Lessons To Learn From The OLPC Project

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

[mastershake_phd]

I like the crank. If only I could power my laptop, cell phone, etc that way.

Re:

[Jeffrey Baker]

The OLPC no longer has the crank. It can be charged by solar or by a pull-string charger but unless you have your own crank, you can't charge it that way.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

>The OLPC no longer has the crank. It can be charged by solar or by a pull-string charger but unless you have your own crank, you can't charge it that way.

I have my own pull-string, or it can operate as a crank. Any women interested in charging it?

Re:Crank it up

[MyLongNickName]

Any women interested in charging it?

Only women interested in charging you would be interested in charging it if you get my drift.

Re:

[shanen]

My own crank? Sounds like a boss I worked for some years ago...

How complicated will it be to get a suitable crank? I'm wondering if there will be a big market for accessories for this thing.

here ya go

[zogger]

You might like some of the stuff these guys make [freeplayenergy.com], including a universal human powered charger for small gadgets. We have a couple of their things, the original crank and spring (clockwork) powered multiband radio, and a later, crank to generator model, excellent build quality there. The OLPC guys are still contemplating going with their foot pedal push generator thing, along with the yo yo string puller last I heard.

Re:Crank it up

[GTMoogle]

It's intended to be able to charge other things through usb.

And the pullstring is better than a crank because you can put your foot through it and just keep tapping while you work.

Maybe they should have patented it all

[pembo13]

And then used the money to lower the price. Not something I would personally do, but seems like a popular fad.

Re:

[White Flame]

I see a flaw in your plans: Patents don't actually bring in money [slashdot.org].

Re:Maybe they should have patented it all

[TheRaven64]

Their actual plan is almost the exact opposite of this. By making all of the source code and designs available under a permissive license, they hope other people will start building them. If your country getting good use out of OLPC units? Build a factory to produce any new ones you need, employ local people, and get a workforce that's trained in laptop assembly, educational software development, and so on.

Re:Maybe they should have patented it all

[hax0r_this]

There is a tremendous amount to patent, but I don't think the OLPC project owns the rights to most of it. Six hour battery life for active use, closer to 24 just using the screen in black and white to read. Pull the string for 1 minute and you get 10 minutes of use. The interface is totally different than anything I have ever used before. A tremendous amount of innovation went into these laptops, and whether I think the project will "succeed" or not, everyone who worked on this project has my respect.

Re:

[zippthorne]

You can't patent "using low power to conserve battery" or "using an appropriate battery size" or the more scummy, "increasing DoD to give longer cycles at a cost of cycle-life." Those aren't things you do, they're design choices that every device that uses battery power must make.

my favorite lesson

[blhack]

The greatest lesson to be learned from this is that not everyone thinks that a super, ultra, mega, turbo powerful and equally as powerful processor is what they need. It was exactly what i was telling somebody at work today. If you are into playing games, rendering video, editing really hi-res photos, or doing music editing...need a REALLY powerful machine, with a LOT of ram (actually if you are doing any of these as your job, you should probably be using a mac). However, if you are like me, and your laptop is more or less a thin client that connects to other machines via either Remote Desktop or SSH, then the cheapest, most durable, lightest, and most efficient laptop is EXACTLY what you need.

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!

Re:

[_Sharp'r_]

$100 bucks is cheaper than my friggin blackberry!

Of course, the main problem is that to own one as a US citizen, you apparently need to pay more like $400 [olpcnews.com].

And for $400, you can get a nicer laptop online or even at your local walmart [walmart.com].

Wake me up again when I could actually buy them for a non-profit charter public charter school for $100, or even $150 each.

Re:

[Frosty Piss]

And here is exactly the problem: It's NOT a $100 laptop. All the press and all the promo advertises a $100 - $150 machine. Clearly that has never been so unless the distributor sells it below cost, in which case, so what?

Re:

[Hymer]

You pay $400 for two OLPC's... if you don't like the idea of supporting the project then just don't buy it.

