation press tour, Intel president and CEO Paul Otellini introduced the ~~Eduwise~~ Classmate PC notebook, and hopeful OLPC 2B1 killer, during his Intel Developer Forum keynote presentation in San Francisco yesterday.

The Classmate PC is a formidable system, it has twice as much RAM and flash memory, and a significantly faster processor than the 2B1 Children's Machine for only about $100 more. It runs an embedded version of Windows XP, preserving the WinTel duopoly, though it is rumored to support Linux also.

In addition, unlike the still in development One Laptop Per Child computer, the Classmate PC already exists and is in real-world trials under Intel's World Ahead program. According to AllAfrica.com, Intel has Classmate PC's implemented in a government junior secondary school in Jabi, Nigeria. There four teachers were trained how to integrate computers into their classes with 36 students already using the Classmate PC.

Insert Nigerian 419 caption here

Intel also announced the Classmate PC will be available to 300,000 Mexican teachers by year’s end as part of a larger teacher training initiative. Brazil and India have also agreed to purchase Classmate PC's, but I cannot find any order or implementation information online.

Regardless of hardware differences, it is Intel's implementation approach that is the most striking. Unlike Nicholas Negroponte's myopic focus on laptop production, while calling it an education project, Intel is actually focusing on the messy but much more important technology implementation.

At the most basic level, Intel is designing the Classmate PC to be an educational tool controlled by the teacher. To quote the Trusted Reviews:

In the classroom, the Classmate PC will connect to the teacher’s machine and allow him/her to transmit directly to the desktop of every student. It also means that the teacher can monitor each student’s progress in real time. There are no text books, exercise books, pens or pencils to worry about – all the teacher has to do is place a Classmate PC on each desk before class starts and everyone’s set.

An article this summer on CNET News.com had more detail. Michael Kanellos reported that:

As a threat deterrent, the notebook will come with asset-control software, so if it is out of the classroom for too many days, the notebook disables itself.

The Classmate will also sport a special version of Windows that prevents kids from accessing Internet sites or adding programs that have been designated by parents or teachers as off-limits.

The computer has software that can be used during classroom exercises. If a child tries to surf away from the lesson at hand, a message pops up saying, "Please pay attention to the professor."

Intel itself may say it the best in its Intel World Ahead, Brazil press kit:

The Classmate PC platform is a teacher-student computing solution designed to serve the educational needs in developing countries.

The platform brings a complete hardware and localized pedagogical software solution that enables classroom and content management. This is being achieved through interaction with local pedagogical content providers and educators.

Classmate PC is made of three key elements, a small form factor, affordable and rugged notebook designed for students, a teacher console unit, and a complete integrated software management solution.

Now what does One Laptop Per Child have for a localized pedagogical software solution? Christopher Blizzard says:

"And with regards to the software, we’re not really building educational software for the laptop. We don’t consider it our job, we’re just building the basic tools to let those kinds of things flourish. And you can imagine that with an install base in the millions that that kind of software is likely to pop up for sale."

Which pretty much sums up the entire OLPC implementation plan: if we build it, and you buy at least a million, everything will magically work out. Or an implementation plan that is equal parts arrogance and denial.

So while Intel's Classmate PC is only a cheaper PC and not the paradigm shifting technology of the OLPC 2B1 Children's Machine, its World Ahead implementation methodology is just that - a world ahead of the One Laptop Per Child's drop it off at the country's door delivery plan.

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OLPC in Argentina by the Numbers

Posted on September 28, 2006 by Wayan Vota in Countries: Argentina

Back when the One Laptop Per Child project was announced, and Nicholas Negroponte was still claiming a $100 dollar laptop price point, Taran Rampersad noted that its really a $100 million dollar laptop - you have to order them in one million unit blocks.

The 2B1 Children's Machine is now $138 dollars per laptop, making the minimum order price $138 million just for the laptops. How might this price affect a country like Argentina, a relatively rich developing world country and one of the initial OLPC partner countries?

First, lets look at some numbers from the CIA World Fact Book and The World Bank:

Children 15 or under: 10 million
Literacy at 15 and over: 97.1%
Internet users: 10 million (2005)

So first of all, if Argentina bought 1 million 2B1 laptops, it may increase Internet users by 10% but would only reach 10% of children under 15. Or as Alexander Piscitelli, General Manager of Argentina's Ministry of Education, Center of Technology and the main OLPC government counterpart, said in an interview with Cecilia Bazán via a Google translation:

An Argentine Student

First, it is necessary to see if the Argentine government buys first the million computers, something that this in evaluation. Although it bought them, and to the original value, a million machines are nothing in a country that has 10 million and means of students. It is the 10 percent of the population.

