OLPC News January 2007

OLPC Nepal Creates Content While Negroponte Dismisses It

Posted on January 31, 2007 by Wayan Vota in People: Negroponte, Countries: Nepal

Negroponte at DLD

Just when I started to feel comfortable that One Laptop Per Child was finally turning its focus to developing educational content. That Children's Machine XO's would be part of a localized curriculum; Nicholas Negroponte has reminded us of his opinion on how to educate children.

At DLD (Digital, Life, Design), Europe's "conference for the 21st century" at HVB Forum in Munich, Germany, Negroponte spoke in the panel "How to Be Good" on his views on the world's children.

How might the mighty MIT professor, the self-proclaimed "global citizen", fix the problem of uneducated children? How would he deal with providing the rural poor a solid educational basis for development? At 12:40 in the presentation he tells us:

It's not by training teachers. It's not about building schools. With all due respect [to HP's e-inclusion efforts], it's not about curriculum or content. It's about leveraging the children themselves.

So in other words, Nicholas Negroponte doesn't believe in the tried, tested, and confirmed power of teachers, working in structured classroom environments, to exceed his "magic", his OLPC implementation miracle, which looks something like this:

Does Negroponte's seemingly Utopian attitude concern you? Do his dismissive comments about traditional pedagogical models make you wonder about OLPC's probability of success? And are you scared that because of a lack of focus on content and curriculum, all the efforts, hopes, and Billions of dollars this project is consuming might become a giant boondoggle?

Then you might want to contribute to OLPC Nepal, one group I know of who has a collaborative OLPC implementation plan, and based on their Weekly Updates, is working on hyper-localized basic learning activities for the Children's Machine XO.

In the first generation of Mero Sano Saathi, their Nepali-language curriculum for the OLPC XO, they've aligned their efforts with the Nepali education system's traditional pedagogical models and are focused on three Grade One activities. To quote the Update:

Gyankosh -- a wiki (open-source encyclopedia) targeted to children. We intend to have all of the stories and poems for Grade One implemented in this first phase.
Jotpad -- A basic tool that allows children to write in free-hand with a stylus and even draw pictures. We hope this tool will eventually recognize the text and grade the quality of the child's penmanship. For this first phase it will only record the child's writing.
Basictivity Maths -- Basic math lessons. We intend to port and localize the Gcompris math tools for this first phase.

Now isn't that local, content focused curriculum a refreshing contrast to Nicholas Negroponte's anti-teacher comments and vague references to energy in schools? Go OLPC Nepal! May you succeed in spite of Negroponte's views.

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We All Hope OLPC Mesh Networking Will "Just Work"

Posted on January 30, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Internet: Access, Hardware: Wireless

Does your wireless Internet connection "just work"? Do you seamlessly connect to any unsecured WiFi signal without your intervention? And does that happen on any network, not just one your programmed to be instantaneous?

I didn't think so. But this is the dream of One Laptop Per Child. As Gregory M. Lamb says in his A closer look at what '$100 laptop' will be article:

OLPC mesh networking

Built-in Wi-Fi antennas that automatically create a "mesh network" with any other XO computer within about one-third of a mile. A screen displays icons showing the other XO computers within range at any given time.

The mesh also means that if any one of the linked computers has access to the Internet, all of them will. That's important in places where Internet connections can be few and far between.

As yet, though, that goal is still, just that, a goal. OLPC XO Btest-1 units do get one kilometer WiFi connectivity, an impressive feat in itself. But OLPC mesh networking will need more than great range, it will also need amazingly reliable and simple connectivity. As Jim Gettys explains in priorities for the BTest-3 units:

The basic networking needs to "just work" to a degree that has never been seen before, despite the great strides Linux has made in this area over the last couple years.

The laptop's networking must transparently support the mesh network (now that the firmware is up to it), and IPv6 with tunneling when needed so that we can provide "end to end" connectivity to the kids when their network access is not via the mesh, but via some IPv4 access.

We're just beginning to understand the network environments in which we'll have to operate, but the basics need to "just work".

OLPC mesh demo

And "just work" in a very dynamic environment that you can explore on the new and improved OLPC website.

Under the "Laptop" tab is a very cool mesh networking demo in non-FOSS Flash. You can make your own mesh networks with OLPC's and an earth. Even cooler, you can move around the laptops, and even the earth, to build or break Internet links.