Re:

[_Sharp'r_]

The problem I have is that I am currently in the position of needing to buy a few hundred computers for little kids in Elementary School and Junior High in one of the lowest funded and poorest rural parts of the country. Any money that I can save on those computers will be used to hire additional teacher aides or purchase additional library books instead.

If the OLPC people allowed schools to buy the OLPC for it's current $200 cost in order to use it in a non-profit "for the kids" environment, they might act

Bull

[MikShapi]

I call bullshit.

First, if you go about recommending peoeple build their game rigs around macs, I hope they have the sense to tell you you're talking shit. Video editing - maybe, and picassa looks exactly the same on windows and mac, which is what most people nowadays are happy to use rather than face Photoshop's steep learning-curve and/or price.

Second, I too am a sysadmin, and I too use my lappie for things that can be done by a 700MHz P3 like RDP and SSH.

HOWEVER, and this is where you're off the mark by a

Re:

[1u3hr]

And I haven't even mentioned a word about *carrying* (for those that actually take their machine with them) around a frigging battle cruiser, which is what cheap typically amounts to.

The OLPC weighs 1.5 kg.

Re:

[MikShapi]

The OLPC wasn't the issue of what I was saying. I didn't say the OLPC is too heavy. The GP said people don't need what's being sold today as it's overpowered, and that dirt-cheap stuff can do just as fine, and I countered, saying that whereas above-dirt-cheap stuff is indeed overpowered cpuwise, it nevertheless offers value to casual users through other things dirt-cheap-stuff doesn't.

OLPC is a niche (very large niche, mind you) product that would have relatively limited use to most westernets, compared to

Todays comp-enviroments are pure luxury.

[Qbertino]

The equivalent of an Asus EEE running DR-DOS, a pimped GEOS, WordPro, Lotus 123, PINE and some ancient version of Corel Draw will do 90% of your standard desktop work at a speed one hasn't even dreamed of. It's because nowadays we run upwards of 5-7 extreme performance hogs at a time on regular PCs today without even thinking twice about it. Decoding MP3s, millions of desktop colors, workplace shells chewing so much RAM and CPU it's insane, running huge apps on top of Java, Mozilla/XUL, .Net or toolkits of

Re:dude, shift your paradigms

[MikShapi]

Ah, intelligent debate. Beautiful.

The mac mafia can blow me. There's things that macs do well, and there's things that they don't. PC's can edit video too. We say macs are preferable because it is nicer to do on a mac. And just like you can run photoshop or premiere on a PC, you can run some games on a mac. If you go through more than two games in a year, however, and don't want to be specifically choosing them off a somewhat narrow mac compatibility list, XP is the 99.9% compatible platforms for games, macs (maybe) coming in as a distant second. Recommending a mac for gaming is bad religion-driven advice, aimed to cynically use your "geek" status to bolster the ranks of your religion rather than do good to whoever is being advised.

Now, back to the topic:
1. I *import and resell* miniITX and nanoITX kit. You're preaching to the quire. I know damn well what a supposedly "underpowered" box can do, be you running gentoo, OpenBSD, or even woe and behold, Vista.

2. UMPC's are still immature, especially and specifically the sub-400$ ones. I'm VERY MUCH looking to some ultracheap yet seriously expandable platforms and reasonably powered (a 1GHz C7 or an 800MHz dothan is VERY reasonable).

Thing is, one can get VERY cheap biggest and fastest:
[a] CF cards
[b] miniPCI wireless cards
[c] SODIMM RAM any size you care to want
[d] miniPCI Wireless cellular cards
on ebay.

I want UMPCs where you can plug a mountain of the above, plus a USIM.

