Posted on April 09, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Competition, Commentary: OLPC News

Last August, I crowded a few friends into a Japanese restaurant in Silicon Valley to talk about technology in the developing world. Back then, the discussion swirled around One Laptop Per Child, as it was the most visible manifestation of our collective drive to spread appropriate information and communication technology beyond the world's elite.


The first 3PC entrant

I am hoping to reconvene a similar thoughtful discussion next week in San Francisco, but this time, OLPC will be but one option for us to talk about. Now not a day goes by without another announcement of a new laptop in the OLPC space.

Just check out the weird Van Der Led "Jisus laptop" to see how intense the competition is for what I am calling "4P Computing".

4P Computing

What is "4P Computing"? Its a simple acronym I just made up to describe these computing devices that are now responding to three market requirements of the developing world, and a better term than Intel's "netbook" or the industry's UMPC (ultra-mobile PC) and ULPC (ultra low-cost PC). The term "4P Computing" leaves open the form factor and focuses on what really matters:

Power

In the developing world, grid electricity is rare, and generator power is shockingly expensive. Just listen to Michail Bletsas talk about the Negroponte-financed Cambodian school that inspired OLPC:

The largest operating expense for that school is the diesel fuel for the generator at this point in time. That includes airfare and living expenses for the volunteer teachers that teach there. That includes computers, amortized over 5 years. That includes building and maintaining the school. Getting diesel fuel to power the generator is the biggest ongoing operating expense.
To reach any level of market penetration, computers must be highly energy efficient, mainly to allow them to run off solar or other alternate energy sources, including human power. High energy efficiency also reduces heat waste, negating the need for a fan or other dust openings in the form factor, increasing processor lifespan.

sugar on classmate pc
Measuring Sugar on the Clasmmate

Performance

If you look at any cybercafé in the developing world, you'll see people actively engaged with computers, but only using a few applications. Web browsing, including web-email and video watching, listening to MP3's, creating documents, and doing light calculations. These activities do not require high processing resources. In fact, the more progressive Internet cafés are using thin clients sharing a single processor.

What people do want is easy-to-use hardware and software that does not need constant maintenance. Specifically, software that resists viruses, the bane of any beginner user who doesn't understand the real malice lurking online. Oh and software that is essentially free.

Yet, speed is not a major concern when Internet speeds are measured in Kbs, not Mbs. In addition, many cultures measure time in days or even seasons, so microseconds and even seconds are not fretted over. For all those that bemoan Sugar's speed, the usual response I hear overseas is: "What's your hurry?"

Portability

As Donna and others point out in the comments, this type of computing device must be portable. That means both lightweight and small enough to carry around in a backpack or under a child's arm, and yet rugged enough to survive such portability on a daily basis.

Ruggeness extends from a strong physical design, down to water and dust resistant cases, solid-state memory, and screens that can be read in daylight. Yet weight cannot exceed a few pounds with 2 kilograms the maximum upper limit. At that point both the physical effort to carry the machine and its mass if dropped, make it impractical for developing world environments where dedicated computer rooms or home offices are rare.

There, most activity happens in a communal setting, be it the living room, dining room table, or front porch. Computing will need to bend to this model.

olpc asus eee kids
Happy $400 Asus Eee PC users

Price

Why did Nicholas Negroponte start with the "$100 laptop" moniker? Because people understand price, they respond to a barrier breaking move, and $100 is a nice number to dream about. While $100 is still a dream for OLPC, even the $400 G1G1 reality has set a new price point.

At $400, the growing middle class in Africa, Asia, and South America can buy their first computer, no matter what Annette Jump at Gartner says. $400 may be a month's salary to many, but computers were a month's salary in the US until not too long ago, and that didn't slow adoption. Add in computing as a way to improve children's education, and as any parent will tell you, price becomes secondary.

But price still matters. At $400 or less the developing world makert will expand rapidly and a whole other market emerges. As G1G1 proved first, at least 81,000 people in America and Canada will buy a laptop, if only to tinker with it. Asus has taken that idea and expanded it with the Eee PC to about 500,000 laptops last year with a 3.1 million goal for 2008.

4P Computing Players

Borrowing liberally from the Laptop Mag low-cost laptop cheat sheet, I've made the following comparison of the current 4P Computing players:

4PC NamePowerPerformPortabilityPrice
Asus Eee PCNoYes
YesYes
Classmate/2Go PCNoYesNoYes
Elonex OneYesYesYesYes
Everex CloudbookYesYesNoYes
HP Mini-Note PCNoYesNoNo
Norhtec GeckoYesYesYesYes
OLPC XO-1YesYesYesYes

No matter if you agree with my new 4PC tag line, I think we can all agree that this ever-expanding list of computing options realizes one of the dreams that both Nicholas Negroponte and I share: showing technology companies that there is both a mission and a market in the developing world.

