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1 Million OLPCs Already On Order
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Feb 15, 2007 04:22 PM
from the lots-of-happy-kids dept.
from the lots-of-happy-kids dept.
alphadogg writes "Quanta Computer has confirmed orders for 1 million notebook PCs for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. The article goes into some background on the project, and lays out the enthusiastic adoption that the project is seeing overseas. The company estimates they'll ship somewhere between 5 and 10 Million units this year, with 7 countries already signed up to receive units. The machines currently cost $130, but with that kind of volume the original goal of $100 a machine may be viable. Even with the low cost, Quanta expects to make a small profit on each machine, making charity work that much easier."
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I Want One (Score:5, Interesting)
I still want one bad. I want them to sell them to geeks like us. I've thought of a few ideas on that front:
My only hope that I know of right now is a contest [olpcnews.com] to design a game for them in which you can win an OLPC.
I really want one. I want it I want it I want it I want it I want it...
Can't wait to see what kind of cool things people do with these little laptops.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Early on in this project I thought the public would be able to buy one at an inflated price (something like $300), the inflated portion of which would be used to send more laptops to more kids.
OLPC can make mine any color they want and I'd happily give them 3x their cost today. I'd buy two or three for myself at that price if it helped further the project's aim.
Re:I Want One (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
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Laptops are distributed to villiage in
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Good news folks: I was mistaken and everything will be fine!
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Why NOT sell them commercially? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the OLPC project is making a huge mistake if they don't throw these laptops onto the commercial market, for anyone to buy.
Why? Because of the economies of scale, and extra funds raised. These laptops get cheaper the more you make. If you can sell another hundred thousand of them on the commercial market, produced numbers go up the same. Whatever number you were producing before, these will become cheaper as a result. Perhaps just a little, but when you're aiming for a $100 laptop, everything helps.
Secondly, you can sell them commercially for more, make a profit, and use that profit to give the charity/education part of the project a boost. Others have suggested to double the (commercial) price, and use it to send an extra laptop to developing nations. I think maybe extra funds would be better used for supporting OLPC's already out there, for example by supporting communication infrastructure, software projects targeting the OLPC, or developing new uses/markets for these machines.
And yes, I'd like one too. And not just geeks, I think this would be a perfect tool for grandma's and some percentage of ordinary home PC users. To many people, a PC is still a massive, complex, and intimidating machine. The $100 laptop is smaller, quieter, energy-efficient, likely more secure, and simpler to use. Limited in power/storage, but sufficient for many tasks. Perfect for young kids, to read recipes on in the kitchen, check your e-mail, look up a word for a crossword puzzle, or play a game of Tetris on the train. Why again are these $100 laptops NOT sold to everyone who wants one?
--
I'll have one in semi-transparent purple, with a couple of Gig more flash memory, thanks. Interested to serve as local reseller/support in my area.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
When you order from Dell take a look at what they charge for shipping, I was going to pay 15
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Eureka! The Missing Step! (Score:2, Funny)
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Spam (Score:4, Funny)
Great! (Score:4, Funny)
The Equal Opportunity World of the Future (Score:4, Interesting)
What age are these targetted at? I honestly feel that, at least here in the US, computers are already too prevelant at the elementary level. Teaching kids computer skills is a noble goal, but IMO, not one they're ready for until, say, grade 9-ish.
What ends up happening is they teach the kid to use a crutch. Instead of practicing arithmetic, they let kids in grade 3 (!) just use calculators. My kids only know the times tables because I *made* them learn it. Flashcards and practice, just like I did (I had a hard time with it too). They already forgive me for it. My son is seen as a "math prodigy", to use his teachers words - and quite frankly (not to denigrate him), his abilities are what I would consider average for his age. He isn't like moved on to precalculus on his own, or anything like that. He can add, subtract, multiply and divide simple numbers in his head. This makes him a prodigy in the modern US education system. ouch.
Repeat for spelling. The school could give a shit. Here's how spelling is taught - "OK KIDS, CLICK SPELL CHECK". They're, there, their, who cares.
Eventually, yes, computer skills become important, fundamental even. I just worry how they're to be used in class, that's all. I sure hope they aren't going to be expected to replace teachers, and I hope budget-strapped schools favor good staff over 100 dollar laptops.
"One Laptop Per Child" just sounds so much like "No Child Left Behind" the mere association makes me raise an eyebrow.