Here's to OLPC achieving a mesh network that "just works" as well as the mesh demonstration. I too dream of making or breaking networks with the flip of ears instead of the torturous hunt and hope methods available today.

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In Work Years, Recycling Beats New OLPC XO Production

Posted on January 29, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Donors, People: Negroponte

Are you are still wondering how Nicholas Negroponte got to a One Tennis Court Per Child analogy for traditional computer labs?

While you (and I) are still befuddled, did you pick up the complete dismissive tone of Nicholas Negroponte when discussing recycled computers? That is older standard desktops or laptops sent to the developing world for use in computer labs there.

One Tennis Court Per Child

Not only do computer labs not pass his "pencil test" where he says that:

One does not think of community pencils-kids have their own. They are tools to think with, sufficiently inexpensive to be used for work and play, drawing, writing, and mathematics.

There is also a new rationale specifically against recycled computers on the improved OLPC website:

Finally, regarding recycled machines: if we estimate 100 million available used desktops, and each one requires only one hour of human attention to refurbish, reload, and handle, that is forty-five thousand work years. Thus, while we definitely encourage the recycling of used computers, it is not the solution for One Laptop per Child.

Whoa, of all the arguments One Laptop Per Child could use to bat down recycled computers, they are going to run with "work years"? No wonder they need W2 Group marketing savvy. The "work years" angle is crap.

For argument's sake, let's agree with OLPC and say a recycled computer "requires only one hour of human attention to refurbish, reload, and handle." An OLPC XO requires at least that, if not waaaay more to build from scratch. How many man hours does it take to make each component of the OLPC? And then assembly? Quanta is using an entire factory to assemble Children's Machine XO's. There is a whole other factory (or factories) to produce the screen.

Where most CPU donations go

If OLPC (or just Negroponte) want to argue Children's Machine XO's are better than recycled computers (which I agree they are), they might want to use the real-world reasons why many of us who implement technology in the developing world shudder when we hear of a computer recycling program. Reasons logical, practical, and unlike OLPC's, valid:

Recycled computers are often non-working, end-of-life junk
They have wildly different hard/software configurations requiring manual inventory
Power-hungry Pentiums don't live long in low-voltage, high power-spike environments
"Free" computers donations can destroy local PC assembly businesses
There is usually no provision for support and maintenance - the real cost with technology
"Second hand" can imply the recipients are "second class"

Now that's not to say all computer donations are so ill-suited. There are outstanding examples, like SchoolNet Namibia but they are painfully rare. And even rarer still is any logic to the OLPC "work years" argument against recycled computers. Or the One Tennis Court Per Child analogy for that matter.

So OLPC, do us a favor, better your logic in your arguments, especially on topics we all agree on.

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OLPC Classroom Testing in Um Computador por Aluno, Brazil

Posted on January 28, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Countries: Brazil, Content: Education

What about all the other content for the Children's Machine XO? Specifically pedagogically-focused content for educators and students. Content that is conspicuously missing from the OLPC efforts to date, outside the desires to follow Seymour Papert's Constructionism in lieu of more traditional educational models. Or as Ethan Zuckerman says:

Classrooms of tomorrow

In a little more than a month, 3,500 laptops will be distributed to schools in the nations who’ve agreed to pilot the laptop. This debate about constructionism versus more traditional educational models will be informed pretty damned rapidly by the questions, concerns and feedback offered by teachers and students in the field.

One of the first to give that feedback will be the Brazilian project, Um Computador por Aluno (UCA), which is working with the Laboratório de Estudos Cognitivos (LEC/UFRGS) in the first OLPC in-classroom testing with 400 Children's Machine XO's at Escola Estadual Luciana de Abreu, in Porto Alegre, Brazil. If you wanna watch the pilot from space, OLPCitizen even has the Google Earth coordinates for the school.

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OLPC: The First Easy Linux Desktop Distribution

Posted on January 26, 2007 by in Software: Operating System, Hardware: Peripherals

The OLPC laptop has a unique feature, which up until now, only Apple has possessed. The hardware and software configurations are known. So this means that the people writing the software and drivers for the OLPC laptops know exactly what they are writing for.

Up until now, every version of Linux has suffered from this problem. Yes, Ubuntu and the newer flavours of Linux are far better at recognising hardware, and choosing the correct drivers, but soundcards and USB peripherals still often cause problems. OLPC won't have this issue.

