OLPC News June 2007

OLPC XO vs. Apple iPhone

Posted on June 29, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Competition, Hardware: Keyboard, Prototypes: OLPC, Hardware: Screen, Laptops: XO-1

Today the new Apple iPhone will make its North American debut and techno-lust has gripped the USA. Lines have formed outside Apple stores and cell-phone scalping will certainly ensue. But is all the hype really warranted? Is the iPhone all that, when compared to the OLPC XO? And how long would the lines be for a retail XO laptop?

While I enjoy my Nokia N95 and watch iPhone lines in wonder, Maison Bisson has developed a comparison of the iPhone to several techno-marvels, including the OLPC XO. Before you read the chart, remember that none of these devices are general purpose computers, they are very targeted computing applications, what Maison Bisson calls "information age devices" which allow for networking without the need for a conventional, bulky laptop.

Of the four, the iPhone is the smallest and lightest device, and has significant battery life. Yet, it does not match the OLPC's power supply and while the iPhone has a cool touch screen, the XO's dual-mode screen still rocks out in sunlight. The OLPC also has a full-size (for kids) keyboard.

The one significant difference between all these computing platforms and the OLPC XO is the almost rabid desire for the end users to modify the operating system and service the hardware.

Another difference is that only the OLPC is not available to retail customers, no matter who said what to the BBC. Only governments, and maybe rich donors, can buy OLPC's and only then in blocks of 250,000.

But not to worry, even with its differences, the Children's Machine XO will not dilute the iPhone hype today. Not even Fake Steve Jobs can do that.

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OLPC Nigeria's Progress with XO Computers in Classrooms

Posted on June 27, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: Education, Countries: Nigeria, Commentary: Press

In March 2007, the One Laptop Per Child Foundation provided L.E.A. Primary School Galadima, a public school in the outskirts of Abuja Model City, with an XO laptop for each Nigerian child in Primary 4, 5 and 6 and each school staff member. OLPC should, by now, be also providing each child in Primary 1, 2 and 3 with their own laptop.

While we can't be in the school to observe the children's reaction directly, we do have a write up on the laptop adoption progress by Carla Gomez-Monroy, a former MIT Media Lab student who studied under Walter Bender and volunteered with Schlumberger Excellence in Educational Development (SEED) Foundation. She writes:

All of a sudden, School Galadima has gone from the age-old chalk-and-board teaching technology to the avant-garde one-laptop-per-child XO technology with cutting-edge features.

Nevertheless, OLPC's mission focus is not on its state-of-the-art innovative technology, but on its educational approach that fosters discovery of knowledge by the children themselves, encouraging them to find the application of that knowledge in a practical and meaningful context.

Both, the technology of the OLPC laptop and the methodology of the Constructionist educational approach has been inspired, researched, developed, and implemented by MIT scholars.

But its not all press release talk from Carla, she also highlights a student-centric initiative that holds promise for the OLPC pilot in Nigeria, and with other participating countries.

Nigerian school OLPC XO usage

Five primary 4 children are working on a dictionary of their local languages, and working on here means constructing. The project has been modified from a list of words that Abiword (the word processing software activity) did not recognize to a formal-looking local language to English dictionary.

They split the team into two to work on two different local languages simultaneously. It is simple but outstanding work. These children work on their dictionary project during school hours in between class assignments, when otherwise they would be restless.

Now arguably, this activity could be accomplished with only pen and paper, and the Children's Machine XO only made it fun because it was a new tool to work with, but by digitizing the dictionary, the children are both localizing OLPC and creating portable culture machines for their community.

Parent + child + OLPC = ?

And while Carla goes on to mention an eToys lesson that gave rise to a whole pond of croaking frogs, after reading her update, I still felt hungry for real data, real measurable results from this OLPC Nigeria school pilot.

I'm tired of hearing that participation and attendance increased when OLPC passed out XO laptops. If OLPC passed out iPhones, Nintendo DS's, or other Potenco powered electronics, I'm sure you'd see similar child enthusiasm increasing results. What makes the OLPC XO different?

What makes one laptop per child worth its budget-breaking cost of 73% of the entire Nigerian government's national income to start and 13% of the government income per year for new cohorts every year thereafter?