Now, to my point:
I claim this is a FASLE STATEMENT: If average joe doesn't need power [gaming/video/other-crunching], one such UMPC is all he needs.
NOT the reasoning: because it has too little CPU/RAM/Disk (most can be upgraded most of the time anyway if he REALLY wants Vista)
The reasoning:
[a] Joe may not want to have a desktop monitor, may want to stay productive on the go, and may still want a humane resolution to be looking at. That spells bye-bye 8'' screen, bye-bye UMPC pricetag, aka bye-bye UMPC, enter 12'' ultraportables and bigger which spell what-we-already-have, and if you want SERIOUS resolution (Thinkpad X6* Tablet or Toshiba M200 do SXGA+), you have to cough up some serious dough.

Moral: SCREENS COST BIG MONEY, and are pro'lly the BIG influence behind the price drop from ultraportables to UMPCs.

[b] Joe may not want a one hour battery. Small UMPC form factor is nice and cute, but the power consumption of that redesigned-into-a-laptop miniITX or Intel rig is the same as what the bigger ultraportables (or bigger bricks) have. So you have to fit a battery, sized for bigger laptops, on this little thingamajig, to get reasonable off-the-grid time. They don't do that. They give you a smaller battery which lasts less. Joe may not want that.

[c] ... Multiple connectivity (without USB spaghetti hanging out of your machine?) Dual miniPCI slots? Do =400$ boxes have these?

When is the UMPC/"underpowered"-rig enough?
1. When used as a DTR, in conjunction with external substitutes for everything it lacks (USB, monitors..)
2. When used somewhere where resolution and battery are not a factor (Mediacenter PC can do just fine with 800x600. CarPC can do ok with 640x480).
3. When used to run samba, asterisk and rtorrent at home, or maybe pfSense, and all you need (^H^H^H^Hwant) is a console.

My Point: There's more offered by "Overpowered-coal-driven-battle-cruiser" laptops than what UMPCs can provide on more fronts than one, too many to make a one-size-fits-all proclamation that they're all Joe needs. That's a falsity. Circumstantially, it can sometimes be right, but it's not anywhere near a generic recommendation.

As always pending a recommendation, It can't be professionally answered without asking what the user actually needs, and that varies.

Re:dude, shift your paradigms

[DingerX]

(I was GP, but switched to my coal-burner)

Yes: I agree that, if Joe Phishbait's going to have a computer he calls "home", it ain't gonna be some dinky thing with a tiny screen and a clumsy input device.

And, you are right that the current class of UMPCs suffers from poor design choices: they certainly sacrifice the wrong things, and leave other things the same. Putting a smaller battery in it may make a UMPC smaller and lighter, but it reduces its mobility. Using an operating system optimized for driving multiple screens and having multiple windows open at the same time, with lots of pretty animations and effects and a huge memory footprint, may not be the best choice for a handheld device.

But those are two separate issues. Whoever started this is absolutely wrong about the utility of a super-cheap super-portable, insofar as it can replace a "base computer". But, on the other hand, he's right that they can do a lot of the basic tasks, and add portability to the mix. And, for most people, they will fill a need. You know, like a computer in the kitchen.

However, I think you've lost the pack with your need for expandibility. Joe ain't following you there. As you point out, we need to consider the purpose before we select the device. The form of a house is not bricks and wood arranged in a certain manner, but the purpose of providing protection from the elements. Likewise, if you design an UMPC as a low-power CPU, some memory, and a miniPCI-slots stuck inside a small box, you'll end up with today's crop of $1000 one-hour wonders.

The paradigm shift I'm seeing is that we're seeing a new use for computers emerging. Originally, computers were described as a "Lean-forward" system -- games, editing, word processing, whatever, you sat in an upright chair, and leaned in, actively engaged in the thing. Then, with the increase in power, we saw "Lean-back" uses: television (now streaming video), music, and so on. People can sit on couches now, and we're seeing PCs being hooked directly to televisions and running through them. The networking builds up and we see WLANs, mediaservers, and all kinds of cool stuff being used by everybody. But effectively, the same PC can serve as a both a "Lean-forward" and "Lean-back" device: just put a couch behind that office chair. The emergent use I'm seeing gets rid of all this "lean" nonsense altogether: it's the computer you use when you're doing a task that doesn't require constant or intensive interaction with the computer. And many people use their computers this way.

