One Laptop Per Child News on Prototypes

Open Letter to Nicholas Negroponte: Its Education Not Laptops

Posted on January 16, 2008 by Guest Writer in People: Negroponte, Prototypes: XO

Nicholas Negroponte of OLPC

Nick, you may have the impression that some people are opposed to One Laptop Per Child because they speak of OLPC's latest activities in less than glowing terms. The criticisms can seem harsh but that is because they see matters that need to be corrected for the good of the program.

They, we, me, really believe that OLPC is a fantastic, exciting, and groundbreaking endeavor. That's why so many of us spend so much time thinking, talking, and writing about One Laptop Per Child.

I am writing to you because many great things have happened regarding OLPC, some sooner than I expected, and I believe these events require OLPC to change its strategy. The Age of Low-Cost Computing has arrived in large part do to your efforts. Job well-done. The Asus eee, Everex GPC, Intel Classmate (the horror!), KPC, and others flocked to a market that you created.

The entry en-masse of commercial companies also complicates OLPC's status as a non-profit organization that produces a good in direct competition with private companies. Non-profits are meant to address public goods not met by the private market. Soon this will no longer be the case.

Education, Not Laptops

It is time for OLPC to get out of the business of making laptops. Move to the next step in a grand strategy. Guide this market and make sure these new XO-inspired laptops help kids "learn learning." Here are my ideas on how to do this. You're a smart guy, you have probably already worked all this out and have a better plan on your blackberry.

Stop calling OLPC a project or initiative. It is no longer a short-term project but a global movement. OLPC should change its business model to reflect this. It should become the Learning Innovations organization. Do the R&D on kids, education, and technology that Everex, Asus, and Intel can't or won't do.

Focus on Sugar, not laptops

Keep producing the XO but use it as a conduit to spread to innovation to the rest of the industry. Don't compete with Intel. Subsume it. Make sure Sugar can run on hardware such as the Everex, Asus eee, or even desktops. Work with companies like IDEO and Lego to built out peripherals for low-cost science laboratories.

Killer App for Education

I firmly believe that every device and technology needs a "killer app," that is a tool so effective that most people can't remember how they lived without it. The killer app for the PC was e-mail. For some people, Skype was the killer app that made them choose broadband Internet. Laptops lack a killer app for education.

I can name that killer app for the XO right now, English literacy. If kids and adults can consistently use a laptop to learn English, laptops will forever become a standard part of education.

To this end, distribute the laptops on the open market. The more smart, creative people with access to XO's and Sugar, the more innovation you will see in education. Let the XO lead by example, not sales. Add $50 to the cost of the XO to cover the ongoing costs of R&D into learning innovation.

If you sell 250,000 per year, that will give you more than 12.5 million to fund your ongoing operations. There is so much research to be done on mesh-networking and social and collaborative learning applications for mesh networking. My mind spins with all the possibilities.

So there you have it Nick, it is time for OLPC to chart a new course. May you steer well.

Robert Johnston loves his XO. He loves Sugar more. He loves children the most.

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OLPC Give One Get One Has Started!!!!

Posted on November 12, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Donors, Sales Talk: G1G1, Prototypes: OLPC, Countries: USA, Prototypes: XO, Laptops: XO-1

What are you doing reading OLPC News?! You should be over at Laptop Giving doing your Give One Get One geek duty!

I just dropped $423.95 ($399 + $24.95 in shipping) for one of the first laptops ordered via the website while Jonah Bossewitch beat us all when he called the order hotline at 1am and bought an XO with the great motto: Get em while they are hot!

Update: If you are having trouble with the 1-877-70-LAPTOP phone line, check out the OLPC News solution.

A Closer Look at Asus Eee PC Impact on OLPC

Posted on October 31, 2007 by Christoph Derndorfer in Sales Talk: Competition, Sales Talk: Intel, Prototypes: XO

Hey, it's Christoph Derndorfer from OLPC Austria speaking. It's been quite some time since I've last submitted a story but I'll do my best to come up with more articles in the foreseeable future.

