Lessons To Learn From The OLPC Project 261
FixedSpelling writes "Whether you're impressed with it or not, the XO-1 could have a major impact on notebook design. The concept behind the OLPC's development brings outside-the-box thinking and cost-consciousness to a level that we rarely see in portable computing. There are a number of lessons that can be learned the from its unique design and we can already see that some of these concepts have been noticed by manufacturers. 'The biggest attraction to the OLPC project has always been the price of the system. You don't have to be a cynic to understand that the impact of a $100 notebook could be huge and the price has generated the majority of the interest in the project. Notebooks break, they get lost, and they are replaced frequently, so the cheaper, the better. The low price was originally important so that the XO-1 could be produced in large quantities without putting too much of a burden on the buyer but the low cost appeals to everyone.'"
Crank it up (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe they should have patented it all (Score:2, Insightful)
How do you get one of these? (Score:1, Insightful)
"Notebooks break, they get lost, ...." (Score:1, Insightful)
my favorite lesson (Score:5, Insightful)
If I could buy a pallet of these things and run rdesktop and OpenVPN on them, half of my users would be using them from home.
hell, $100 bucks is cheaper than my friggin blackberry! and i bet it doesn't get confused when you throw anything but txt based email at it!
One thing I learned ... (Score:1, Insightful)
The $175 Laptop (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:first post (Score:3, Insightful)
I know that Slashdot prides itself on not filtering user submissions. But as long as Slashdot refers to its... its... ermmmm... people who hit the approve button as editors, they should be held to editorial standards.
Re:The $175 Laptop (Score:3, Insightful)
Somehow, I suspect by the time OLPC manages to research its way into a $100 laptop for kids, the majors will be beating down the doors with the same product. Oh, well. Best of luck to 'em anyway.
Re:One ? per child? (Score:3, Insightful)
To me, sounds like they just went with tech-jargon-BS and said that the computer is the best way to move to a better education.
I must of missed it, can you show me where they say a computer is the best way to improve education?
If all the money they spent, and want to spend, on 3rd-world education went to just.. um... BOOKS, then they would have probably accomplished twice their goal by now.
Text books in the Third World are expensive, especially when they have to be replace yearly do to editing of corrections and updating them. With a net connection an e-book on a laptop these can easily, quickly, and cheaply. A child have even be able to carry a number of e-books on one XO, then when they finish one class the text used can be placed with new text. Then you can have not just one BOOK but a bunch of BOOKS.
FalconRe:first post (Score:3, Insightful)
If I want RIAA, ISP, RAM, OLPC, etc. to be spelled out for me I'd go read news sites geared toward the general public.
Re:Power & display (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:my favorite lesson (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I have a comment: Games are what Bootcamp is for.
For everything else on the list - video rendering, high-res photo-editing, music production - you want to boot right back into OS X.
Wireless Mesh Network! (Score:1, Insightful)
very few people DO any of that whizbang stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:the lesson is: you probably don't need a laptop (Score:1, Insightful)
Translation: you've never actually seen one.
Re:But they aren't $100 genius (Score:3, Insightful)
This project is a scam. If the goal is to teach kids about computers, there are much cheaper, and far more durable ways to do it. I can't find it know, but when the "$100" PC was first announced, I went out and priced what it would cost to build a PC based around a C64 as a core, and I could get the parts RETAIL in single unit prices for ~$90. The only thing that was not included was the wireless networking, but it did include the hand crank, as the DTV (C64) runs off of 4 AA batteries. It shouldn't be that hard to generate 6 volts with a hand crank.
How stupid can people here be? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it is not better. It does have more RAM, a faster CPU and a larger disk. However, it does not have a 24 hour battery life, the ability to run without a mains supply, a rugged design that will allow it to last a long time in a tough environment or a screen which will work in direct sunlight. It also doesn't generare oits of heat, so it doesn't need one of those awful laptop CPU fans which are so unreliable on low end machines.
So yeah, you get lower speed specs, but you get other much higher specs instead. And it's still 1/4 of the price or 1/3 or whatever the price ends up being.
So, no that $400 Dell is not even nearly equivalent. Come to think of it that $4000 Dell isn't equivalent either. Something with that portability, ruggedness and battery life would be vastly more useful to a lot of people than a high end, high power, fragile and very expensive computer.
Remember, a computer is more than just the CPU speed.
Re:File the OLPC as TNBT under old news.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I like being able to write a school report on the bus home at weekends. I like being able to mess with my photos at my parent's rural house which only has dial-up. I like having tens of useful little apps locally, just for when I need them. I like not being beholden to some companies server for access to vital data, and I'm sure many here agree with me - for every program that uses an open standard, 2 more use their own. At least now if Apple stops making Pages, I can export to txt, or docx, or whatever I need to keep working. Some server goes down? Then perhaps I get notice, export to another format. Maybe I can't, or maybe the crash happens at an inopportune time - "Sorry that you need to finish your presentation today, we'll be back up soon"...
For a look at how people react to software as a service. Apple releases iPhone, all non-standard apps as services. Internet goes crazy, hacks emerge, major sites lambast Apple for screwing customers. And this was a phone! Can you imagine if someone releases a laptop that needs a net connection to ensure basic functionality!