3P - 4P Computing Update:

This post was originally entitled "3P Computing" as I omitted portability from the metrics, considering it a given. Thanks to the comments below, I've changed the post to reflect this required "P" for greater clarity on this computing classification.

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Posted on April 03, 2008 by Edward Cherlin in Sales Talk: Competition, Sales Talk: Intel

john davies
John Davies - Intel

I just now saw the headline:

"Intel to help Bangladesh bridge digital divide."
Well, that would be nice, but it turns out that the headline is essentially false.

Intel is providing (Does that mean selling or giving? I think selling.) 1,000 computers to Bangladesh through its Intel World Ahead Programme, and also some Internet connectivity. But this is a trial, not a major contribution.

Intel's World Ahead Programme General Manager John E. Davies, who is spearheading the assignment, is currently visiting the country to give the programme a kick-start.

"Understanding a country takes six to 12 months. But when it gets going, the programme speeds up with the help of right partners to implement it," Davies said.

That's the funniest thing I have ever heard an Intel employee say. A lifetime isn't long enough to understand any country. It's all right, though, I understand that he didn't mean what he said.

He was talking about the time to understand a business opportunity in the conventional manner, in which you offer to apply the technology you have at whatever it costs in the developed countries to problems you know nothing about. Unlike, say, OLPC's approach.

OLPC started with user requirements, such as absolute minimum power for areas without regular electricity, maximum durability for little children, greenness, and support for collaboration. The result is a record low cost hardware design appropriate for conditions in the countries most concerned, and a new kind of educational software.

The OLPC XO incorporates what Alan Kay and others have been demonstrating for decades about the power that computers can have in education, if we are willing to permit it.

Intel is also discussing with the education ministry about accommodating its education content in the curriculum and how to train the teachers for the World Ahead Programme.
Ivan Krstić reported at PyCon 2008, the recently concluded Python programming conference, that in Uruguay the children got the idea of the XO immediately, and the teachers within days. The government might have provided a lesson plan in biology with a topic on a specific organ and two paragraphs of information.

The teachers showed the children how to get on the Internet to look for more information, and then teach each other about what they found. Forget content and curriculum! We can teach! Who needs training for this?


Who's the happiest kid here?

Mothers of students got it next, apparently just from the joy on their children's faces, and the fathers were hardest to convince. They wanted the children to work in the fields from after school to dark. But the children were able to demonstrate, on the laptops, just what they were learning that had been impossible before.

On seeing that the children are actually learning in school, and can already look up things that will improve local farming methods and increase family incomes, the fathers have joined in too.

Davies noted that the cost of Internet connection in Bangladesh is incredibly high compared to the rest of the world. This is why Intel is looking for other ways to provide education contents in the most cost effective way.
Perhaps we should be discussing ways to bring the cost of service down. Like reforming the Bangladesh communications sector, which is still dominated by incompetent and avaricious state corporations. (When the first fiber optic cable landed in Nigeria, the government had no plan for extending service beyond the telephone center at the landing point. In Bangladesh, when the first cable landed, there was no center at the landing point.)
"For instance, there could be local caching service. Contents like math or science may be kept in the local server so that students can access them without any Internet connection," he said.
Right. Something like OLPC XS School Servers, even.
Intel has signed agreements with Grameen Solutions and Bangladesh Telecentre Network to set up telecentres that will offer an array of services to the public. Intel will be offering a model to help the country's goal of setting up 40,000 such centres across the country by 2011.
OLPC India
XO laptops for inquiring minds
Pikers. Bangladesh has about 36 million children of school age (UNICEF statistics), of whom fewer than half get to secondary school. Giving each one an XO at $200 would cost a bit over $7 billion, plus other expenses.

Mary Lou Jepsen's Pixel Qi $75 laptop brings that down to $2.7 billion plus other expenses to start, possibly in 2009. If children get a replacement every four years, then the cost after startup would be around $700 million annually. Does Bangladesh have this kind of money? Let's see. GNI per capita (US$), 2006: 480. Nope.

I wonder how much 40,000 telecenters will cost. A few million, maybe? And how much effect they would have? Well, some, to be sure. Would it be a thousandth as much as providing computers to everybody? Dunno.