The reason why I'm writing these lines is that the first reviews of the the Asus eee PC have recently been published and so I feel it's a good time to take a look at the current state of things.

I don't think it's really necessary to introduce the Asus eee PC to anyone reading this website. However if I had to explain the eee PC in one sentence I'd probably say something along the lines of

"it's Asus' first shot at the utlra low-cost notebook market"

With that sentence we're already at one of the core topics surrounding that white little fella. It's obvious to anyone that the four different eee PC 701 models announced up to now (though from what I gather only one of them is readily available at the moment) are only the start and we're very likely to see more variations, updated models and eee PC v2s in the foreseeable future.

As previously highlighted in Wayan's story the main differences between the various models are the size of the RAM (256MB to 1GB), the size of the flash mass-storage (2GB to 8GB), the camera and the batteries. Compare that to the OLPC project and its "one size fits all" approach and you'll realize that Asus offers more choice, both in terms of the hardware and the price per unit.

Happy Asus Eee PC users

Don't get me wrong, I'm fairly convinced that OLPC and Quanta would be more than happy to offer built-to-order options once an entity (be it a country or Coca Cola on a CSR trip) purchases a certain amount of X0s. Say Brazil only agrees to buy X0s if their units come with 2GB of flash. If I were OLPC or Quanta I'd ask them to pay the additional cost and happily send out a press release telling everyone that another country has just signed on.

Having that single product made sense back when Negroponte still believed that everyone would be more than happy to buy 1 million X0s per purchase. But these time they're changing and today with G1G1, give many and minimum purchase quantities basically having being eliminated things are very different. Today OLPC might only be competing with Asus but 6...12...18 months from now there'll be even more choice when it comes to low-cost computing solutions for both the developing and the developed world.

And while Intel will be quietly trying to make the X0-2 a device that has Intel inside many other companies will be working on similar products. The reason for that development is that OLPC was a real wake-up call for anyone in the ICT industry. It made many people realize that low-cost computing is a huge market that most companies were happy to ignore in the past. It's not that hard to imagine that 2 or 3 years down the road other major players such as Dell, HP and Acer will have joined Asus in the race to sell products to the next billion users.

Now what else is different if you compare the Eee PC and the X0? For one thing Microsoft seems to have less trouble getting Windows to run on the 701 because apparently they're working on a slimmed-down Vista that's specifically targeted at that machine. (At least that's what the rumour mill is saying.) Plus Asus is already offering Windows XP drivers and soon we're going to see 701s being delivered with a pre-installed WinXP.

Again, don't get me wrong: I don't think that running Vista (or anything close to it) on a 900MHz CPU with less than 2GB of RAM is going to be any fun. But according to various news reports that's only the first step in Microsoft's current quest when it comes to finding a more healthy Windows-diet. In mid-October it was reported that project "MinWin" isn't quite ready at the moment but could be a core component of the upcoming Windows 7 (formerly codenamed Vienna).

Now if you look at the big picture this indicates that going forward Microsoft also believes in slimmer and more targeted operating systems. Today Vista a la eee, tomorrow Vista a la classmate and afterwards... Vista a la X0-2? Again what I'm trying to say here is that people are realizing that the market for low-cost computing solution is so huge and varied that there'll be plenty of opportunities for different approaches on the operating system level. Which again means more choices for customers.

Another aspect of the eee PC project that hardly gets mentioned is that Asus seems to be very active when it comes to cooperation with the open-source world. According to the latest edition of Walter Bender's community-news this week OLPC is flying out Mike Fletcher to Taiwan to attend a FOSS conference and also meet up with lead eee PC developers. As he puts it on his blog:

"Asus will be presenting their EEEpc and their plans for creating a developer program around the platform. We really need to make sure that we're not duplicating effort across the platforms, and that the software and content used when going into schools is compatible."

An OLPC alternative?