Having the internet on the conference table (among a pile of papers) for easy consultation of reference sources is a tremendous time saver. Need to look something up? grab the tablet and do it. Want to show it to someone else? Pass it around. Want to talk for hours to loved ones in a different country? put the thing in your pocket and go. Out hiking and curious what's over that ridge? bring up the satellite pictures and take a look for yourself. Need to write down detailed notes/instructions in a remote location? unfold the keyboard and go.

In theory, the by the (now $300 with memory cards) n800 can do these things, and if the thing fully worked in practice (aka, if it were not "immature"), it would serve these uses better than a $1000 UMPC or laptop. Battery life largely depends on how long you power the screen: with the screen running, it gives you about four hours (still too short, give me a bigger battery, dammit).

So these devices aren't working yet, and the price is still too high, but when they work, and when they cost around $200 (maybe a third-generation Eee, or a fourth-generation n770, or whatever MontaVista cooks up), they're gonna take up a place alongside desktop and laptop PCs.

But you knew that already.

Re:

[maubp]

You're preaching to the quire
That would be choir (quire?!?), as in the group of indoctrinated youngsters who sing in a church, and are therefore always there ready and willing to listen to the priest doing his preaching.

Re:dude, shift your paradigms

[DingerX]

Well, unless it's a reference to the quire (from the Latin quaternion, originally referring to a gathering of four bifolia, as apposed to a quinternion with five or sexternion with six, now taken by synechdoche to refer to any single gathering of pages; cf. the French cahier) the priest has in front of him, containing his sermon. In that case, I wouldn't be addressing a friendly audience, but rather replying to his post with the substance of his post.

Of course, "preaching to the choir" is the cliche', while "preaching to the quire" would be a novel usage. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Come to think of it, I'm gonna steal "preaching to the quire" for an article on the relationship between oral and written sermons in the XIVth century. Thanks again!

very few people DO any of that whizbang stuff

[victorvodka]

Most people use the web, send email, and word process. I know it's common in Slashdot to talk about your week-long 3D rendering sessions, but the number of people who do that is extremely small. Seriously, I spent some years visiting houses and fixing computers and maybe one person in all those people did stuff with video. I told him to upgrade his RAM from 256 to 512. The point is that one of these basic laptops is ideal for what people really do with their computers, and hardware bloat is just as serious as software bloat (because it makes irrational demands on batteries and heat disposal). Hell, 99% of what I do with a PC can be done on an OLPC. On a related note, Vista was created mostly to give Americans a distorted picture of the hardware they needed to live out their pathetic computational lives, lives that would be satisfied on a Pentium MMX running Windows 98.

Simple hardware can do lots of stuff.

[aliquis]

I love this video for how good it shows how little has actually changed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cxbstn2IZM [youtube.com]

Sure that one doesn't cover web usage, but without stupid Flash it would probably do decent in that area aswell.. Some more ram usage and so on is ok but the current rate and state are ridiculous.

I've used claris works on mac classics and LC IIs myself and I prefered it to works on win 3.11 on the 386s, and for most peoples use it would be sufficient today aswell..

Re:

[stephanruby]

The lesson is clear, here are the actual steps to follow

1. Take a really cool project
2. Make wild claims about it (i.e. $100 laptop for kids, disposable cardboard cell phones, flying cars)
3. ??????
4. Profit !

Re:

[donnacha]

If you are into playing games, rendering video, editing really hi-res photos, or doing music editing...need a REALLY powerful machine, with a LOT of ram (actually if you are doing any of these as your job, you should probably be using a mac)

No comment.

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.

