OLPC News December 2007

G1G1 Success Equals G1G1 for Ethiopia, Iran, Italy and UK?

Posted on December 31, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Countries, Sales Talk: G1G1

Joanna Stern at Laptop magazine just interviewed Nicholas Negroponte about the future of Give One Get One, the popular XO laptop donation plan from One Laptop Per Child.

The news? It looks like G1G1 will continue, just not in North America:

LAPTOP MAG: Many people don’t want to see Give 1, Get 1 end. Will a program like this ever be available again?

Nicholas Negroponte: We are exploring two parallel routes. One is doing a Give One or Give Many for diaspora of specific countries - Ethiopia and Iran immediately. The other is doing a Give 1, Get 1 in specific countries: Italy and UK are in discussion. As for in the USA, maybe next Christmas.

Now I wonder why those four countries - they are an odd mix. I can see OLPC wanting to build on Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi commitment of 50,000 laptops for Ethiopia with a G1G1 for purchases in Rome and donation in Addis Ababa, but what's the Iranian or UK angle?

Maybe a G1G1 between London and Tehran? If so, Negroponte will need the advice of several teams of lawyers to dance around American technology transfer restrictions unless his brother opens back doors.

Regardless, North Americans have opened a huge door for OLPC to grow. Just check out the initial results from G1G1:

LAPTOP MAG: How many laptops have been donated through the G1, G1 program?

Nicholas Negroponte: It is hard to count, because some people gave many. Birmingham, Alabama ordered 15,000 for its kids, because of G1G1, but I really cannot count those 15,000. The final number will be between 150,000 and 170,000 laptops, without counting the very big ones like Birmingham.

Wow, 150,000 G1G1 donated XO laptops for children in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Haiti, Mongolia and Rwanda. Once they start shipping, it will be an amazing New Year for everyone's favorite XO laptop.

Actions: | Comment (8) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

XO Laptop Help: How To Get DOOM on Your XO

Posted on December 31, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Content: Games

Do you kick your video games old skool like I do? Did first-person shooters peak at the original DOOM and then get all too complicated after that? And did you start to shake with excitement when you saw the DOOM on XO video?

If so, let me tell you that its super-easy to get Doom on your XO too. Or FreeDoom to be exact. As Heng explains on the OLPC News Forum:

Open terminal
Type su
Type yum install prboom
Accept all file downloads
Type exit
Type prboom -geom 1200x900
Play DOOM!!!

You will need a decent WiFi connection to download the files - it’s a few Megs - but its well worth the wait.

If you want to spread Starbucks envy too, be sure to keep your eye on the XO Laptop Games Forum for future game programs. We're looking to bring back Oregon Trail and upgrade to Quake 1 - sign up if you can help!

Actions: | Comment (12) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

Goodbye Mary Lou, We're Gonna Miss You

Posted on December 31, 2007 by Wayan Vota in People: Leadership

Mary Lou Jepsen of OLPC

I am very sad to learn that today is Mary Lou Jepsen's last day at One Laptop Per Child. From Walter Bender's Community News:

Mary Lou's last day at OLPC is December 31. She will be continuing to consult with us on a number of different fronts as she chases after her next miracle in display technology.

Mary Lou was OLPC employee Number One, both in terms of when she joined the organization and in terms of the breadth and depth of her contributions. Thank you and best of luck with your adventures in a new role and new year.

Mary Lou was more that an employee, she was the foundation of OLPC. She designed the dual mode screen that made the XO laptop possible.

Then, in what I still think is an under-reported feat, she made the XO the greenest laptop ever made. In her own words:

"But equally important for us was to produce a laptop that could be used in remote areas with unreliable or limited energy sources. The result is a laptop computer that has more than 10 times less environmental impact than the average laptop computer. It’s the greenest laptop ever made, and that's not just its color."

And Mary Lou Jepsen is Number One to me for more than her technical contributions to OLPC. She also kept the program real, skipping the grandiose statements for getting things done.

She delivered us clock-stopping hot technology without pretense. She just delivered. From all of us who care about OLPC, may we deliver you the best wishes for you and yours in 2008 and beyond.

Thank you.

Actions: | Comment (11) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

XO Laptop Safety Guides to Save Lives

Posted on December 30, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: Community, Content: Reference

XO safety shutdown screen

If you have an XO laptop, you've seen the XO safety screen. Right about now, I'm thinking about safety in a much larger context. The concept of safety education for children, taught through the XO laptop.