In the long run, though, it could be good for the US, if we can make the rest of the worlds children as stupid and ill-prepared as our own. The question is, how to instill that false sense of entitlement in kids around the world.
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Look, you laugh (I hope your post was just a joke and meant as a valid point), but it's true.
I can't spell all that well, I've always known that. My grammar skills are similarly lacking. But I can do math.
My little sister (14) can't. She can't spell (a family trait compounded by computer use since she was little thanks to the "computers are the magic bullet" theory of modern education). I suspect her grammar is similar (I haven't read a paper she has written in a long time).
But her Math skills are terrib
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Are you better off knowing how to divide 72 by 9 in your head? Sure, when it comes up in daily life it's handy not to have to reach for the calculator.
However, with the energy that you and I once applied to rote memorization of multiplication tables, some of those kids could be learn
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I agree that the computers in the US are largely wasted. But there are a few things to remember. First is that computers are taught as something you need to get a job. You won't get a job if you can't use Word and Outlook and Powerpoint (so the theory seems) so they teach them. They are basically the replacement of the typing classes that they gave in the 60s and 70s. In the areas where these are going to be distributed that's not the case (I'm guessing). Computers in education in the US exist so little Joh
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I had to memorize the "times tables" in grade school. I came away from my education grasping about as much meaning as the kid with a calculator. All the finger-wagging old farts have been fucking up math education for more than a hundred years, so I can hardly see how technology could do more damage.
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These laptops can connect to the net, sure... but I think the main network they'll be acessing is the mesh network formed by the other kid's laptops.
Also, they access internet trougth a gateway placed at the local school, a simple content filter for squid-proxy like Dans-Guardian or Chastity will do the trick. They can filter who can access the internet by filtering MAC or IP addresses, so the laptops owned by children under a centain age wouldn't pass.
These laptops won't be directly connected to the i
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Perhaps you need to stop hanging around so many stupid people. That, or learn a little patience and tolerance.
Think back to your school days. How many of your cla
Charity or Profit Center? (Score:2, Interesting)
Quanta expects to make a small profit on each machine, making charity work that much easier.
Can it still be considered Charity [wikipedia.org] if one is making a Profit [wikipedia.org]? Does it count as charity if you're just not making as much profit as you'd like?
Seems to me that they're confused.Depends on where the profit goes (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Making things for a nonprofit doesn't make you one (Score:4, Insightful)
Frankly, if Quanta wasn't making at least *something* on each, there would be a solid business reason *not* to build them for OLPC.
Parent
I can use a small stack at home (Score:4, Informative)
-Universal remote
-home automation
-kids games
-nursing room monitor
-Entrance door camera/display/speaker/mic
-Asterisk PBX
-Picture frame for grandma
-etc
An even Better Use (Score:3, Interesting)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6364301.stm [bbc.co.uk]
They're cheap, take a lot of punishment, automatically form ad-hoc wifi meshes, and can be recharged via hand cranking or solar power. With a firmware add-on and an emergency mode switch they could be used for emergency broadcast, first responder requests, and local disaster coordination.
Toss on a dirt cheap low power cellphone GPS for location awareness, and implement traffic control (and using compressed text messages) t
incoming compulsory post: (Score:2)
The Right Way To Use Moore's Law (Score:5, Interesting)
just call it the 99 EUR laptop (Score:5, Funny)
Poor guys, where so unlucky, who would have thought back then that Bush would sunk the dollar with his toy wars? I'd recommend them to switch their pricing to a solid, stable currency which enables them to express their price in the usual x99 format. For example the Euro. According to Saint Google:
130 U.S. dollars = 99.3807813 Euros [google.com]
Meaningless currency notes (Score:3, Insightful)
Really, this kind of comment is rather meaningless for a product that will ship to countries outside of the US. The rise in relative price from $100 to $130 could just reflect the decline in the $US [x-rates.com] on International exchange markets.
Gee, Brain, what are we going to do tonight? (Score:3, Funny)
Serious Question: Why don't /. posters get it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Just as in the US, there is a huge range of material wealth everywhere in the world. There are a few pits of horrible moral and material deprivation, and there are a few globules of excessive wealth, but, just as in the US, most people live in the in-between.
The OLPC is intended to fit into this in-between. People and their children who have sufficient, but not an excess of, food, and a simple roof over their heads. The OLPC is NOT primarily intended to be used to teach children how to use computers. It is primarily to be used as an extra to, and to some extent a replacement for, good old fashioned printed books, which are, for the target communities, extremely expensive. Your 99 Euro machine is about the same price as the books needed for a child for only a year or two. After that you are saving money.