Re:

[Oktober Sunset]

or don't get a mac, and spend all the money you saved on games.

computers in education, smalltalk

[russellh]

What I love the most about the OLPC is the key that lets you show the source code (in python!) of the app in use. Which you can modify. and if you mess it up, revert. I'm astonished to see this concept from smalltalk and Alan Kay live on. It couldn't be a better idea. We were having a discussion in a strategy session at my daughters' small montessori school (which goes thru 6th grade), where we were bemoaning the lack of imaginative uses of technology in the classrooms. Beyond a student-produced newsletter and using word processors to write reports... nothing. Nobody seems to know what to do. But the OLPC is taking the lead in saying kids can and should be allowed to do so much more - the mere fact that here you are given a facility to modify your complex tools should be revolutionary.

Re:computers in education, smalltalk

[theguyfromsaturn]

What I love from the specs of the OLPC is the cranking recharging, and networking abilities. From a civil engineer's perspective, it's great for lots of field tasks where you may want to syncronize the compilation of guys working in different ends of the field, while at the same time giving them the ability to keep the device working with occasional cranking ups when the battery is dead and it is not practical to go running back and forth to the truck for recharging. It's ideal for civil engineering field work where you spend 12 hour shifts on site.... Add to it solar cells in ADDITION to the crank and it's wonderful. There are many tasks where you don't need the ultra PC. But the ability to turn into a TABLET added to those other features that I mentioned make it an ideal field computer.

Re:

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

There's no more hand crank.

Re:

[SargentDU]

They said that there is an external human power device, whether it is a hand crank or a foot pedal device, as well as solar panel, or AC adapter hookups so he was not off-base at all. You should be scoulded yourself.

The crank was removed years ago

[Joce640k]

Please try to pay attention...

The crank was removed years ago

[Joce640k]

Please try to keep up with the project.

Re:

[chris_sawtell]

Go to Squeakland [squeakland.org] There are executables for Mac, Linux, and Windows. It's exactly what a child needs as an introduction to Comp. Sci. There is even a button to expose the Smalltalk text of the code.

After getting proficient with the E-Toys, they might like to progress to Blender [blender3d.org], which has the Python programming language built-in.

Re:

[TheRaven64]

If you like Squeak, you might be interested to see that that crazy Dan Ingalls has ported it to Javascript [sun.com] (SVG-supporting browser required. Works in Safari, more-or-less works in Firefox, doesn't work in IE).

Are you going to try the twofer offer?

[shanen]

I'm seriously thinking about it. It's possible that the machine will be so nice that I'll use it for my regular light duty stuff (email and basic surfing). Given the current state of the Internet, I actually feel like it's less likely that the donated machine will help the target kid, but it's supposed to be the thought that counts, eh?

However, I wish the twofer offer had a provision for donating the second machine if it's too far from tolerable for my uses. I can afford to donate the 400 bucks to charity...

Re:

[MadUndergrad]

I'm sure you could find a kid in your area who needs something like that. Donate it locally if you don't have a use for it.

File the OLPC as TNBT under old news..

[djupedal]

"Notebooks break, they get lost, and they are replaced frequently, so the cheaper, the better."

They also represent a dieing phase of mobile-hardware evolution.

By the time OLPC positives coalesce, apps & data for the masses will all be ubiquitously net-available, meaning anything more than a terminal will be/is outdated.

Of course, the OLPC is still a viable tool for the left-behinds.

Re:File the OLPC as TNBT under old news..

[Redacted]

I do not get this "apps as services" dream so many have. At all.

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.

Two things I liked

[HangingChad]

Were the day glow green color and, in the original specs, the hand crank. I wanted to take notes on my bright green notebook during one of those interminable sales demos, then right in the middle plug in my hand crank and charge up my laptop. Sorry, just charging up, go right on.

Then they took the hand crank out of the design and my whole sales demo interrupt fantasy just fell apart. But by that time I was already hooked on the idea of cheap laptop with built-in mesh networking.

I think I'd use the le

All of this could be ripped off...

