One Laptop Per Child News

Nick, it's your favorite website here, One Laptop Per Child News, with a bit of advice. While you like to change the name of your $100 $208 dollar laptop every month or so, and each change brings us a few thousand new readers, would you pick one name and stick with it?

First they were just unnamed $100 laptops, but once the price started to rise, like we all knew it would, we broke the news that Walter Bender was calling it CM1: The Children's Machine 1.

While that event was still reverberating around the blogshpere, you switched the name again, to the 2B1 Children's Machine, in honor of Dimitri's 2B1 Foundation. And 2B1 is a cool name, evoking the power of Internet-based communication to unite children into a global community.

But now we just noticed that your CNN Money/Forbes article has yet another new name for the little green laptops:

Now called XO, the device has evolved into something both practical and sleek. Gone is the second prototype's hand-cranked generator, meant to free students from the need for an electric plug. (One broke off in Kofi Annan's hands when he demonstrated it at a UN tech conference last year.) Instead, the XO comes with a separate fist-sized generator. You pull a cord to make juice, like starting an old lawn mower.

XO, Nicholas Negroponte?! Now really. We were okay that 2B1 was named after your son, even if we felt the "Children's Machine" tag line was a little dull (okay, maybe head-slapping boring), but XO?!

Have you done a Google Search on XO? Did you check out the Wikipedia XO entry? Do you realize that besides a hug and kiss, what our Mom's think an "XO" means, others are gonna wonder if you're in bed with XO Communications, an American telco, or maybe the XO Project, a photometric search for Jovian planets, or even worse, a military executive officer.

Mr. Negroponte, do us all a favor, go with XO - XO Publicity, that is, a self-described "damn fine publicity company," and get yourself one name for the One Laptop Per Child computer product. And get the name fast. You don't have much time before Quanta starts stamping labels on laptop cases.

PS: Oh and you might wanna give the OLPC team a heads-up next time. XO isn't even mentioned on the OLPC Wiki.

Tags: $100 Dollar Laptop | 2B1 Childrens Machine | CM1 Childrens Machine | Nicholas Negroponte | XO Laptop |

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Let's say you are Nicholas Negroponte and back in 1997 you have a grand visionto unite the world's children in a global digital network that enriches both the children themselves, and when provided with appropriate computing technology and connectivity, and the adult world too.

Then your son Dimitri Negroponte dreams up 2B1 Foundation and you find $1 million in seed funding from two Japanese benefactors to bring the digital world to kids in the developing world. During the first 2B1 conference, inviting 200 "have-not" educators from Third World, in a curious preface Dimitri explains why you've invited educators and not bureaucrats

"We're trying to bypass the politicians"

Unfortunately, right after the conference, before you could really enjoy working with your son, you have to ice the foundation as Dimitri flies the coop:

Shortly after the Summit, I started a computer animation company in Milan with three people. Its two-year history ran into the bursting tech bubble and was unable to attain late-stage funding.

Back in your orbit, you send him off to your newest venture, MIT India, where he was an employee of 2B1 through the MIT Media Lab. When MIT Media Lab India flames out, off you send Dimitri to Cambodia.

There he established two Internet-connected schools in villages without electricity. One villages didn't even have a road and the laptops they took home were the brightest light source in their houses.

When he tried to re-enter the high-tech world after his Cambodian adventure, Dimitri was in for a rude shock. To quote him:

I realized at this time that in the computer world one’s skills can quickly become obsolete and decided to return to the US to pursue a second Master’s degree in Professor Red Burns Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU. I will complete this course by the end of May.

Now with yet another degree, Dimitri is looking for work. What might you, as a proud father do? Why not reunite your vision with your son's? Or to quote the August 5th OLPC community newsletter:

The 2B1 Foundation was re-launched this week. The name (conceived by Dimitri Negroponte about ten years ago) was used for a New York State 501(c)3 that was active until about 1999. Seymour Papert, Nicholas Negroponte and Dimitri were involved until it went dormant, serving only as a private foundation and modest venue to fund Cambodian Schools.

In its new form, technically called 2B1 Worldwide, it will be a Delaware public foundation, initially headed by Ashton Hawkins, based in New York City. It will become the entity to which charitable deductions, large and small, can be made.