Well, I don't have the actual answer to the problem. Apparently we need some new thinking on global education funding. Like maybe actually providing 0.7% of GDP, as the US and many other countries have been promising for decades, but never took seriously. Of course that would require public political will, which has been in short supply.

I wonder if anybody would be interested in applying any political will that they have lying around. It's just weird how the application of political will by a few people in the right circumstances sometimes creates mass political will. Maybe it was already there, and we just had to call it out from the woodwork. Is it worth a try?

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Posted on April 03, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Competition, Sales Talk: Intel

2go pc olpc
We now have an official Classmate 2 PC. Yesterday, Intel unveiled its second generation Classmate PC at its Developer Forum in Shanghai. The difference, according to Laptop Mag:
The Classmate now includes a 9-inch LCD display, a six-cell battery, 512MB of memory, a 30GB HDD, and an integrated webcam.

The second-generation Classmate PCs are built on the Intel Celeron M processor with 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and mesh-network capabilities; future Classmate PCs will be built with Atom processors. Of course, the Classmate PC still supports Microsoft Windows XP, but variants of a Linux-based operating system will also be available.

Hmm, that sounds exactly like the Classmate 2 for sale in Pakistan.

Luckily, American consumers can now try out the Classmate 2 also. CTL will be selling the 2Go PC, the commercial version of the Classmate 2, directly to consumers. Look for it today on Amazon.com for $400.

We also have a number of 2Go Classmate PC comparisons:

  • Laptop Mag's review of CTL's 2go PC: The 2go PC may not be a stellar performer, but considering its intended audience and price, it doesn’t have to be. Its rugged design, long battery life, and lightweight chassis all add to this mini-notebook’s appeal.
  • Classmate 2Go Vs. OLPC: But other than those few classroom tools, the Classmate hardly feels like a leap forward in educational hardware as much as a gray, shrunken version of any typical Intel-powered laptop.
  • Intel Classmate PC (9-inch): The bottom line: Intel tweaked the Classmate PC in its redesign to appeal to first-world schoolchildren, and it offers an experience on par with mininotebooks from Asus and HP.
And last but not least, the Hands-On with CTL’s 2go PC (a.k.a. Classmate 2) by Joanna Stern:


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Posted on March 31, 2008 by Guest Writer in Sales Talk: Competition

The Chicago school district purchased and is implementing the Teachermate, a new low-cost supplemental aid developed by non-profit Innovations for Learning for students in 500 schools in grades K-2. You can read more about it on the article by Engadget as well as on their website. Some of the really cool features and forward thinking of the Teachermate are:
  • Ease of use
  • Attractive to young students (it looks like a Nintendo DS)
  • Syncs to an easy LMS by plugging it into the charging case in the classroom
  • Low price point (makes it affordable, even for struggling school districts)
  • Durable enough for a 5 year old
  • It is a low powered computer and not a console so it should be easy to develop for.
I am Christopher Segot. I have been in the eLearning field for just over a year and have been following and working with innovative platforms like the OLPC XO, most notably I developed and implemented an eLearning supplemental tutoring service using the Asus EEE PC with strong success.

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Posted on March 25, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Competition, Sales Talk: Intel

2go pc olpc
This is a laptop for education. It has a low voltage processor, mesh networking, LED backlight screen, and even an integrated camera. It can also run Windows XP in addition to Linux.

Is this One Laptop Per Child's XO laptop? Or the Asus Eee PC? Or even the Elonex One?

No, it's Intel's new 2go PC, the Classmate 2, that Computer Technology Link is rumored to be selling for $400 or less retail in 60 days or less. Thanks to Gizmodo, we even have a readable 2go PC spec sheet.
So what do these numbers say to you? For me, I want to take a moment to remember the original OLPC mission:

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Posted on March 18, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Competition, Sales Talk: Intel

I think there might be one less Intel OEM employee today, as we might have the first images of Intel's next generation of the Classmate PC courtesy of a quick Tech Corner camera phone and too many beers:
My buddy works for a US Based OEM, and showed me a sample of one of the products that will be hitting US shores soon. This thing is sweet, super portable. I estimate it weighs less than three pounds, and has a carrying handle. He told me it was designed by Intel and is for education.

I got on it to check my email and it was running XP Pro like a champ. When he got up for a minute, I snuck some pics of it and checked out the specs. It has a 900Mhz Celeron, 512 Ram, 40GB HD, 9 Inch screen, wifi, and Ethernet. It seems to be about 7” x 9”x 1.5”. I asked him how much it was going to cost, and he said he didn’t know but would probably be around 400 bucks.
Now the first question Charbax will have is "Where's the Intel Atom Diamondville processor?" while I wonder if that $400 price tag is real. Regardless, I'm sure you have an opinion on this mysterious new low-cost laptop entrant and will share it with us right about now.

