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[News] OLPC is Especially Important Because of the Software (GNU/Linux)

  • Subject: [News] OLPC is Especially Important Because of the Software (GNU/Linux)
  • From: Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 03:23:50 +0000
  • Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • Organization: Netscape / schestowitz.com
  • User-agent: KNode/0.10.4
The XO Laptop: It’s the Software, Stupid

,----[ Quote ]
| Uruguay was the first country to purchase a large number of XO laptops, 
| ordering 100,000 of the small green machines from Cambridge, MA-based One 
| Laptop Per Child Foundation last October. If you dropped a couple thousand 
| bucks on your last laptop, you may be alarmed by the idea of a student taking 
| her brand-new XO into a muddy cow pen and getting up close and personal with 
| a caul-enmeshed calf still shining with amniotic fluid. But to the folks at 
| OLPC, who designed the $175 XO to be rugged and portable, yet powerful, 
| finding the YouTube video was a triumphant moment. This bit of barnyard 
| reality spoke volumes about an often-overlooked aspect of the project—namely, 
| the software, which is designed to overturn old notions of classroom learning 
| and give kids the ability to collaborate and express themselves in many 
| media.           
`----

http://www.xconomy.com/2008/02/01/the-xo-laptop-its-the-software-stupid/

XO Laptop Ebook Reader Demo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKiouWRV3uQ


Related:

Examining the XO Activities and Durability

,----[ Quote ]
| As for their durability, I decided to abuse mine a little bit. I wasn't 
| willing to risk damaging the machine outright, as I still have to work with a 
| handful of children. That means I need a working machine. Still, a 30" drop 
| from my dining room table onto a carpeted floor is a little risky. With the 
| laptop opened up, ears extended, I gave it a bit of a nudge. I watched as it 
| hit and tumbled. It fell screen-first, with the ears simply folding up as 
| they hit the floor. Nothing broke. The screen did not even blink. I just 
| picked it up and kept working. I also did it while it was turned off and 
| closed up. It booted up just fine.        
`----

http://blue-gnu.biz/content/examining_xo_activities_and_durability


Intel: doing the dirty on OLPC

,----[ Quote ] 
| Intel’s agreement with the OLPC Foundation included a ‘non disparagement’ 
| clause, under which Intel and One Laptop promised not to criticize each 
| other, according to Nicholas Negroponte in the latest article in the Wall 
| Street Journal.   
| 
| Still Intel tactics have violated that repeatedly to kill OLPC efforts in 
| Nigeria, Libya, Pakistan, India, China and Intel is also still trying to pull 
| those tactics in Mexico, Brazil.  
| This is simply disgracefull of Intel, scandalous.
| 
| But Negroponte has signed an agreement saying that he is not allowed to 
| criticize Intel, so he is not allowed to talk about these shameless tactics 
| even though Intel is the one violating the agreement.  
| 
| So only independant voices on the Internet can get those messages of truth 
| out about Intels tactics. 
| 
| In Nigeria, Intel came and donated 3000 laptops to counter OLPC efforts, then 
| sells 17 thousand Classmates to Nigeria at a loss. 
| 
| Then Microsoft corrupted Nigerian officials with 400 thousand dollars to 
| install Windows XP on those instead of Mandriva Linux. 
`----

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/14124


Africa's digital poster child [Intel's illegal dumping]

,----[ Quote ]
| [Classmates in Nigeria]
|
| The renovation has been paid for by the government and Intel, with the chip 
| firm covering the majority of the costs of the technology. 
`----               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7115218.stm


Why the XO Laptop is better than the Classmate

,----[ Quote ]
| There's been some awful FUD flying around the OLPC world in the last few 
| days, with misquotes, misinformation, and flat out lies being propagated left 
| and right. Even Engadget, one of the better geektech blogs out there, got it 
| completely wrong regarding OLPC CTO Mary Lou Jepsen's departure from the 
| project.    
| 
| [...]
| 
| Classmate is more expensive, consumes 10 times the power, has 1/3 the wifi 
|              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| range, and can't be used outside. Also, the Classmate doesn't use neighboring 
| laptops to extend the reach of the internet via hopping (mesh-networking) 
| like the XO does. So not only is the XO cheaper than the Classmate, the XO 
| requires less infrastructre expenditure for electricity and for internet 
| access.     
`----