It would be necessary to every year buy a million, during 10 years. In addition, 850 thousand boys enter every year to the educative system. You would have to always buy a million machines.

So what might the effect of an annual million laptop computer purchase have on the Argentine education budget? Again, more numbers:

Total Federal expenditures: $39.98 billion
Public expenditure on education: $5.6 billion per year
Number of students per teacher: 17
Public expenditure on education minus teachers salaries: $300 million

So if we do simple math (great for OLPC income predictions too) we find that $138 million per year would consume half of the non-salary education budget nationwide for only 10% of the student body per year. And before you suggest that Argentina borrow the money from other sources, here is one last sobering number

Public debt: 72.5% of GDP

Let's not forget that $138 million dollars only buys 2b1 Children's Machines, not any related hardware, software, or more importantly teacher training. Alexander Piscitelli says it best with:

It is not unthinkable from the budgetary point of view, would be very expensive now and more cheap within four years. But the subject is not that one, but something much more complex: what takes control of the machines, the subject of the connectivity, what happens with the educational ones, the logistics...

Yes, Mr. Piscitelli, that is what I worry about most too, the total cost and implementation methodology of everything around One Laptop Per Child 2B1 Children's Machine one million unit purchases, not the computers themselves.

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A Blizzard of OLPC Development Progress

Posted on September 27, 2006 by Wayan Vota in Software: Operating System, Hardware: Power Supply, Hardware: Wireless

While Walter Bender's One Laptop Per Child weekly newsletters are becoming more technical as the 2B1 Children's Machine development moves along, Christopher Blizzard has taken it upon himself to give a very detailed update on the OLPC software and hardware progress. And a detailed update he delivers.

Reading through his One Laptop Update details on kernel, power management, x window, Python, encryption, Sugar, and operating systems, I've noticed interesting snippets that give a window into the evolution of the 2B1 Children's Machine hardware.

OLPC Boot Options

First is the news that the OLPC BIOS is now able to boot from two of the four initial boot option targets. Internal NAND flash and external USB media boot sequences are live, if not yet fully refined and the OLPC team will be developing systems to boot and re-install operating systems over a USB Ethernet device or from on-board USB wireless using a secure BIOS update method.

Then in an exiting development for those concerned about the string power generator output, the current developer boards only use 3 watts of electricity when in an idle state. In fact, in his testingDave Jones has only reached 6 watts and as the 2B1 OS moves to a tickless kernel, the power consumption should drop even farther.

What hasn't dropped are questions around the OLPC's Open Source Manifesto. In the comments section of Mr. Blizzard's post, Theo de Raadt inserts his own manifesto on OLPC's relationship with Marvell, its wireless Internet hardware partner. His basic argument is:

A Marvell Wireless Card

I think it is seriously hypocritical for OLPC to be heading towards Linux BIOS (goal: to not run vendor code) while at the same time they go signing NDA’s with Marvell for the wireless driver (goal: to run vendor code), and then won’t participate with other groups who want Marvell to release documentation for their wireless chips.

A few comments later, Christoper Blizzard responds with a patient "Trust us":

The code for the driver for the Marvell chip is available under the GPL and can be found in our recent kernels. (It’s not upstream yet.) We will have an agreement with Marvell that will allow for redistribution of the firmware.

While I can understand Theo de Raat's concern, I'm actually going to give OLPC my trust on this very important issue.

Why? Because a month after I pointed out that the SD Card slot on the 2B1 isn't Open Source, OLPC were able to convince the SD Card Association to allow the first truly Open Source SD implementation, with no need to obtain an SDI license or sign NDAs to create SD drivers or applications.

Now I expect that Marvell, looking at millions of wireless card sales, will bend under the same pressure, and open up its firmware to Open Source standards. If so, score another amazing advance for the One Laptop Per Child organization.

Update: If you read the comments below, it seems that OLPC was not responsible for the SD Association's allowance of an Open Source SD implementation, it was Microsoft and HP. That's not only disappointing; it also brings into question OLPC's use of Marvell's proprietary wireless code.

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India to Attempt $10 Laptop Per Child

Posted on September 26, 2006 by Wayan Vota in Countries: India

In what seems to be a moment of hubris, the Indian Human Resource Development Ministry, the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science met last week to devise a roadmap for a direct challenge to the One Laptop Per Child program - an Rs 450 ($10) laptop.