Recently a man died in my arms, his blood still warm on may face from an unsuccessful attempt at CPR revival. In a quiet moment afterwards, I thought it smart to add basic first aid information to the OLPC library.

Basic safety information for cuts, scraps, burns, the kinds of small wounds children could deal with themselves. Sanitary information about making clean drinking water and washing hands before meals, that while simple, can save lives. Maybe even emergency information like CPR or Stop, Drop, and Roll for fires that parents could learn and share.

Keeping in mind the young child audiences, what safety information would you add to the XO?

Continue reading "XO Laptop Safety Guides to Save Lives"

XO Laptop Safety Guides to Save Lives | Comment (22) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

OLPC India's XO Laptop Cow Power Dynamo

Posted on December 29, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Countries: India, Hardware: Power Supply

Arjun Sarwal has just made a short video about his Cow Power Dynamo to generate electricity for the Khairat village school pilot of OLPC India.

Before you think of the easy bovine humor, realize that Arjun is applying a very innovative solution to the shocking electrical power costs in the developing world. Rather than relying on a gasoline generator that would lead to recurring petrol/diesel costs for the villagers, he looked at locally-available and relevant power generation solutions that minimized reoccurring costs:

Continue reading "OLPC India's XO Laptop Cow Power Dynamo"

OLPC India's XO Laptop Cow Power Dynamo | Comment (5) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

Dear OLPC, Please Don't Stop Give One Get One

Posted on December 28, 2007 by Guest Writer in Sales Talk: G1G1

XO fighting already started

Has anyone considered the safety of children owning XO's? No I am not talking about internet porn, I am Erwin Hermann and I am talking about what will happen if OLPC makes good on its threat to end the sale of XO's to consumers on December 31.

Consider for a moment what will happen after hundreds of thousands of kids get their XO's in the US and Canada. Most of them will probably want to show their friends and teachers. What will happen then?

Unmet XO Demand

By this time in January several million children will be clamoring for XO's of their own. Demand for the XO is going to skyrocket right at the point that OLPC cuts off supply. With no retail supply of XO's the only supply will be online auctions.

Will your child be safe carrying around one of the hottest, and scarcest pieces of consumer electronics ever released? Now I can hear someone saying "But it's not a consumer product- it's an educational mission!" As if this will somehow protect children from getting robbed, beaten, or even killed for having in their possession something that will be even more of a neon sign for theft than an iPod.

Continue reading "Dear OLPC, Please Don't Stop Give One Get One"

Dear OLPC, Please Don't Stop Give One Get One | Comment (75) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

OLPC as Constructivist Education Reform

Posted on December 27, 2007 by Edward Cherlin in Use Cases: Education

Start in Nigerian schools?

Greg Smith raised several important points in his "Optimal XO Application Development Model Process" post.

We need to engage with the schools of the OLPC target countries (eventually all countries are targets, but we have to start somewhere) about the collaborative discovery model of education, which we call Constructivism.

Colonial Education Systems

This means opening a discussion with teachers, students, administrators, families, prospective employers--well, everybody, actually. The problem that we face is that almost every education system in the world was created by a colonial power, not to encourage innovation and problem-solving, but to keep the population in order while their country was pillaged.

Continue reading "OLPC as Constructivist Education Reform"

OLPC as Constructivist Education Reform | Comment (16) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

G1G1 Donor: Are You Still Without Your XO Laptop?

Posted on December 26, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Countries: Canada, Sales Talk: G1G1, Countries: USA

It is the day after Christmas, and all through the land, Give One Get One donors are yet still binary: with xo laptops or without.

As this discrepancy becomes more acute - the lucky half exploring a national XO Chat session and the rest watching in jealous agony - the OLPC Learning Club has a message for those coveting thy neighbour's Linux laptop:

Yes, its time to take a Biblical approach and find your inner patience. And if you wear through that you can always live vicariously (or just bitch) on the OLPC News Forum.

Continue reading "G1G1 Donor: Are You Still Without Your XO Laptop?"

G1G1 Donor: Are You Still Without Your XO Laptop? | Comment (54) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

OLPC Help: Making G1G1 Christmas Friends with XO Chat

Posted on December 25, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Software: Applications, Sales Talk: G1G1

G1G1 Neighbourhood View

Are you feeling lonely this Christmas with an empty XO laptop neighbourhood view? Do you want to explore, share, and learn with other XO users? Then join the mass Jabber party on xochat.org!