http://planet-geek.com/archives/004331.html


Intel-powered XO is too expensive and consumes too much power

,----[ Quote ]
| 2 days before Intel CEO Paul Otellini would unveil the Classmate 2 or the 
| Intel-powered XO at the CES, Intel announced that they are quitting the OLPC 
| board.  
| 
| Intel claims that they are quitting because of Nicholas Negroponte wanting 
| them to stop the promotion of the Classmate/Eee to education in third world 
| countries, but I think that the real reason is that Intel does not have a 
| good enough processor for the OLPC project to use as an alternative to the 
| AMD Geode LX-700. Intel has not been able to develop a processor to match the 
| price, power consumption and performance requirements of the OLPC project. 
| Paul Otellini could have looked like a fool at the CES if he had to unveil an 
| Intel powered XO that was performing worse in terms of price and power 
| consumption compared to the AMD powered one.        
`----

http://charbax.com/2008/01/04/intel-diamondville-and-menlow-processors-not-low-costpower-enough/


OLPC Heralds Era of Low-Cost Computing

,----[ Quote
| Critics of the One-Laptop-Per-Child (OLPC) Project like to point out that it 
| has not yet lived up to its goal of putting US$100 notebooks in the hands of 
| millions of kids in poor countries, but that's a short-sighted view 
| considering the impact it's already having on the computer industry.   
| 
| OLPC's XO laptop and the dream of the $100 notebook PC have driven down the 
| cost of computing and highlighted the issue of the lack of computing 
| resources in developing nations.  
`----

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140697-c,notebooks/article.html


One Laptop Per Child Gets The Green Light in India

,----[ Quote ]
| India may have been a late starter in adopting the powerful computer-based 
| education program One Laptop Per Child (popularly known as OLPC), a 
| brainchild of MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte to bridge the technology 
| divide between rich and the poor children in the developing world.   
`----

http://www.govtech.com/gt/216153?topic=118264


Birmingham City Schools will be first in nation to get $200 XO laptops

,----[ Quote ]
| Birmingham city schools will be the first in the nation to receive laptop 
| computers designed for children in third-world countries under an agreement 
| completed over the weekend, Mayor Larry Langford announced Monday.  
`----

http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2007/12/birmingham_city_schools_will_b.html


Birmingham might buy thousands of XO Laptop computers for students in grades
one through eight

,----[ Quote ]
| The machines don't run Microsoft Office, Photoshop or any other standard Mac 
| or Windows programs, instead using a free, open-source version of GNU/Linux, 
| with a simplified graphical interface designed for children called Sugar. The 
| laptop has a 500-megahertz processor and 256 megabytes of DRAM (dynamic 
| random access memory) with 1 gigabyte of flash memory. The laptops have Web 
| browsers and their own Wi-Fi system, the ability to connect to the Internet 
| wirelessly. Each is on a "mesh network," meaning all the laptops can see each 
| other, without any setup, even if there is no wireless connection nearby.       
`----

http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1195463987242670.xml&coll=2&thispage=1


One laptop per child finds way into India

,----[ Quote ]
| The one laptop per child (OLPC) project, a brainchild of MIT professor 
| Nicholas Negroponte, will soon find its way into Indian homes.  
`----

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Hardware/One_laptop_per_child_finds_way_into_India/articleshow/2583239.cms


$100 laptop program still eyes India

,----[ Quote ]
| The so-called $100 laptops for children may make it to India after all.
`----

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/ptech/10/25/100.laptop.india.ap/index.html


OLPC makes its entry into India - finally!

,----[ Quote ]
| When the OLPC first made news, a prominent official in the HRD ministry of 
| the Indian government had gone on record snubbing the OLPC project ($100 
| laptop), even making a preposterous claim that work was under way to create 
| India's own $10 laptop. But as things have worked out, OLPC has already made 
| an entry into India in the form of a pilot project in a rural primary school 
| in a village in the state of Maharasthra.     
`----

http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com/2007/11/olpc-makes-its-entry-into-india-finally.html

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