OLPC, show us us the quality results from your pilots in Argentinia, Brazil, Uruguay, and Nigeria. Let us be believers armed with verified facts, not just hopefuls passing out cute images of smiling kids.

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OLPC XO Testing: Extreme Heat and Curious Cats

Posted on June 27, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Implementation: Maintenance, Hardware: Production

While you might be feeling the heat of summer, the One Laptop Per Child team is putting the XO computer through its paces with two extreme tests of its durability to guarantee its successful usage with children in the developing world.

The first test is subjecting the OLPC XO to extremes of heat. Funny enough, I know a little bit about building computers to withstand high heat environments. In my day job I helped with the creation of a desert computer that would work in the Sahel - the edge of the Sahara desert beyond Timbuktu.

We developed a computer that could run at 50C (122F) reasonably well but it was no Children's Machine XO. It wasn't subjected to the computer torture that Mary Lou Jepsen is inflicting on a hapless BTest-3 machine. To quote Walter Bender:

OLPC XO Bake Test

Mary Lou Jepsen has instructed UL to test our laptop for a 50C (122F) operating temperature. Typical laptops are only tested to 35C (95F) or 40C (104F), which is unacceptable for the children who will be using our laptops in hot temperatures (e.g., in direct sunlight and of course without air conditioning).

Mary Lou and Tracy Price are also running a simple bake test at the OLPC office, pictured above. The laptop is running days at 52C (125F), and nights at 22C (72F). UL and Quanta are doing more extensive testing, but shown is a laptop, running the eToys demo that sits in the oven night and day. Try that with a conventional laptop!

Indeed, though just make sure its not a laptop you need because it will melt from the inside out as the processor (or battery) flames out mid-way through the test.

Another test you might not want to try using a conventional computer is the cat test. This is where you subject a notebook to the intense scrutiny of a pussy cat and see if it can survive the paw prints of feline fascination.

As part of the iCommons Summit 2007, SJ Klein, Director of Content, One Laptop Per Child, performed the dreaded "cat test" with an OLPC XO:

Yes, its One Laptop Per Cat!

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Don't Forget What OLPC is Really About: Education

Posted on June 26, 2007 by Christoph Derndorfer in Software: Applications, Use Cases: Education, Content: Games

OLPC is about children

I've recently come to realize that the One Laptop Per Child project has many different meanings for different people. For a few it's a technology and laptop project. For many it's an educational project. For even more it's a development project for poor countries.

But for most people it's something entirely different: It's a project that they think can be used to address a large number of issues including (but not being limited to): the digital divide in developed nations; modernize educational systems in developed nations by replacing teacher-centered learning with alternative approaches; help poor people get access to the modern IT infrastructure and the benefits it can offer them, help spread open-source software as to counter proprietary solutions; etc., etc., ... All you basically have to do is ask 20 persons what they would do with a bunch of X0s and you're very likely to get many different answers.

Don't get me wrong, I strongly believe that the XOs, the technological platform developed for and around it (e.g. Potenco YoYo Power Generator) and the knowledge and experience gained in the process can be successfully applied in a large variety of environments and scenarios. However per definition OLPC and the X0 (as the first result from these efforts) are very much focused on education. Education of children. Education of children in developing nations.

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Upside Down One Laptop Per Child Icon?

Posted on June 25, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Prototypes: OLPC, Hardware: Production

OLPC XO BTest-3 in use

Have you seen the One Laptop Per Child computers in the wild? The BTest-3 Children's Machine XO that arrived mid-May at OLPC headquarters and incorporates swank new features like:

A clean line on the battery housing and thinned out plastic on the front bezel for "glowing" camera and microphone "in-use" indicators. Improvements for robustness include: a steel plate in the keyboard area; a smaller battery cavity; rubber "bunny ears", thicker bumpers and ribbing made out of pure polycarbonate, a longer keyboard cable, and a water resistance in touch-pad area.

Improvements for usage include: increased display tilt; improved keyboard feel and responsiveness; improved touch-pad responsiveness; a gray bezel around the display; improved fit and finish of the buttons; X and O indicators on the touch-pad buttons

For me and many others, the most prominent new feature is the brightly colored XO on the back cover of the laptop that has 400 unique XO color combinations. This big XO is much louder than personalizing stickers and really makes the OLPC XO stand out in the classroom.