Exactly what is it about the above that is so difficult to understand?
And yes, I do think that the OLPC should be sold unsupported on ebay, with anything over the basic $130 being counted as a charitable donation. ebay ones should be any colour as long as they're black. Don't worry about support. That would grow organically as needed, and the network wireless mesh would fix the 'last kilometre' internet access problem.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right. Just think of all those Bank of America accounts waiting to be robbed. Or the PayPal accounts. Or...
I don't think this will be a big problem. I don't think these children would be good phishing targets when relatively rich Americans, Europeans, etc are such easy targets.
Targets? (Score:2, Insightful)
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I don't agree with most people's numbers. Not
Re:I don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
These laptops aren't for areas where there is mass starvation. It's for areas where people can, generally, feed themselves and get by okay but that's about it. Educating these children with computers so they can get a bit of a leg up on their parents would serve them to help areas in their country that *do* have starving people.
Parent
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I don't get it.
That makes me think you haven't traveled much.
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Ways that computer educated masses will help their more unfortunate brethren:
1. Some societies actually -help- one another if they have the means. I know it may seem like an alien concept, but it does happen.
2. Forget the altruism
If you have a bunch of kids that were never trained in computers during adolescence, they're less likely to develop computer skills that could actually get them employed in the future. Even if
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
He may have been a bum, but he damn sure wasn't starving. He may have been hungry, but he wasn't starving. He may not have eaten in days, but he wasn't starving. If you saw him on a street in the US, he wasn't starving.
Re:I don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
In most areas in the world where children are starving and/or are illterate, it has nothing to do with people "not possess[ing] enough basic intelligence to feed themselves or create schools".
If not troll, then flamebait or "insensitive clod" (which is being overly nice) might apply.
Parent
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Re:I don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
People think of "all the starving children" in Africa (and yes, there are many) but neglect to think about all the not-starving-but-not-getting-ahead children in developing countries. The OLPC gamble is to raise up the standard of living that part of the population and hope that trickle-down economics will raise the standard elsewhere. If the OLPC makes education easier (or more compatible with the 21st century), the result might well be a general improvement in standards of living in the developing world.
Parent
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If a child is starving and illiterate, because he lives in an area where the people do not possess enough basic intelligence to feed themselves or create schools, what good is a computer?
Not many communities are made up exclusively of starving illiterate children.
The kids that are terminally ill and too weak to benefit from a computer usually die sooner rather than later. It is the kids who are doing a little better, merely impoverished and frustrated, who will benefit from the education programs
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Anyway, I think the most powerful and wonderful possiblity of these devices is having access to the larger world of knowledge that we take for granted on the internet. Even if all they had was
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Some perspective from the field (Score:5, Insightful)
The way I see your misunderstanding here is that you're not seeing the range of development that exists throughout the world. International development efforts that have been going on for the last 60-70 years have produced some results. Here's an example of that range of development: one of the countries who has signed up is Brazil. I don't think I've heard any news lately about starving in Brazil. And for other parts of the world without as many resources as Brazil, the level of development, be it food distribution, levels of employment or availability of education varies greatly depending on what part of that country you might be in.
I'll give an example from Malawi, a country that's been in the news lately because of Madonna. I have been there a couple times and have family and lots of friends there. A child in the lower Shire valley may have parents who are subsistence farmers, be very susceptible to food shortages due to fluctuations in weather and not have a very functional school, or not be able to afford school fees.
However, a child in or around Lilongwe, Blantrye, Limbe or Mulangi may have one or more members of his extended family with a steady job, and enough money to put food on the table and live in a house with clean running water. The child is likely to go to a school Monday through Friday and Saturday mornings, too. Problem is, the education materials are not available to give this child a very good education. There may not be enough books to go around. The books might be poorly written or just too old to have good information in them. The school might not teach certain subjects because the materials are not available. Forget about a library. And, the school certainly doesn't have a computer lab.
This is where the OLPC computers shine. They're text books, research tools, communication and collaboration devices and, a technology education. I think the cost-benefit ratio makes them a good deal. They're not getting air-lifted by the Red Cross to Darfur refugees. But they are something a Minister of Education can put into his budget, along with proper funding for training and maintenance.
I hope this helps put their efforts into perspective.
Parent
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