Finally the bandwidth costs would surely destroy a whole lot of popular non-commercial programs. Think to who promotes this idea at all - big companies like Microsoft, Adobe. They can afford (and charge for) online apps. The GIMP? OpenOffice? How long would donations keep these projects alive if people were constantly streaming data from their sites?
So, if local applications, with no latency, fast HD access, and true control of my data are "for the left-behinds", then consider me left behind, and happy with it.
e-books (Score:5, Insightful)
I've seen very few textbooks released in e-book format; most of the ones I have seen were in very specialized subjects and released under the GNU FDL.
Do you live in the Third World? They are most useful there, however they are used elsewhere. U Penn [upenn.edu] list more than 25,000 e-books. The University of Texas [utexas.edu] lists more. Those are just the first 2 results of a Google of e-books "text books" [google.com], which lists almost 25,000 results. Of the XO ZDNet" [zdnet.com] has this to say:
"Assuming this device can survive its harsh environment and continue to function over a period of a half-dozen or more years (still a stretch, in my estimation), a single lightweight (but rugged) device, could easily outlast 100 textbooks in a hot and humid environment. And, by any measure, a $100 laptop equipped with 100 electronic textbooks could be worth its weight in gold in such a third-world setting."
FalconRe:my favorite lesson (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Are you going to try the twofer offer? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:All of this could be ripped off... (Score:2, Insightful)
This is similar to public schools. Public schools are justified here in the us by noting that while capitalistically, only the child or parent should pay for the child's schooling, having an educated workforce (and something better than completely uneducated morons surrounding you) is a benefit to everyone.
Public roads come from tax dollars you pay, regardless of whether YOU will use a particular road or not. Per strict Capitalism, all roads should be toll roads. Still, whether you use a road or not, it benefits you to have the server at your favorite restaurant able to get there to serve you.
The US isn't purely capitalistic, nor should it be. The US is about 1 thing: promoting the good of the majority of the people of the US above all else, with a hamstrung government unable to act seriously against its people (consider why we split off from England / exist as a country). While too often it doesn't work that way these days, the government is supposed to be FOR THE PEOPLE. Not for Capitalism and not for Socialism. We are largely Capitalistic, and should be, because it allows us to enjoy the fruit of our own labor. Not all things are best handled this way though. It's better to have a single army, than to have all 50 states privately contract out defense squads as needed.
We recognize that libraries, while socialistic in nature serve a useful purpose.
OLPC isn't about undermining the idea that people should work for what they want, and that the best idea should win through competition (which we've seen doesn't always work that way in the US, due to patent / lawsuit craziness). OLPC is meant to take groups of people too far down to join into the global market, building them up to be capable of taking their part in it. The strict Capatilistic thing to do is to loan them $, forclose on their land and kick them off to die pennilessly. Welfare was meant as a hand up, not a hand out.
Essentially, OLPC is a good idea. It may or may not be the idea needed at the moment by the countries it's going to, but if it works as it's supposed to it will increase the number of players in the global market. For the most part these PCs aren't being just "given" away either. The government of whatever country they are for is buying them, just like they would schoolbooks. Do you disagree with desktop computers in our schools? I'm not sure, but I expect when the child graduates, these PCs are expected to be returned to the school to be sent home with the next child. Since these are still government bought (like Uncle Sam buying jets to keep you safe on your behalf) I'd say this is no more / less Socialistic than our military. Let's also consider that this isn't robbing Gateway of any laptop sales. The people who will be using these PCs are not in a position where they could buy a laptop.
If for no other reason, OLPC deserves a nod for promoting R&D. The current computer industry scoffs as efficiency (or at least the major OS market) preferring to use raw computing power as the answer to everything. In a working Capitalistic system, OSes would be FORCED to compete on efficiency. That this isn't happening suggests we don't have a PROPERLY WORKING Capitalistic system applying to the OS market. Increasing Internet speeds and Google's ambitions will probably eventually remedy this, but having a system built on efficiency out there is a step in the right direction for promoting Capitalism / competition.
Socialism isn't inherently evil, but left unchecked doesn't work well. The same can be said about Capitalism, which taken to an extreme isn't much better. Socialism and Capitalism don't exist in a vacuum, they're two ends of a scale, and while it seems to pay off to favor the Capitalism side, goi
you can just contribute $200 and defer taking one (Score:2, Insightful)
Any implication that the OLTP gang would just cluelessly hand out the laptops where there are cultural, infrastructure, or other impediments to their good use is, well, clueless. The OLTP folks are far more versed in the realities in the field, in each country that will get laptops, than some arm-chair critic. This is true of most NGOs. They work with locals, and they know what's going on, and they know how to get the best possible results under the circumstances. They care. People who don't care don't go to work for them, because the NGOs count on that caring to get workers who will settle for lower pay than their skill set would command working for industry. This frees up money to apply to their cause which -- guess what? -- they really care about.
It's interesting how people project their own lack of understanding onto others. I see this all the time, especially when I compare the depth of understanding that functionaries in the government of the USA have with the amateurs who criticize policy. Policy is sometimes a step in the wrong direction and the peanut gallery is occasionally correct, but generally the professionals have a perspective that's a thousand times deeper than the I-read-it-in-the-newspaper crowd. Compare the understanding of computers that a professional programmer or net admin has with that of the average user; now admit that the same spread of understanding exists in every other field too. Yeah, even in climate science!