That's right, $10. Or $128 dollars less than the One Laptop Per Child's 2B1 Children's Machine continuously revised price point of ~~$100~~ $138 dollar per laptop. Regardless, the OLPC 2B1 is still the leading realistic low-cost option for at least it has a working prototype screen, developer boards, and software.

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Nicholas Negroponte - Agenda Setter 2006

Posted on September 25, 2006 by Wayan Vota in People: Negroponte

Congratulations to Nicholas Negroponte! He is Number 6 on silicon.com's Agenda Setters 2006, the 50 most influential individuals in technology

Picked not for his role at MIT Media Lab, Nicholas Negroponte was chosen for One Laptop Per Child, his vision of bringing a ~~$100~~ $140 dollar open source, mesh network laptops to schoolchildren in developing countries.

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OLPC Profit: $8 Million Per Order?

Posted on September 22, 2006 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Price, Hardware: Production

In Nicholas Negroponte's "AMD Global Vision Conference" presentation his most recent OLPC price quote would be:

The anticipated price for the 2007 model is $138, going to down to $100 by the end of 2008 and getting to $50 in 2010, Negroponte said.

If we do simple math, that means OLPC will have an $8 margin on every laptop sold. $8 doesn't sound like much, right? And who could disparage One Laptop Per Child for making back some of the $30 million it's spending on laptop design?

Here's one last math calculation for you: $8 x 1 million units per order = $8 million dollars per order.

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SES offers OLPC Global Satellite Bandwidth

Posted on September 22, 2006 by David in Internet: Access, Sales Talk: Price

Having picked up Nicholas Negroponte's speech at the AMD Global Vision conference, we were struck by his reported assertion that the cost of a laptop's "connection charges" would be as low as $1 per child per year. If this figure represented bandwidth costs, we wondered how it could be so low.

Today, it looks like we might have part of our answer; SES Global, one of the world's largest satellite services companies, announced that they will join OLPC as corporate partners

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eBay OLPC Sales: Inevitable, Now More Than Ever

Posted on September 21, 2006 by Wayan Vota in People: Negroponte, Commentary: OLPC News, Sales Talk: Price

From the very start, the One Laptop Per Child leadership has been adamant that it will only sell its first generation 2B1 Children's Machines to governments, and then only in million unit blocks. One Laptop Per Child is open to a commercial version possibility, but only hesitantly and then in much later 2B1 generations.

Also, from the very start, everyone has wondered why OLPC would not have a retail sales channel immediately - who would not want a $100 laptop for themselves or their children? Even a $300 laptop, if $200 went to charity, first generation or not.

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Military Coup Risk for OLPC Sales

Posted on September 21, 2006 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Countries, Countries: Thailand

Now that coup leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin is in control, and new elections will be held soon, the entire government leadership of Thailand is in flux. In that flux, few if any career bureaucrats or politicians will be egger to associate with one of Thaskin's efforts or commit at least $140 million dollars towards the purchase of 2B1 Children's Machines.

This leaves Nicholas Negroponte in quite a predicament. Does he continue to claim that Thailand will be an initial roll-out partner until he's publicly rebuffed or embraced? If rebuffed, what country will step up to make his self-imposed 5 million laptop initial production run?

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Negroponte Unveils String Generator Mock-Ups

Posted on September 20, 2006 by David in People: Negroponte, Hardware: Power Supply, Sales Talk: Price

With the exception of some rather far out claims - in Nigeria, comparing OLPC's work to that of the church, here announcing that the introduction of laptops into the classroom has eliminated truancy in Maine - little new information had been released about the laptop and even less about how it will reach it's market. That was until yesterday at the "AMD Global Vision Conference" in Pasedena, California.

Here, Negroponte unleashed a CG mock-up of what looks like a pull string generator. Dan Farber over at ZDNet grabbed a photo of the presentation slide, shown here at the top right of this post. Unfortuately, either Negroponte had little technical information available, or Dan didn't pick it up as there is no information given as to what sort of power the tool might produce. Another notable announcement is confirmation that western consumers will be able to buy a 2B1 laptop.

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Inveneo Communication Stations vs 2B1 Children's Machines

Posted on September 19, 2006 by Wayan Vota in Prototypes: 2B1

Yesterday Jeremy Faludi interviewed Laura Mellow, COO of Inveneo for the World Changing website. While most of the article focused on Inveneo's work, I noticed that Jeremy asked Laura this question:

"Your "Inveneo Communication Stations" sound similar to the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, except that yours already work and already exist in the field. How long have they been out and how do they compare to OLPC?"

.

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2B1 Children's Machine DoS Attacks?!