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Ethan Zuckerman Is Back, Negroponte Please Take Note

Posted on January 25, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Prototypes: OLPC, Commentary: Press

When I started OLPC News (which, as the About page clearly states is not related to my day job), I noticed that way too many people were blind fanboys of One Laptop Per Child, and I wanted to have a more objective discussion about OLPC's goals and methods. Now OLPC News is so insightful and so influential, I have my own conspiracy theorists.

But just when I think I may be in the blogging big leagues with our OLPC News coverage, Ethan steps back into the OLPC debate and I feel like I am walking in Ethan's shadow yet again.

Why? Check out his 6,000+ word tour de force on OLPC: Child’s Play - How One Laptop Per Child plans to bring computers to a billion schoolchildren… and a revolution to the computer industry. There you will find intriguing gems of Children's Machine XO knowledge and analysis that Ethan has gleamed from his easy and in-depth access to the OLPC team.

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OLPC Foundation "Ask" Starts: Today a Website, Tomorrow...

Posted on January 25, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Donors, Commentary: Press

Congratulations to One Laptop Per Child! Now, in addition to the marketing prowess of the MIT Media Lab, it now has two divisions of marketing heavyweight W2 Group behind it to "achieve measurable results".

And what results might OLPC need to achieve? They already have convinced folks there's a "$100 laptop" powered by a hand crank that will magically provide education to the world's children by teaching them how to "learn learning"?

It seems that OLPC needs more. In a six-month, pro bono campaign, W2 will:

[R]each out to as many journalists and influencers as possible to spread the word of the computer and the participating countries. The end hope is that the clamor will help impel other countries to sign on.

Wait, why does OLPC need "influencers" to convince new countries to join this grand experiment?

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OLPC News Welcomes New Contributors and Guest Writers

Posted on January 24, 2007 by Wayan Vota in About OLPC News

While Walter Bender spends the most recent OLPC Current Events thanking all the talented developers working night and day on the Children's Machine XO, Jon, David, and I would like the thank the newest contributors to One Laptop Per Child News:

Tom (tom at olpcnews dot com) works as a studio manager for an international broadcasting organisation in the UK, with journalists and broadcasters from all over the world. He is interested in the OLPC project as born from his preoccupation with low-cost home computers in his own childhood.

He is a regular contributor to the OLPC wiki, but has so far not managed to get his hands on a real laptop, instead having to rely on simulators to see how the project is progressing.

Shankar (shankar at olpcnews dot com) is President, One Laptop Per Child Nepal. Its goal is to create an environment for OLPC, take necessary steps to ensure every child in Nepal get the laptops and develop the Local Activities for OLPC laptops that could revolutionize how we educate the children.

OLPC Nepal wants to provide every children of Nepal with new opportunities to explore, experiment, and express themselves, and unlike Tom, already has its own B1 Test units.

In addition to Jon, David, Thomas, Shankar, and I, OLPC News has occasional guest writers adding their views and opinions to the OLPC debate. We have Robert on OLPC technology, Tom S. on OLPC hacking groups, Christoph on OLPC videos, and coming soon, Toon on OLPC environment impacts.

Best of all, OLPC News has you, our vibrant readership which is stimulating the conversation around the Children's Machine XO. Thank you for making this site a lively discussion of all things OLPC.

Oh, and don't forget, you can always upgrade and write for OLPC News too!

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"One Tennis Court Per Child" Computer Labs Are un-FAIR

Posted on January 24, 2007 by Wayan Vota in People: Negroponte, Commentary: Press

Now that One Laptop Per Child is moving closer to an actual rollout, 3,500 Children's Machine XO's are headed out for field testing in February, other nonprofits in the same niche are starting to get nervous.

First up are the NGO's that focus on sending recycled computers to the developing world. They have a mixed track record and there is a whole argument against donations, that "free" decimates the local PC assembly market, that the developing world shouldn't be resigned to cast-offs, and that there is no provision for end-of-life computer recycling.

There are some standouts - SchoolNet Namibia has a great reputation in sustainable deployment of ICTs across the education sector. And FAIR International could also be another, though I don't know much about them pas the website and this Eritrea feasibility study.

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Will an Army of Captcha-Solvers Be Unleashed on Web 2.0?

Posted on January 23, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: Business

One scenario that should scare anyone who loves the Web 2.0 movement, who asks for or submits comments, who believes in the interactivity of the Internet, is an increase in blog spamming.