So who knows, maybe we'll soon see Sugar on the 701! Some people are going to be happy with Asus' custom Linux solution
which seems to be build on the Xandros distribution. Others might opt for WindowsXP. And the last guy may even go with Edubuntu. Again I think it's important to offer a variety of choices because that's what the market is going to demand.

In the end what I'm trying to say here is that the Asus eee PC project gives us a good glimpse of where things might be heading in the future when it comes to low-cost computing. Having said that I'm still convinced that the X0 is currently the best computing device for educating children in the developing world. And OLPC will always be remembered for making the world aware of the demand for low-cost computing.

However Asus and others are quickly learning and catching up and soon they will have great devices for a variety of other low-cost ICT requirements. And I'm sure that OLPC could learn another trick or two from them...

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An Asus Eee PC Alternate Internet Gadget

Posted on October 17, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Competition, Sales Talk: Intel, Prototypes: XO

Happy Asus Eee PC users

Now the low-cost laptop war is really heating up! Asus just released official Eee PC specifications, price points, and retail partners for its newest ultra-mobile personal computer (UMPC).

Asustek even took the dreaded "gadget" label that OLPC shunned and embraced it with amazing Chinglish pride in their Eee PC announcement:

The Eee PC is a 7-inch gadget designed for first-time mobile internet gadget users including young students, children, housewives, the elderly, individual stock investors, and anyone who enjoys mobility as a part of their web surfing experience.

First up, lets check out the E3 spec sheet on the first four models. While they are not One Laptop Per Child impressive, you have to give Asus credit for packing in a decent XO-1 comparable feature set:

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Why Should OLPC Succeed?

Posted on September 11, 2007 by Pedro Hernández Ramos in Commentary: Academia, Use Cases: Community, Prototypes: XO

Pedro Hernández Ramos

I've been thinking about this question for a while, and have been working on a draft for an article (aiming for an academic journal) for the last few months - in fact, since November of 2006, shortly after Walter Bender presented at the "Silicon Valley Challenge Summit" I helped organize at Santa Clara University where he showed us an early production unit fresh off the assembly plant.

In the comments thread to one of Bob Kozma's postings here ("OLPC and Economic Development"), Julio Cartaya argued that OLPC deserved recognition for bringing the world's attention to the plight of hundreds of millions of poor people around the world (I'm paraphrasing).

I agree with the sentiment, but what I'd like to do in this posting is present an excerpt where I state one reason from an educational technology perspective in support of why OLPC should succeed. (In subsequent postings I will offer more reasons, before switching to arguments about why it may (or should) fail.

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One Laptop Per Panamanian Child

Posted on August 01, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Countries, People: Negroponte, Countries: Peru, Prototypes: XO

OLPC XO in Panama?

Did Nicholas Negroponte just announce an OLPC Panama in his comments to Fortune?

"But the Intel news combined with the manufacturing launch shows this project really is going somewhere. Negroponte says the first transfer of money - meaning a firm order - should happen next week, with either Peru or Panama."

Reading that paragraph, I am shocked to hear the inclusion of República de Panamá in the One Laptop Per Child program at this time. According to the OLPC Wiki, Panama is a post-launch phase participating country, which fits into Negroponte OLPC distribution strategy he detailed at Forrester last year:

I say no to small countries. We get, a lot of small countries at the Head of State level, have asked us and Rwanda's one, Panama's one, Dominican Republic's one, uh, Ethiopia's one, I can go through lists.

Now Ethiopia's big and we will probably do Ethiopia, I'll go there shortly. But if it's a very small country, um, it doesn't help us in the launch. But we include them in whatever way we can, and we have a distribution model, because we're supply limited. So we will include them, get machines, and you'll see machines in Panama, you'll see machines in Guatemala, and so on.

And in fact, we do see "$100 laptops" and OLPC interest in Panama.

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OLPC XO on Sale for Christmas Computer Buyers?!