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One Laptop Per Child and Education Reform

Posted on June 22, 2007 by Guest Writer in Use Cases: Education, People: Negroponte

Robert Kozma

I am Robert B. Kozma, Ph.D., an international consultant on technology in service of developing countries. I have just returned from Kenya where I where I attended the eLearning Africa Conference in Nairobi from May 28-30.

The OLPC XO machine was displayed in the vendor area and several presentations referenced it. Having worked in Africa and other developing countries over the past ten years, I was prompted to reflect on the implications that One Laptop Per Child has for education improvement in these countries.

The OLPC group has come up with some truly novel features meant to address the specific constraints of users in developing countries, such as the mesh network, the dual-mode display, and a range off-grid power sources, although the latter are yet to be fully developed. This is not surprising, given its MIT Media Lab origins.

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One Laptop Per South Pacific and South African Pilot

Posted on June 21, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: Community, Sales Talk: Countries, Countries: Oceania, Implementation: Plan

OLPC South Africa supporter

If you are as obsessive as I am in following the One laptop Per Child program, you'll have no doubt noted that both South Africa and the South Pacific Community are both conducing OLPC XO pilots but you may doubt the use of the term "pilot".

In the South Pacific Community, TARD reports that an OLPC XO BTest-2 prototype is doing the rounds of the Solomon Islands as part of the existing Ministry of Education Distance Learning Centres Project being implemented by the People First Network. The pilot will test a locally-designed model for the distribution and use of OLPC laptops, which so far are being displayed at the opening of Centres with children demonstrating the features.

I wouldn't call that much of a "pilot" but more a publicity tour. Luckily, the lone OLPC XO in South Africa sounds like it's in better hands. We hear from Russel Southwood that Antoine Van Gelder and Morgan Collett are using their XO computer to drum up support for an actual community-level pilot. Support that includes alternate OLPC financing.

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It Takes A Lot to Make Technology Implementation Work

Posted on June 20, 2007 by Lee Felsenstein in Sales Talk: Countries, Use Cases: Education, People: Leadership, Implementation: Plan

Jhai PC design

I am one of the people who has made an attempt to configure computers for use in rural areas of the developing world and have tried to install a system that would work over a long period of time while owned and operated by a village. I did not succeed, but I learned a great deal (the effort has been continued by people who inherited the project.

The most important lesson was the fact that when one sets up a computer there, one must necessarily create an infrastructure which will support the system. This is a much harder job than merely designing and building a piece of equipment, but without it the equipment will fall into disuse and disrepair, and your intentions will fall into disrepute. Word will get around that you have proven that "it can't be done".

My major point of contention with the OLPC project deals with how they are, or rather are not, handling this infrastructure problem. The idea was introduced as a revolutionary piece of hardware that would embody educational advancement and raise the level of education amongst the children who used it.

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Potenco YoYo Power Generator Update

Posted on June 19, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Countries: Peru, Hardware: Power Supply

Potenco Power Generator

Wondering about the progress on One Laptop Per Child's hand-crank power generator ideas, I went looking for news of Potenco's hand-powered spindle (or salad spinner, or yoyo) and I found not one, but two very informative videos.

First up, we have a Potenco presentation at Web2.0Expo where we learn that Potenco is estimating one minute of pulling its human-power electricity generator can give a user 1 hour of light, 25 minutes of mobile phone talk time, 45 minutes on the Nintendo DS, and an impressive 230 minutes of iPod shuffle music - about one song per pull!

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The Capacity Building Bolivarian Computer?

Posted on June 18, 2007 by Jon Camfield in Use Cases: Business, Sales Talk: Countries

A Bolivarian Desktop?

Do you remember the Bolivarian Computer promoted by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez? Venezuela Analysis has some more details of it and in short, it's not really all that impressive, with the cheapest model selling for $405, with 3 differently-priced desktops and a laptop. The most expensive model (probably the laptop, running on a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo) will be $1,400:

"The price of other similar brands is US$ 930, and the price of our computer is US$ 690, almost 40% less," explained President Chavez. "But, in addition, it has an added value, given that it comes with open-source software and a three year guarantee, while other brands only offer one year."