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Posted on March 01, 2008 by Guest Writer in Sales Talk: Competition

olpc Caribbean
Elonex ONE: UK's £100 laptop
I was in Birmingham today for my nephew's first birthday, just after lunch I nipped out to visit the Education Show which was running on the other side of town in the National Exhibition Centre.

The purpose of my visit was to see the Elonex One which was launched on Wednesday. I had emailed in advance to check they were OK with me bringing along an XO and an Asus EeePC.

Not only were they OK with it, they were delighted to see the other Linux based laptops I had brought and took loads of photos of the three little friends. Apparently Walter Bender had flown over to visit them the day before, but curiously my XO was the first that they had seen, I guess Walter didn't bring one with him.

On the stand they had the One in pink, white, grey and black, I had a play with the pink One.
olpc elonex asus
The One is a little thicker than the XO and EeePC, but weighs about the same. The computer is behind the screen, just like the XO, rather than under the keyboard like the EeePC. It is a really interesting form factor, the keyboard and hinge is detachable and plugs into a little USB socket on the base of the main unit, so it isn't a wireless keyboard, but they are considering a bluetooth keyboard for the future.

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Posted on February 20, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Competition

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Elonex is about to change its name to "Laptop Per Child" to complete its total imitation of OLPC. This unknown UK-based computer assembly company has done pretty much everything else to be like One Laptop Per Child.
olpc elonex
Let's recount the displays of imitation flattery, eh?
  1. They're claiming to have a £100 laptop for the United Kingdom, which sounds exactly like the "$100 laptop" claim of OLPC, regardless of the currency difference.
  2. They came out with a ugly marketing image long before they have a real laptop, kinda of like OLPC's green hand-crank laptop.
  3. They're focused on educational sales to government, this time in the UK.
  4. They called it the "One Laptop" which copies OLPC's name a little to close for comfort
  5. The president of Elonex is legally changing his name to "Nicholas Negroponte"
Okay, so I made the last one up, but would you really be surprised if that was their next step? The OLPC-mimic has gone too far with this XO-wanna be.

No matter what Elonex announces at the Education Show 2008, don't forget: You know OLPC. You've followed them before they were known. Elonex is no OLPC. Its not even Aware.

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Posted on January 16, 2008 by Alexandre Van de Sande in Sales Talk: Competition, Laptops: XO-2

olpc price
The first manufactured computer to ship without a floppy drive was the original candy colored iMac, back 1998, which relied only on internet, a CD-ROM and a port called the Universal Serial Bus ports.

Ten years ago, a cd burner was something expensive, few people had heard of USB connections and the keychain flash drive wasn't coming to market for another two years. This move was considered highly ahead of it's time for apple and for some this helped launch the USB as a standard and displace the 3.5" disks onto oblivion.

Fast forward to 2008 and Apple announced the wireless Macbook Air, a ultralight low power laptop with no cd or dvd drive, no hard disk, but highly connected portable computer. In a few years this will probably be the industry standard, but this time around it's not Cupertino who's setting it.

Granted, one cannot compare the $199 XO to a $1,799 Macbook anymore than one can compare the recently announced $2,500 Nano Car by India's Tata motor to a $50,000 Porsche, unless on technological grounds. And that is what I'm going to do.

By using cutting edge technology, the Negroponte's team was able to come out not with a dumbed down version of a commercial laptop but a innovative product that was also cheap. The XO was the first portable rely solely on solid state drive and following it's steps came the classmate, the Eee pc and now the Macbook Air.

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Posted on January 06, 2008 by Christoph Derndorfer in Sales Talk: Competition, Sales Talk: Intel

olpc classmate
Does platform really matter?
Even though I'm actually sick of hearing all the "Intel dumped OLPC" (or was it the other way 'round?) stories I feel the need to add my own voice to the discussion.

First of all let me tell you that I'm really platform-agnostic when it comes to delivering laptops as educational tools to children. Honestly, why should I care whether the technology inside that machine comes from AMD, Intel, VIA or some random ARM-producer?

It's about children having access to a suitable information and communication device for educational purposes, right? Or is about one company being more or less evil (depending on which fanboy you ask) than the other one?

Computers are a business

What many people who are claiming that Intel might just be the next worst thing after Satan himself seem to be forgetting is that all of the companies involved in OLPC are for-profit entities which have the same desire to please their shareholders at the end of each quarter - just like Intel.