Posted on July 23, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Price, Countries: USA, Prototypes: XO

He too will buy two for one

Want to buy an OLPC XO "$100 laptop" for your child this Christmas? Or do you covet the clock-stopping hot technology for the perfect kid (at heart); you? Now you may be in luck this Christmas.

Mary Lou Jepsen told Reuters that One Laptop Per Child is aiming to have XO retail sales by this Christmas!

As the foundation prepares for mass production of its first model, the XO, to begin in October, it is looking for ways to subsidize manufacturing of the devices so that it can get more of them into the hands of poor children, Jepsen said.

Profits from consumer sales would go for that purpose, said Jepsen. "We're trying to get the best deal we can," she said. She added the foundation is looking at selling the machines over the Internet and talking to companies with "a big presence on the Web," although she declined to identify any by name.

Whoa!

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XO B4 Computer: New Arrival Brings Joy to OLPC Peru

Posted on July 23, 2007 by Guest Writer in Countries: Peru, Hardware: Production, Prototypes: XO

Like proud parents bringing home their new baby, team members at the Peruvian OLPC project filmed the arrival of their new BTest-4 XO computer and posted it on YouTube for our viewing pleasure. On a second video, the proud parents did a side-by-side comparison of their new B4 with their old B2. I'm Alec McLure and I have a synopsis and some thoughts on both videos.

In the first video, very reminiscent of Christmas morning home movies, a beaming Alfonso de la Guarda unpacks the obviously solidly packed laptop 2-pack.

An interesting point, he mentions that this time around the customs charges were "only" $66 (apparently when they brought in the previous machine duties were over $150!). South American bureaucracy being what it is, they lucked out this time around. Personally, I'm impressed they were able to get it through customs without multiple visits. I'd also be curious as to what cost basis customs is using to calculate duties.

First out of the box are the chargers and batteries in their own little tray. Although he compares the charger to the previous version, he doesn't remark on any very obvious changes at this point.

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Don't Celebrate One Intel Laptop Per Child Just Yet

Posted on July 15, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: Business, Sales Talk: Intel, People: Leadership, Prototypes: XO

OLPC XO and Intel Classmate PC!

Wow, look what can happen when you're offline a day flying home from Lebanon via Frankfurt: Intel Corporation agreed to join One Laptop Per Child's Board of Directors as the 11th member, focused on exploring collaborations involving technology and educational content.

First off, I am not surprised at the move. Last month I was surprised by a call from the OLPC leadership looking for contacts at Intel they could talk with about ending the public feud between Nicholas Negroponte and Craig Barrett. I was asked to keep the call quiet, and I did, for I think overall, the very over-hyped squabble was distracting for everyone involved with low-cost computing for the developing world.

But the direction of that call, OLPC looking for Intel contacts, colors my impression of the Intel + OLPC agreement. I don't see Intel joining the OLPC Board as The Register does, Negroponte didn't shame Intel to do anything, but Ashlee Vance was right in downplaying Intel's excitement over working with OLPC.

Intel + OLPC was a move of convenience for Intel, but desperation for OLPC, and Intel's direct involvement will degrade OLPC's independence and reduce its impact on computing in the developing world.

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Today's $50 OLPC XO Laptop Lesson: Check OLPC News First

Posted on July 11, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Commentary: Press, Sales Talk: Price, Prototypes: XO

A $50 OLPC price point

On July 4th, Digitimes attempted to break the news that One Laptop Per Child was predicting that the price of the Children's Machine XO computer would drop to ~~$100 dollars~~ $50 dollars by 2009:

Notebooks under the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) advocated "One Laptop Per Child" (OLPC) program are in a strong position to be the hottest PC for emerging markets and prices will shrink to US$50 in 2009, said Mary Lou Jepsen, the founding chief technology officer (CTO) of the program.

The very next day, Ken Fisher wrote in Ars Technica that he contacted Race Point Group:

According to OLPC, Jepsen was misquoted and the DigiTimes story is "full of errors."