OK, so, a desktop computer with some peripherals (a webcam and headphone/mic set plus a snazzy flatpanel monitor, according to the photo), but none of the revolutionary add-ons that the OLPC for mesh networking or flexibility with regards to power supplies.

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Professor Seymour Papert's "The Connected Family"

Posted on June 15, 2007 by Roland in Use Cases: Education, Content: Education, People: Leadership

Since OLPC is an education project but the education part of it is not well documented in OLPC's website I read up a little on Seymour Papert's publications because he is Negroponte's founding partner of the Media Lab and he is also one of the mental fathers of the education part of OLPC.

I read "The Connected Family, Bridging the Digital Generation Gap",1996, and a few of his subsequent short articles.

Short summary: The book explains a number of principles for more natural and therefore more successful learning all of which absolutely made sense to me in spite of my initial skepticism. It also gives hints how to implement these principles. However, these concrete hints are mainly aimed for application in the family at home rather than in school.

How to base a full school education on these new principles is unfortunately neither detailed in this book nor in Papert's subsequent articles that I read so far. Unfortunately Prof. Papert (age 79) suffered a serious accident last December in Hanoy. I wish Professor Papert all the best and get well soon.

In the mean time, his principles seem so powerful and general that it is worth trying hard to work out sensible school implementations of them and validate them.

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OLPC XO Laptop Applications for Adult Computer Users

Posted on June 14, 2007 by Christoph Derndorfer in Use Cases: Business, Use Cases: Community

OLPC XO adult usage

I was browsing through the popular "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid" by C. K. Prahalad (a very interesting read!) when I realized that so far there's been little talk about the possibilities that Children's Machine XO computers will bring to adults.

Of course the whole project is called "One Laptop Per Child" but it's quite obvious that X0 deployment will not only impact the lives of children. Teachers, parents, neighbours and probably anyone in a community that receives some of these machines could potentially benefit from the project in one way or another.

I'm not the first one to think about this issue. Back in August 2006 Michael de la Maza originally wrote about Adults and the OLPC over on the official website at wiki.laptop.org. Two weeks later Wayan also posted a piece on Adult 2B1 Users here on OLPC News.

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Alternate One Laptop Per Child Financing Options

Posted on June 13, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: Business, Sales Talk: Donors, Sales Talk: Price

How can we afford this?

When countries start looking at one laptop per child, be it the OLPC XO, the Classmate PC, or even the Asustek's Eee PC, the cost of just the hardware becomes rather overwhelming, rather quickly. One Laptop Per Nigerian child would be 73% of the entire governmental income and One Laptop Per Argentinean child would be half of the non-salary education budget. Countries like Rwanda or Nepal have no hope to afford even $100 per child out of their own national budgets. So what are the alternate One Laptop Per Child financing options? Bram Ellens, a Business Developer at eBay, asks it the best:

What's the optimal business model to assure a healthy future for the $100 laptop? Selling directly to countries and leaving it to them how to distribute might not prove the most sustainable solution. In the vaccine business in the third world one of the biggest problems is reselling subsidized vaccines to 2nd or first world countries. Why not think of business models as innovative as the laptop itself? I think a great product like this deserves it.

Why not leveraging micro credits to make it affordable to families to buy it themselves in stead of giving it away? Or monetize the cult status the machine now already has in western countries?

.

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Building One Laptop Per Socialized Child

Posted on June 12, 2007 by Eduardo Villanueva Mansilla in Commentary: Academia, Use Cases: Community

Social inclusion has been one of the foremost issues in the minds of many ICT4D people. The advantages of using computers and the Internet as a mechanism for making governments and institutions readily available to the citizen, and to enhance the potential of consumers to act together, are always a significant component of the reasons given to invest in technology.

But social inclusion means also some degree of socialization. To include all citizens demands that those that haven't been able to (or haven't been allowed to) exercise their collective citizenship find the means to do that, but first of all, that are aware that they have the rights and duties that come with participation in a polity, in a nation as a whole. This demands a very specific form of socialization.