And we're not talking about annoying Nigeria 419 email scams, we're talking about comment spam. Those annoying comment spam that have forced bloggers to put up captcha tests (automated tests to tell computers and humans apart), to stop all the computer generated spam from overloading any open comment with spam comments.

But what if people were paid to submit comment spam?

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Go PledgeBank with Children's Machine XO Hacking Groups

Posted on January 22, 2007 by Guest Writer in Content: Education, Software: Third Party

I am Tom Steinberg, the director of mySociety.org - a UK open source non-profit that builds websites which give people simple, tangible benefits in the civic and community aspects of their lives. We run many of UK's democracy websites.

A few months ago I was mulling the way in which things like the Home Brew Computer Club are now artifacts of computing history - people only seem to meet up at technology conferences, not in little local groups. Simultaneously we were experimenting with a new feature on our site PledgeBank called Cascading Pledges.

Suddenly I saw an opportunity to combine the cascading pledges with One Laptop Per Child by setting up a pledge to encourage people to form small local Children's Machine XO hacking groups.

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Is Pakistan Really "Participating" in One Laptop Per Child?

Posted on January 20, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Countries

How many countries are really participating in One Laptop Per Child? Do you know? Does Nicholas Negroponte know? I only know that the definition of "participation" is rather loose right about now.

On one end of the spectrum, we have Australia, where two laptops somehow mean a pilot. On another end we have Pakistan, where Nicholas Negroponte says:

We are talking to the Philippines and Pakistan - I'm convinced that's going to happen.

Dr. Negroponte has reason for optimism. He has the commitment of the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shaukat Aziz.

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OLPC XO-1 Hardware Technology Primer

Posted on January 19, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Hardware: Power Supply, Prototypes: XO, Laptops: XO-1

Have you seen Mark J. Foster's amazing presentation of OLPC Technology? better yet, have you read the full presentation transcript on OLPC Talks?

If so, you like I am totally in awe of the One Laptop Per Child techno-prowess. But do you understand what it all means? Do passages like this one from Mark's presentation confuse you?

And then the main storage in the machine is the 512MB LPC NAND flash storage device. So single chip, no rotating media, just the flash card. and then a process is being developed, or I should say specifically extended for this machine.

JFFS2, the creator of that file system and some other folks are working to make it much better and that's what we're using for storage. That gives us 2X compression on the fly on the primary storage on the box

Then you are in luck. Robert, the unofficial software geek of OLPC News has an OLPC technology primer just for you, drawn from the OLPC Hardware specification:

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What Does the OLPC "XO" Icon Say to You?

Posted on January 18, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Software: Localization, Prototypes: XO

When you look at the Children's Machine symbol, the "XO", what do you see? Do you see an oversized child's head and body, happy in play as suggested by the OLPC Wiki? Or do you see what Docdtv sees?

[The "XO" icon] looks very much like a symbol widely associated with mortality, toxicity and military killing - the skull and crossbones [...] The binding of the symbol to these horrific meanings is a reflection of a biological fact about the last parts of a human corpse to decay, and is not especially tied to a particular culture.

Personally, I don't see that myself, but I can see his point. The "XO" icon could be seen in a non-positive way if you are more familiar with other cultures or even chemistry, than Boston-centric thinking.

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OLPC XO Battery Life: Measured in Days, Not Hours

Posted on January 18, 2007 by Wayan Vota in People: Leadership, Hardware: Power Supply

What if you had a laptop computer that lasted for six hours running at the highest consumption mode where you are watching video, playing games, or listening to music while you surfed the Internet, and formed a Internet node for your friends?

What if, when that same computer was idle, just providing the mesh network connectivity, its battery life was measured in days? That's the amazing power-sipping profile of the OLPC XO detailed by Michail Bletsas, Chief Connectivity Officer, One Laptop per Child, as recorded by James Turner in his "Notes From a Senior Editor: A Close Look at the OLPC" article for Linux Today.

[T]he power profile of the unit changes dramatically depending on what the child is doing. Peak consumption is around 5 watts for high-demand media applications, it falls to around 3 watts for browsing, under a watt when used as an e-Reader in black and white mode, and only 350 milliwatts to participate in the mesh network.

How's that for literally clock-stopping hot technology?

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OLPC is the Star at Consumer Electronic Show

Posted on January 17, 2007 by Guest Writer in Software: Applications, Internet: Routers, Hardware: Wireless

This week's guest post comes from Christoph, a self confessed movie addict with an insatiable appetite for all things OLPC. Sayeth Christoph:

While we await the first video of kids using the X0 machines, we'll have to make do with watching adults behave like children whist they demonstrate them.