Before Digitimes starts to dance, or we question who is Race Point Group, since the last time we heard, W2 was OLPC's pro bono PR team, I'd like to point out that the $50 price point projection is not new for One Laptop Per Child or the readers of OLPC News.

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Negroponte's "$100 Laptop" Blowback: Asustek's Eee PC

Posted on June 06, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: Business, Sales Talk: Competition, Sales Talk: Intel, Sales Talk: Price, Prototypes: XO

Back when he first introduced his grand dream to the world - improving education through Constructionism, personified in a laptop for every child to learn and play with - Nicholas Negroponte picked an amazing marketing meme to express his dream's affordability: "$100 laptop".

In doing so, Negroponte subverted his original idea in the minds of many. Gone was an educational tool for children. In its place was the idea of an adult computer for $100. So while the One Laptop Per Child team was focused on a primary school student-centric design, everyone else was thinking about teenagers and adults using low cost computers.

This second, more mainstream idea is now coming back around to One Laptop Per Child in the form of competition from Intel. First there was the Classmate PC, which is a quick OLPC catch-up computer that sacrifices much to make a sub-$300 price point but at least pays lip service to Dr. Negroponte's original education idea, even as the OLPC pot called the Intel kettle black.

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OLPC XO Order Deadline Passed - Results Please!

Posted on June 04, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Countries, Hardware: Production, Prototypes: XO

Nicholas Negroponte of OLPC

Do you know the significance of this week for One Laptop Per Child? Do you anticipate an OLPC proclamation by Nicholas Negroponte? Specifically, did you remember that last Thursday we passed an important deadline for the OLPC XO? If not, let me refresh your memory. In Nicholas Negroponte's OLPC Analyst Meeting presentation, he said:

"...the countries were told just a few minutes ago in the other room, May 30th is their deadline. That's the first deadline, and you know this isn't a sales and marketing job where you know when you come you come. This is it, the train leaves. It's looking like a closing, you know if you're having a round of funding, it closes on such and such a date. If it's over-subscribed, it's over-subscribed. If it's under-subscribed you shoot yourself, or whatever. The point is, it has a real date. We'll all know May 30th"

And now it's June 4th and we still don't know who will be in the first round of participating countries.

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Classmate PC: Intel's Two Hour-Long Joke

Posted on May 30, 2007 by Guest Writer in Sales Talk: Intel, Hardware: Power Supply, Prototypes: XO

I want to know more

Hello my name is Will Ahdoot and I have some experience with OLPC's XO but no hands-on experience with Intel's Classmate PC. I am very skeptical of the Classmate PC for a number of reasons but primarily because of the Veil of Secrecy that Intel keeps around it.

While some people feel that OLPC miscommunicates, Intel hardly communicates at all. We know hardly anything about the Classmate PC. There is nothing on the web beyond a few brisk product reviews and Intel's own pathetic "community" website that basically reviews it hardware and software specifications.

I was quite curious to read Tina Gasperson's review of the Classmate running Mandriva Linux . Apparently it comes w/ several learning applications such as Tux Typing, Club Penguin, a web browser (Konqueror?), and . . . that's it. Yup, no Block Party, no eToys, no TamTam, no OLPC Library. Wow, Intel's commitment to content is impressive! Most amazing about the Classmate is how long its battery lasts power -- Two whole hours!

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A $50 Dollar One Laptop Per Child eBook Reader

Posted on May 27, 2007 by Guest Writer in Use Cases: Education, Content: Reference, Prototypes: XO, Content: eBooks

Martin Woodhouse's youth

Its Martin Woodhouse again, and according to the Sunday Times of London, I am an eccentric Englishman.

When the One Laptop Per Child project was announced I thought, as I am sure we all did, that Information Technology had come of age; that it had moved from being a bright teenager to an adulthood where wisdom and love are added to cleverness. That hasn't quite happened yet, but it can still do so.