Posted on September 18, 2006 by Wayan Vota in Implementation: Maintenance

Carl-Daniel Hailfinger, an OLPC contributor, recently spent a whole night writing up the technical ways a DoS attack could happen. He defined four broad methods - power management, network, hardware, and other - which I'll not bore you with here. After discussing it with the OLPC Security listserv, he followed up with a very interesting profile of who might launch such attacks. Here are the three main threat groups according to Carl-Daniel Hailfinger :

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2B1's for Bangkok and Chiang Rai

Posted on September 17, 2006 by Wayan Vota in Prototypes: 2B1, Sales Talk: Countries, Countries: Thailand

While the Bangkok Post thinks that the One Laptop Per Child program is UN-initiated, an affront to the dedicated technologists at MIT, it does have interesting news about the Thailand 2B1 Children's Machine distribution. Like Thailand's Caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra announced, Thailand will be testing 30 laptops in October. Now the Bangkok Post is reporting which school districts will receive the laptops .

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2B1 Nominated for "People's Design Award"

Posted on September 17, 2006 by David in Prototypes: 2B1, Commentary: Press

The National Design Awards were launched 2000 in by the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum to honour the best in American design. Six years later the Museum has launched a new award, the "People's Design Award". Unlike the National Design Awards, which are decided by a panel of experts, voting and nomination for this award is open to the public. OLPC's laptop has been nominated and awaits your vote.

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Negroponte: Criticising OLPC is like Criticising the Church

Posted on September 15, 2006 by David in People: Negroponte, Countries: Nigeria, Commentary: OLPC News

During a short break on the final day of the "Digital World Africa 2006 Conference", Nicholas Negroponte took the time to speak to Nigeria's Daily Vanguard newspaper. As well as promising that Nigeria will receive laptops first, Mr Negroponte makes an astonishing statement that criticising OLPC is like criticising the church:

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2B1: "WikiHow" Content Comes Preloaded

Posted on September 14, 2006 by David in Prototypes: 2B1, Content: Localization, Content: Reference

The founder of wikiHow, Jack Herrick, has posted a call for wikiHow users to select the best 1000 how to guides for inclusion on OLPC's €100 laptops. Not much news in and of itself - wiki content has been discussed on OLPC News previously - however the announcement page appears to confirm the novel approach to providing large chunks of content to a machine with a tiny amount of onboard storage; they will utilise the power of the mesh network.

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OLPC: We'll Distribute Others' Laptops

Posted on September 13, 2006 by David in People: Leadership, Commentary: OLPC News

Those of you who listened all the way to the end of Walters Bender's talk at Ars Electronica may have have skipped over an intriguing snippet during the Q&A section. Apparently, OLPC are not tied to distributing the 2B1. Whilst running through the spiel about how OLPC is not for profit and so laptops will be sold to governments "at cost" (26m10s), Walter continues:

"Since out mission is to get laptops to children, there's nothing in our mission statement that says it has to be our laptops"

Does this mean that OLPC may one day ship Dell, HP or Lenovo laptops to school children

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Software Applications as Activities

Posted on September 13, 2006 by Wayan Vota in Software: Applications, People: Leadership

While casually mentioning that the OLPC 2B1 Children's Machine will be the ~~$100 dollar~~ €100 euro laptop in his , Ars Electronica's "SIMPLICITY – the art of complexity" symposium, Walter Bender, One Laptop Per Child's President of Software and Content, did take a moment to expound on the innovative software interface and applications of the 2B1.

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Dual Mode Display Prototype Photos

Posted on September 12, 2006 by Wayan Vota in Prototypes: 2B1, Hardware: Screen

With the brevity of an engineer, Bert Freudenberg introduces us to Squeak working on the new dual-mode display today. His assessment?

"Squeak looks surprisingly well on the display prototype, and also etoys are reasonably fast."

Now that is a mighty understatement .

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OLPC 2B1: The €100 Euro Laptop

Posted on September 12, 2006 by Wayan Vota in People: Leadership, Sales Talk: Price

Listening to the podcast of OLPC's President of Software and Content Walter Bender's speech at Ars Electronica's "SIMPLICITY – the art of complexity" symposium, I am struck by his mention of the proposed laptop price. Almost as an aside, at 2:47 into his talk, he mentions the proposed One Laptop Per Child 2B1 Children's Machine price:

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Your independent source for news, information, commentary, and discussion of One Laptop Per Child's "$100 laptop" computer, the OLPC Children's Machine XO, developed by MIT Media Lab co-founder Nicholas Negroponte.