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Posted on January 03, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Competition, Sales Talk: Intel, Laptops: XO-2

intel inside olpc
Fresh from the Wall Street Journal, One Laptop Per Child and Intel have just hit divorce court:
Intel says it no longer will support One Laptop Per Child, and has resigned from the board over the nonprofit's demand that it stop selling its Classmate laptop and other laptops in the developing world. Intel says it has canceled plans for an Intel-based OLPC laptop.
Now am I the only one who saw that coming since July?

Did OLPC really think it was going to stop Intel for selling Classmate PC's when it's AMD-powered device was making inroads into the developing world? And to think it would do so for anyone, for or non-profit, goes against every stock option Intel ever granted.

And did OLPC think it was going to convince Intel to stop "other laptops" (the Asus Eee PC?) from appearing? That goes against the hyper-competitive nature of the entire Silicon Valley, and even OLPC's original mission statement.

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

classmate pc olpc xo
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.

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Posted on December 09, 2007 by Guest Writer in Use Cases: Business, Sales Talk: Competition

Nigeria OLPC
OLPC target XO user
I am Carolyn Turbyfill. I believe the OLPC project is one of truly good intentions. It has also become a disruptive technology in a wonderful way.

Now there are two issues floating around the One Laptop Per Child community that have legitimately engendered debate.
  • What is the proper product for the OLPC target customer?
  • What distribution channel is the best way to get laptops to the target customer?
The first question is epistemological question. Do you truly understand the target customer? What infrastructure does the customer have in his environment? I'd love to get some transcripts of first hand interviews with children who are using the laptops and what they think.

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Posted on December 04, 2007 by Guest Writer in Sales Talk: Competition, Use Cases: Education, Sales Talk: Intel

classmate pc usa
Intel's Classmate PC
Intel is now piloting its in several U.S. schools. Three of us from the University of California, Irvine visited Newport Heights Elementary in Newport Beach, California. The school was provided with 70 Classmate PCs to use in two classrooms - a sixth grade class and a fifth grade class - for a pilot study to take place from November 2007 to March 2008. Following the pilot study in this and other schools in the U.S. and other countries, the Classmate PC will supposedly go on the market.

Intel provided 70 Classmate PCs, 2 power cords each computer (so one could be kept at school and one at the students' homes), slim blue rubber wrap-around cases for each Classmate, and an Intel knapsack for each Classmate. I was told that the Classmates came with a 40GB hard drive (and that a flash drive version of the Classmate had been abandoned after an earlier trial); 504k of RAM, and licenses for Microsoft Office (which was installed on the computers).

It is powered by an Intel Celeron microprocessor. The computer has no CD or DVD drive; a small, low-resolution screen; and a small keyboard. Otherwise, it appears to be a fully functioning low-end Wintel notebook computer. Intel reports the battery life as four hours, and the teachers told me that they had as of yet had no problems with the batteries.

During our two-hour visit to the school, we visited the two classrooms using the Classmates, spoke with the teachers and students, tried out a Classmate, and spoke with administrators and technology coordinators at the school and district. Students at the school had been using the Classmates for about a week and had taken them home a couple of times.

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Posted on November 30, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Competition, Countries: India, Sales Talk: Intel


Can't we all just get along?
ICT4Dev expert Cheri Voisine has just found an interesting paragraph in an Economic Times article about One Laptop Per Child's tumulus relationship with Intel Corporation:
Intel, which has its own low-cost laptops called Classmate PC, became an OLPC member in July this year. Consequently, a clear demarcation has been agreed upon by OLPC and Intel, according to which the XO laptop will cater to students in class I-VI while Intel’s Classmate PC will cater to students in the classes above that.
Could this be the way Nichols Negroponte plans to create peace with OLPC? Divide-up the educational laptop market in India with Intel.

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Posted on November 28, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Competition, Sales Talk: Intel, Commentary: Press, Laptops: XO-1

Do you remember Nicholas Negroponte's arrogant resistance to competition in the WSJ OLPC smackdown?
At a meeting this month in Cambridge, Mass., with representatives of Macedonia's government, Mr. Negroponte balked at authorizing a pilot project there after learning that officials also were considering testing the Classmate. He told them he didn't want to participate in a "bake-off."
laptop bake off
Low cost computing bake off
Despite Negroponte's aversion to pilot testing the kids over at Laptop Mag took matters into their own hands with a OLPC XO vs. Asus Eee PC 701 bake off of their very own. Here's the crib sheet results:

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