The OLPC XO, for instance, needs similarly to move from mere brilliance -- it is, I repeat, brilliant in design, just as OLPC is gorgeous in kindliness and concept -- to maturity. It needs to do the job it is meant to serve: to educate the world's illiterate, and therefore unempowered, poor.

Now before designing anything, it's always wise to consider its purpose, sometimes very carefully indeed. We have set down that purpose, and we need, accordingly, to ask what it is that a person needs in order to move from illiteracy to education? (As, I remind you, each one of us has done while we were ourselves growing from infancy, through childhood, to being an adult person. We are just proposing to allow every person in the world the same opportunity; that is all.)

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Red Hat + Intel = Classmate PC Over OLPC XO?

Posted on May 10, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Intel, Software: Operating System, Software: Third Party, Prototypes: XO

Red Hat + Classmate PC

Now that there is a new political economy for One Laptop Per Child, partners are starting to mix and match to form very odd couples. First we had rumors that OLPC and Microsoft were working together to put Windows on the XO, and now we have a full fledged press release that says Red Hat is partnering with Intel:

Red Hat and Intel are taking advantage of Global Desktop's high performance and minimal hardware requirements to support a wide range of Intel's current and future desktop platforms, including the Classmate, Affordable, Community and Low-Cost PC lines.

What is even more shocking is that the Global Desktop software developed by Red Hat is a direct result of the One Laptop Per Child program:

The software borrows from the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, with about 95 per cent of the code overlapping. The OLPC uses an adapted version of Red Hat's Fedora Linux. The Global Desktop won't share the OLPC's 'Sugar' user interface, but will come bundled with applications such as Firefox and OpenOffice.

No longer will the OLPC computer be the sole techno-marvel that can have speedy suspend/resume, nor be the only hardware platform maximized for the Sugar UI.

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One Laptop Per Child Analyst Meeting - Transcribed!

Posted on April 29, 2007 by Wayan Vota in People: Leadership, People: Negroponte, Commentary: Press, Hardware: Production, Prototypes: XO

Everyone's focus: OLPC XO

Are you wondering exactly what was said at the OLPC Analyst Meeting on Thursday when the OLPC Leadership revealed that the "$100 laptop" would actually be $175, Microsoft runs on the OLPC XO, order numbers have changed and there could be XO's in USA schools? OLPC News received exclusive audio tapes of the meeting, and is transcribing them on OLPC Talks as they become available. Head there now to read exactly who said what about OLPC's technology and production plans. Here's a few choice quotes to get you excited:

Nicholas Negroponte on OLPC price: September 20th it starts, then a break, then it ramps pretty quickly up. Currently it's scheduled to ramp up almost immediately to 400,000 a month. Question: Would that price go down if more countries said yes? Negroponte: Insignificantly. And the reason is Quanta is such a big player, they've got their suppliers ready to give them the large number price on most things?

And if you use any quotes or information from the transcripts, do be sure to reference OLPC Talks. It is your source for presentations on the One Laptop Per Child, Children's Machine XO by OLPC's leadership, including MIT Media Lab co-founder Nicholas Negroponte, transcribed for non-commercial study and investigation, commentary and criticism

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Its OLPC XO Stable Build & Firmware Update Time Again

Posted on April 14, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Software: Operating System, Prototypes: XO

Did you know that the latest stable build, 385,and firmware release, Q2B87, are now available for download? If you haven’t updated your OLPC XO, do it now. One Laptop Per Child developers do not anticipate releasing another stable build for several weeks.

If you, like I, don't have a BTest-2 Children's Machine XO to update, you can always swap firmware vicariously with this X0 video:

While you stare at endless code, be sure to educate yourself with the Release notes. There you can learn that:

LiFe batteries incorrectly flash red light:
LiFe batteries are lighter and have "battery sample" on the back; if they flash the red "battery low" LED, removing and reinserting the battery will get the indicator back to correctness.

Was Ticket 1051, and with Q2B87, is now fixed.

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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.