Tom Hoffman has set up a virtual machine for load testing and as Rick Evans explains, its amazingly simple to jump in:

Go to the terminal window.
sugar-control-panel -g jabber will display your current setting.
sugar-control-panel -s jabber xochat.org will change to the public server.
Reboot Sugar with CTRL-ALT-ERASE

On reboot, go to your "neighbourhood view" and check out all the little XO's now on your screen. This is the G1G1 community geeking out together like these two from the OLPC Learning Club:

Chatting with another XO user takes a little getting used to. Here's my easy step-by-step guide:

Continue reading "OLPC Help: Making G1G1 Christmas Friends with XO Chat"

OLPC Help: Making G1G1 Christmas Friends with XO Chat | Comment (14) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

The XO-1 Laptop Is Enough For Us

Posted on December 24, 2007 by Edward Cherlin in Hardware: Production, Laptops: XO-1

We wanna sing & dance!

The question has been asked, whether the XO, as it went into manufacturing, was really ready for the children. In one way, that's like asking if your computer is fast enough, which is silly. No computer is fast enough for everything we want to do.

We can all agree that the XO isn't as fast as we could wish, but we can also consider another meaning of the phrase. The XO is certainly fast enough to provide an education. You can't even compare the possibilities with and without it. Similarly, there is no way the XO software could be finished.

We're talking about education here. There are no known limits to education, and good reason to suppose that there aren't any unknown limits either. But in the same way as speed, we can say that the software provided is working, and supports the mission.

There is a Jewish song, sung every year at Passover, called Dayenu. This means, "It would have been enough for us."

Continue reading "The XO-1 Laptop Is Enough For Us"

The XO-1 Laptop Is Enough For Us | Comment (4) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

Umeebee + OLPC = Safe Place for Internet Kids

Posted on December 24, 2007 by Guest Writer in Internet: Access, Sales Talk: Donors, Use Cases: User Groups

I am Frerieke van Bree, a Dutch architect living in South Africa. In the last year, I started a project called Umeebee, which attempts to help children in Africa through education and by connecting them with individuals donors overseas.

When I heard about One Laptop per Child, I started thinking that to really help children in Africa (and all over the world), we do not need just laptops, donations, and teachers. What would really help those children is to get them connected with the rest of the world: to show them how a computer works and how to get on the Internet.

The idea is to connect them with people outside their world and to create a safe place for Internet users to communicate directly with children. We all learn and grow from each others' experiences.

Curious how to get those children in developing countries educated and online on their OLPC XO Laptop? Take a look at my video:

Want to spread the word about your OLPC-related project? Then write a Guest Post for OLPC News today!

Continue reading "Umeebee + OLPC = Safe Place for Internet Kids"

Umeebee + OLPC = Safe Place for Internet Kids | Comment (2) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

The Fridge Door: OLPC and Interactive Sponsorship

Posted on December 23, 2007 by Guest Writer in Use Cases: Community, Sales Talk: Donors

Luis wants an XO laptop too!

Like many families, our fridge is a magnet for fridge magnets. One of those magnets is a 3x4 frame that holds a print of a smiling Luis.

Luis is a World Vision child, sponsored by my son, a university student who can barely manage to pay tuition, buy texts, house and feed himself – let alone sponsor a child.

So, in the end, he resorted to some creative sponsorship tactics - I ended up sponsoring him as the sponsor of the sponsored child – which leads me to the topic of this post: getting creative with charitable sponsorship.

As I read Robert Arrowsmith's "Mesh Networking XO Laptop Users – Globally" , it occurred to me that One Laptop Per Child, with its global reach, might offer an excellent opportunity for collaboration between the XO community and NGOs such as World Vision and its "Sponsored Child" program.

To be clear: this is not about purchasing XO laptops for World Vision.

Continue reading "The Fridge Door: OLPC and Interactive Sponsorship"

The Fridge Door: OLPC and Interactive Sponsorship | Comment (6) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

OLPC Help: Easily Install Opera on XO Laptop

Posted on December 22, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Software: Third Party

Almost exactly one year ago, Håkon Wium Lie introduced Opera on the XO. With great fanfare he promoted the open standard, if not Open Source browser with this great aplomb:

"They argue that, in an education project, students must be allowed to peek inside the box. That's nice, I say, but if Opera makes the difference between a usable or an unusable machine, perhaps you will reconsider?"

Well its now a year later, and what does Håkon Wium have for the new XO user? A easy to install Opera? Let's have Greg Yohn answer:

That's right kids, to get Opera on the XO, you could start at the OLPC Wiki which says:

"Installing Opera on test machines is easy if you are a Linux power-user. Otherwise, it is, for all practical purposes, simply impossible."