While you are at it, why not make sure there is no confusion about which way the project is going too? When the press latches onto a wiki post by your President of Software and Content for OLPC, and breaks the news that the One Laptop Per Child computer would be called the "Children's Machine 1", make him backpedal to VnuNet:

"The Children's Machine (CM1) is our internal working name for the laptop and one that will likely be used throughout the B-Test period, [says Walter Bender.] While we haven't settled on a final launch name, it is likely to be the 2B1"

And what would you call that force of vision, that power of persuasion, that father-son interaction that can incubate an idea over a decade and re-brand it constantly in your image?

Why Negropontism of course!

Tags: 2B1 Foundation | 2B1 Worldwide | Dimitri Negroponte | Negropontism | Nicholas Negroponte |

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Things move pretty quickly on the OLPC wiki - facts are released one day, only to change the next - especially on pages maintained by OLPC themselves. The CM1 is no longer with us. It was edited into history yesterday by Walter Bender.

The CM1 is dead. Long live the 2B1.

In the spirit of the OLPC wiki, please find a re-edited version of our previous news piece. Edits in bold.

Woohoo! Aljazeera's scoop was right wrong, and now its official (again): the One Laptop Per Child's initial computer will be called the CM1 2B1 - The Children's Machine.

Searching the OLPC Wiki, I found the official OLPC CM1 page - but yesterday, Walter Bender replaced all reference to CM1 with 2B1. Like I keep saying OLPC is all about marketing - mishaps.

Anyway, looking at the history of the OLPC CM1 page, you'll note that Walter Bender, OLPC President for Software and Content, posted the Children's Machine 1 page on August 17th, three days after Aljazeera published its article referring to the OLPC laptop as the "CM1". 10 days later it was toast.

You go Aljazeera! Now I only wonder: Why did OLPC give them the scoop wrong info?

Thanks to the beady eyed writers at DailyTech.

Tags: 2B1 | CM1 | Childrens Machine | OLPC Wiki | One Laptop Per Child Computer | Walter Bender |

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Be honest. Do you ever use the CAPS LOCK key on your keyboard? Don't you find it more of a nuisance than needed? Wouldn't that space have a better use, say a new function key that would switch from porn personal websites to the corporate one? Or from fun Firefox to annoying Excel when your boss walked in? Reading through the One Laptop Per Child design discussions, I'm happy to see that they too wonder, is the CAPS LOCK key needed? To quote the OLPC Wiki's Keyboard Design page:

Tags: CAPS LOCK | Children's Machine | Computer Keyboard | Laptop Prototype | OLPC Keyboard |

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To add to today's One Laptop Per Child Children's Machine specs, we now know where the CM1 will be manufactured. Digitimes is reporting that Quanta Computer, the OLPC CM1 OEM, will be producing the $100 $140 dollar laptops in Changshu, Jiangsu Province, China.

Tags: B-Machines | Barry Lam | CM1 OEM | Changshu | Jaingsu | Quanta Computer |

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Now that One Laptop Per Child have given its computer a name, CM1, The Children's Machine, it's also reveling more about the notebook's specs. On the OLPC Wiki CM1 page, Walter Bender, OLPC President for Software and Content, has a few new surprises for the initial CM1 production run so that the CM1 is:

"a unique harmony of form and function; a flexible, ultra low-cost, power-efficient, responsive, and durable machine with which nations of the emerging world can leapfrog decades of development"

What might those surprises be?

Tags: AMD Geode | Childrens Machine | OLPC CM1 | RoHS Directive | SD Slot | VOIP | Walter Bender |

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Woohoo! Aljazeera's scoop was right, and now its official: the One Laptop Per Child's initial computer will be called the CM1 - The Children's Machine 1. Searching the OLPC Wiki, I found the official OLPC CM1 page, which even has a new marketing image of the OLPC, still with the same annoying fake screen shot of (Cambodian?) kids. Like I keep saying OLPC is all about marketing.

Tags: CM1 | Children's Machine | Childrens Machine | One Laptop Per Child Computer | Walter Bender |

The Children's Machine (CM1) from One Laptop per Child | Comment (2) | Digg This | Add to del.ico.us | Slashdot It

In a scoop worthy of its reputation Aljazeera is reporting a new name for the One Laptop Per Child $100 dollar laptop: CM1. From their article "A revolution in a laptop:"

the CM1, more commonly known as the $100 laptop. The CM1 is the crown jewel of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project

There is no confirmation of this new laptop name from the OLPC HQ in Boston nor another reference to "CM1" with OLPC in Google searches.

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