Luckily, last week's CES 2007 show in Las Vegas provided just such an opportunity as video blogger "charbax" took the opportunity to record his ramblings on - and a good number of demonstrations of - One Laptop per Child's amazing XO Childrens' Machine laptop.

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OLPC XO BTest-1 Units Span a Kilometer in WiFi Connectivity

Posted on January 17, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Internet: Routers, Hardware: Wireless, Laptops: XO-1

How far does your laptop WiFi reach? Do you get 10, maybe 20 meters from your base station before the signal degrades? Wouldn't it be nice to get 500 meters? Or what about a whole kilometer, and that's with a stock laptop, not one modified with a directional antenna like the joe-cool BottleNet?

You soon shall with One Laptop Per Child. With their claim to be the first implementation of the emerging 802.11s standard, they are making Superman-sized leaps in connectivity using Marvell wireless firmware with full mesh functionality on the Children's Machine XO.

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New Life for Old Games on the Children's Machine XO

Posted on January 16, 2007 by in Content: Games, Software: Third Party

If the One Laptop Per Child project is to be a success, it has to look at previous computers that have gone down in history... For me, growing up in the 1980s in the UK, I see many parallels with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

It was the lowest cost colour home computer, it had a huge following among school-children, was tiny compared to most computers of the time, and had a rubbery keyboard.

Two things seemed to drive the popularity of these machines - they were easily programmable at home, and they had great games on them. The Children's Machine XO is easy to program (the source code for each activity is available for the user to modify), but as yet, OLPC activities are mostly of an educational nature.

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miniTamTam's SynthLab Demo: Rock Me OLPC!

Posted on January 16, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Software: Applications, Content: Games, Content: Music

Do you remember the cool synthesizer songs of the 1980's? Back when big hair and keyboard-only bands ruled the pop music scene? Did you want to be your own singer-songwriter too? Maybe Falco doing "Rock Me Amadeus"?

Now children worldwide will be able to make their own computer-based sound synthesizers, using MiniTamTam on the OLPC XO thanks to a team of designers, musicians and programmers at the Faculté de musique de l’Université de Montréal.

But not just using sounds that come with MiniTamTam. With the synthLab software, the Children's Machine XO will allow would-be musicians to build their own synthesizer from the base sound on up. SynthLab for MiniTamTam has five tools to work with:

a basic worktable
a bank of modules with sources, processors, controllers
a bank of presets - examples of circuits that work
a slider for sound duration and volue
and save/edit commands for the synth patches

If you'd like to see how they will do it, or just want to hear really odd computer sounds that would make 2001: A Space Odyssey proud, check out the very informative synthLab demonstration.

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One Laptop Per Brazilian Child Costs Comparison

Posted on January 15, 2007 by Jon Camfield in Countries: Brazil, Implementation: Plan, Sales Talk: Price

In the implementation cost follow-up to the $970 price tag post, José Antonio Meira da Rocha left a very interesting comment about the three-way computer race in Brazil:

Man does not live by bread alone. This spreadsheet (in Portuguese, costs in "Real" currency) shows that digital inclusion of ALL childrens in Brazil will costs just a 50 grams bread a day per children.

Ancillary, shows that OLPC project will costs TEN TIMES LESS than desktops laboratories, in using hours.

Here is the Google Translation of the spreadsheet into English and the exchange rate is 1 USD = 2.15 Brazilian reais.

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OLPC XO-1's Starring Role on Flickr Photo

Posted on January 13, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Prototypes: OLPC, Prototypes: XO, Laptops: XO-1

No matter how serious you are about One Laptop Per Child, every so often, you should check out what people are doing with Children's Machine XO-1's using Flickr search.

There you will see all manner of OLPC activities. Most photos are the OLPC + kids, but others, well...

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One Laptop per Indigenous Australian Child?

Posted on January 12, 2007 by David in Sales Talk: Countries, Commentary: Press

On the surface of it, Fairfax Media's "Sydney Morning Herald" and "The Age" appear to be reporting that Australia is trialling XO test machines with a view to signing a "Memorandum of Understanding" with OLPC. The headline, "Australia trials low-cost laptop" is perhaps a touch misleading. Although there are some laptops in Australia, this testing appears to be somewhat different to official OLPC tests due to be undertaken (by children) in February.

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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.