Or you could just look in the handy OLPC News XO Laptop Help where we have a simple Opera on the XO guide. A step by step HowTo that even non-geeks can follow, backed up by a whole forum of XO laptop users ready to help.

Its wisdom of the crowds at its best! Its wisdom of the crowds at its best!

Update: Here's an even easier Opera browser install path from cpeart:

from a terminal window: type in 'su' by itself or 'sudo -i' to become root
on one line, type in: rpm -vi http://snapshot.opera.com/unix/olpc-544/opera-9.12-20070122.10-static-qt.i386-en.rpm

And that's it! Now type in "opera" while still at that root command line and it will load and run.

Continue reading "OLPC Help: Easily Install Opera on XO Laptop"

OLPC Help: Easily Install Opera on XO Laptop | Comment (13) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

David Cavallo Interview on OLPC Brazil's Apparent Loss

Posted on December 21, 2007 by Alexandre Van de Sande in Countries: Brazil, Sales Talk: Competition, People: Leadership

Classmate PC over OLPC XO?

The Brazilian auction to purchase 150,000 computers for children is on currently on hold after the end of the first round which ended on December 19th. Positivo Informática won the first round of biding with the lowest offer, 98 millions of Reais, 6 million less than OLPC had offered.

No one has had access to details of each proposal but the most probable culprit were customs duties in Brazil which, along with all the maintenance and warranties, brought the total of each XO to $387,39, twenty dollars over the winning model. Positivo had by it's side decades olds tax policies that favors local assembly with lower taxes on electronics components, not ready made equipment.

The model offered by Positivo is still unknown but Intel has already congratulated them for winning, which led all to believe that it's a newer version of the Classmate PC with built-in camera and mesh networking.

To bring yet more confusion to the issue, in the same morning that the auction began was issued an official statement freeing all candidates of the taxes, but no one, neither the candidates or the auction judges, were informed about it.

Currently the fate of the 150,000 laptops are unknown. The judges consider the price high but the rules allow exclusive negotiations with Positivo Informática - the lowest bidder.

Jaime Balbino, a fervent OLPC supporter made an interview with David Cavallo, the main representative of the OLPC in Brazil. They talked about the influence of Brazil in the development of the model advocated by OLPC, the Brazilian development policy, competition against monopolies of technology, the bidding (won by Positive Computing) and the future of the entity without the expansion of the Brazilian experience.

Continue reading "David Cavallo Interview on OLPC Brazil's Apparent Loss"

David Cavallo Interview on OLPC Brazil's Apparent Loss | Comment (9) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

Education is a Basic Need in the Developing World

Posted on December 21, 2007 by Edward Cherlin in Use Cases: Education

Let them eat laptops?

An anonymous writer asked on the OLPC Wiki:

"Kids in developing nations are starving...maybe meeting their basic needs (food and shelter) should be your focus."

I wrote an answer on the page, and then thought you all might be interested, and might have something worthwhile to say.

I agree about the problem of starvation and malnutrition. And about the problems of war, disease, oppression, land mines, slavery, and all the others that deny our children livelihoods, health and even life. They are not in question. The question is not even what you and I individually should do.

It is what we all should be doing. And that means everything, not just a bit here and a bit there. It also doesn't mean that we should work on only one part of the solution. Someone needs to focus on immediate survival issues of food, health, water, war, and other troubles of the poor. If that's you, thank you. We need more of you.

OLPC is About Education

And somebody needs to focus on education in order to break the cycle of poverty. That's us. We need more of us, too. It isn't either/or, it's both/and. It would cost billions of dollars to feed every undernourished child as soon as possible, and the money is not forthcoming from governments or private donors. I wish it were.

Continue reading "Education is a Basic Need in the Developing World"

Education is a Basic Need in the Developing World | Comment (36) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

A Christmas Coding Challenge: OLPC News Community Platform

Posted on December 20, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Commentary: OLPC News

Blue is not the OLPC color

Are you handy with HTML? Know CSS and RSS? And do you name colors using hexadecimal notation? Then I have a Christmas Challenge for you:

Help me create a cohesive OLPC News Community!

Right now I have two semi-separate OLPC News communities, neither pretty:

Blog: community-wide news, commentary, and opinion that feeds off and into the forum. A year old, but stale in its functionality.
Forum: an intense community discussion, where the voice is local, lively, and disparate. And its only a week old, but it looks it.