Historically, the most important resource for this kind of socialization has been the school system. Even more so, in many developing countries with confusing situations of race, ethnicity and class, and with structural limitations to social mobility, schools are the only significant support of the "imagined community" as discussed by Benedict Anderson.

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OLPC Products: XO, Server, Charger, Antenna, & Repeater

Posted on June 11, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Hardware: Peripherals, Hardware: Power Supply, Hardware: Production, Sales Talk: Products, Internet: Routers, Hardware: School Servers, Hardware: Wireless

OLPC multi-battery "gang charger"

In this weekend's , OLPC VP Walter Bender casually drops an OLPC product lineup bombshell:

We are shipping five products this fall: (1) the XO laptop; (2) a school server; (3) a multi-battery charger; (4) an active antenna; and (5) a solar-powered WiFi repeater. Much of the emphasis has been on the laptop, but a push from Quanta this week has resulted in firmer plans for the other products.

While we are all intimately familiar with the OLPC XO, what are the other four "products" that Water speaks of? The last time we checked, school servers were still very much an idea or barely Beta, and now they're going to be production ready?

The multi-battery charger, or "gang charger" is even more mysterious. There is a basic Wiki entry, and now a photograph, but not much else.

Walter tells us about the active antenna for the first time in the very same update:

Thanks to John Watlington and the team from Cozybit, we have out first working "active antenna" prototypes. Attaching them to an XO lets you optimize the placement of the antenna: use with a mesh portal will double the network throughput. They can be used on the school servers or attached a 5V power supply to build a stand-alone WiFI repeater.

Luckily, thanks to Aaron Kaplan, we now know more about the solar mesh repeaters, but that was only last week.

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One Cheap Solar 802.11s Mesh Repeater Per Child

Posted on June 10, 2007 by Guest Writer in Internet: Access, Hardware: Power Supply, Sales Talk: Products, Internet: Routers, Hardware: Wireless

Mesh network testing

I am Aaron Kaplan and I was recently visiting the MIT, home of One Laptop Per Child. I think I have to tell my fellow OLPC News people about the wonderful new solar goodies that are being designed and tested there.

Since I myself come from a background of building and designing free community wireless mesh networks, I was naturally very interested in OLPC's mesh solution. So I was lucky to get a preview of what surprises OLPC might come up with soon.

With my background, one question I had was - "how does OLPC test their 802.11s mesh implementation"? Well, when entering the office, I was quite surprised to see XOs hanging from the ceiling everywhere :) As I discussed with Michail Bletsas, having a moving mesh will actually be something else. But this test setup can already give you a good impression of a school class.

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OLPC History: Senegalese Failure in Implementation

Posted on June 08, 2007 by Jon Camfield in People: Leadership, People: Negroponte, Implementation: Plan

Old skoll Apple II

What does a Senegalese technology implementation project from 1982 have to do with One Laptop Per Child? Well, you might be surprised. At the same time that the French government was launching their successful (but quickly overshadowed by the Internet) Minitel project, they were also supporting a constructivist-based computer-learning project, using Apple II computers with the LOGO programming language/learning tool.

Le Centre Mondial pour l'Informatique et Ressource Humaine, provided Apple II computers and the LOGO programming language to schools near Dakar, Senegal under the direction of Seymour Papert and Nicholas Negroponte. In the MIT Technology Review magazine, No. 13, May/June 1983, Dray and Memosky's "Computers and a New World Order" article reviewed the project :

The Center intended to use microcomputers to take computing to the people through educational workshops in both the developed and the developing world. Field projects were set up in France and Senegal... It was to be an international research center independent of all commercial, political, and national interests.

One Laptop Per Child trumpets this experience in its Progress page of its website.

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No Comparison: OLPC XO is the Low-Cost Laptop for Teaching

Posted on June 07, 2007 by Guest Writer in Software: Applications, Use Cases: Education, Sales Talk: Intel

Enter the OLPC debate

I am Winter, and I am sorry to say, but I think that most of the criticism directed against One Laptop Per Child here is misdirected. I have read about Nicholas Negroponte's, or OLPC's, arrogance. But Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, and Bill Gates are all arrogant, and their products range from brilliant to pathetic. Arrogance is irrelevant to consumers.

I read about the "error" of fixating on $100 price tag, but

One Laptop Per Child News

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.