I want to coordinate both platforms into one cohesive look. A place where this random collection of voices can unify into a community of dedicated grassroots XO laptop users and promoters.

Share this dream with me. Help build a global XO user group, one platform at a time, by leaving your suggestions, ideas, and if you're a web designer, your contacts in the comments below. Update: I forgot to mention that I am willing to pay for the help too. Maybe in the form of an XO, eh?

Continue reading "A Christmas Coding Challenge: OLPC News Community Platform"

A Christmas Coding Challenge: OLPC News Community Platform | Comment (31) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

This is OLPC Learning Club Dedication!

Posted on December 20, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: User Groups

On Tuesday night, we have the first ever OLPC Learn Club Holiday Meetup. It was a great night, with motivating speeches by OLE Nepal and OLPC Austria. But even more than the special guests, we had serious geeks - 42 in all - who came out to support One Laptop Per Child. And while we all give our most to OLPC, there was one couple who stood out. May I present you with the Russell's, who celebrated a special night by joining us at OLPC LC-DC.

Congratulations you two! And congratulations to all those who came out on Tuesday. If you have photos, add them to our OLPC LCDC tag. We'll have more updates and videos from the event in the coming days.

Continue reading "This is OLPC Learning Club Dedication!"

This is OLPC Learning Club Dedication! | Comment (4) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

The Lightbook: A $20 eBook Reader

Posted on December 20, 2007 by Martin Woodhouse in Content: Reference, Content: eBooks

Martin a few years ago

I apologise deeply for my absence from these pages for more than a month now. I have spent the intervening weeks in completely redesigning and rebuilding my website which isn't quite finished yet but is up and running and contains 120 or so fairly entertaining ( I hope) pages.

What the Lightbook is not

One thing is now clear to me, in any case. The solar powered e-book reading device which we have re-christened the Lightbook is not a computer, any more than a pocket calculator or a portable phone or indeed an electric toothbrush or a gas cooker is a computer.

I make the point light-heartedly and even nonsensically, here. But to persist in even looking at the Lightbook as though it were a 'computer' is not merely to miss the point but, damagingly, to adopt a mind-set in which yes, of course, it's an inferior, a 'pared-down' version of something which it isn't and was never intended to be.

No, you can't read the Web with it. You can't play shoot-up games on it, nor take photographs, record MP3 tracks on it, any more than you can with a paperback book. In fact, I dare say, the Lightbook shouldn't really be appearing on this site at all --- except that it does what Nicholas Negroponte originally intended; namely, it brings education, knowledge, learning, to those billions of human beings in this world who lack electricity, let alone a connection to the Internet, who have never read a book, but whose lives would be improved immeasurably by the ability to do so at negligible cost.

Continue reading "The Lightbook: A $20 eBook Reader"

The Lightbook: A $20 eBook Reader | Comment (27) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

G1G1 Canadians Are Humans, With Kids Too

Posted on December 19, 2007 by Guest Writer in Countries: Canada, Sales Talk: G1G1

As Canadians we don't get to use the OLPC tax deduction unless you have USA income, but that's ok because we believe in the project.

We can't utilize the T-Mobile Hot Spot service unless you drive to the Ottawa or Hamilton airports, but that's ok because we believe.

But, to be discriminated against based on nationality on a project of international scope is wrong. OLPC is losing goodwill at a massive rate. It is unfortunate that OLPC set our expectations so high and did not follow through. It is becoming apparent that OLPC did not even attempt to send out the Canadian orders on a first come first serve bases.

I have personally stopped lobbying our Provincial and Federal governments re. OLPC in Canada and have put on hold a local school fundraising program centered around OLPC.

Continue reading "G1G1 Canadians Are Humans, With Kids Too"

G1G1 Canadians Are Humans, With Kids Too | Comment (63) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

Seattle XO User Group Forming

Posted on December 19, 2007 by Guest Writer in Countries: USA, Use Cases: User Groups

A future Sea/Tac XO cluster

Some of us here in Seattle just couldn't wait for our OLPC laptops to arrive. Immediately after November 12th we decided to form an XO user group. We'd like OLPCNews readers to know that there's a Seattle area XO user group being formed. SeaXO. (Expect great T-Shirts, btw) Even beyond Seattle, we hope to attract people from all over the Puget Sound region.

Since we're just starting out, I'll tell you a bit about the organizers. Essentially, there are five of us that are very good friends who actually first got together 23 years to do something pretty much like this: to found a user group. (Wayne, Chris, Bill,

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.