[freezingweasel]

From http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Home [laptop.org]

OLPC espouses five core principles: (1) child ownership; (2) low ages; (3) saturation; (4) connection; and ***(5) free and open source.***

Someone else can run with option 5, to make an equivalent, for adults laptop. Depending on performance, we may finally see a machine mass-produced, showing acceptable speed and avertising that it's doing so despite "under-powered" hardware.

If this was mass-produced, people would finally have reason to question: why do I need this super-

the lesson is: you probably don't need a laptop.

[SuperBanana]

Notebooks break, they get lost, and they are replaced frequently, so the cheaper, the better.

No. The more reason to drop the laptop fetish. Laptops absolutely have their appropriate uses- but desktops work just fine for a huge percentage of people. Their components are cheaper, more easily replaced, and usually superior in performance. Nevermind that forcing you to sit in front of the computer, as opposed to being available to you in bed, on your couch, on your porch, etc- means you're more prone to wasting more time on the internet.

Yet...very few people I know will even consider a desktop. It drives me insane in business settings- I can do all manner of repairs and data recovery very, very easily on a desktop. Laptops are a total mixed bag ranging from "the company will have a tech here tomorrow morning" to "ARRRRG its going to take an hour to get the damn thing apart."

Thinkpads and Dells are the best, from my experience; HP sells a lot of consumer-ish crap. Apple gets a failing grade in almost every regard; iBooks, Powerbooks, and Macbook Pros are MISERABLE to disassemble for hard drive replacement. iBooks require damn near COMPLETE disassembly to get to the drive. The only plus is firewire target disk mode, but that is near useless in case of hardware failure.

Re:the lesson is: you probably don't need a laptop

[value_added]

No. The more reason to drop the laptop fetish. Laptops absolutely have their appropriate uses- but desktops work just fine for a huge percentage of people. Their components are cheaper, more easily replaced, and usually superior in performance. Nevermind that forcing you to sit in front of the computer, as opposed to being available to you in bed, on your couch, on your porch, etc- means you're more prone to wasting more time on the internet.

I used think along those lines before I got my first Thinkpad. Wh

Re:

[Xtravar]

While I still sit and work at a proper desk, I prefer doing everything possible on the laptop.

Do you prefer looking at two documents side by side on a laptop? Have you ever used a dual monitor set up?

The keyboard is better

You must not have large hands. Does anyone remember back in the day when Apple II computers had those tiny keyboards?

I agree with all your other points. However, here are additional things I find wrong with laptops:
- battery life
- fragile
- they get really freakin hot
- any external peripherals are a pain
- easily stolen or los

Re:the lesson is: you probably don't need a laptop

[moosesocks]

You're judging a computer solely based upon how easy it is to disassemble?

I think you need to step back, and remember that IT works for the company. The company does not work for the IT department. If the boss wants the laptop, then he's damn well going to get a laptop. Unless you have a better excuse than "It occasionally makes my job a pain", he's got the upper hand.

I will agree that Thinkpads are very nice. With a few minor exceptions, they're easy to disassemble. They're ridiculously durable, and g

Re:

[SuperBanana]

I think you need to step back, and remember that IT works for the company. The company does not work for the IT department.

You need to stop lecturing people with more IT experience than you, kid. We don't just sit around waiting for your beck and call; we've got shit to do, too. Our time costs the company just like your time does. Furthermore, time spent fixing your laptop that could have been avoided with giving you a desktop, means we couldn't spend time on other things that could have helped the co

Going to a conference

[Daishiman]

My local LUG is having a large conference tomorrow, where one of the highlights is an introduction to programming on the OLPC.

At least in Argentina, where a deployment is being scheduled, the entire Free Software community has the hots for this. Whether it succeeds or not as en educational tool, it's pioneering a new paradigm of computing; the truly small, truly cheap, truly rugged laptop.

Re:

[freedom_india]

Am buying one for my 3 year old brat.
It is spit-proof (so my firstborn can spit on it instead of my iBook G4), can be cranked to give power, is robust (no broken harddrives or pulled out keyboards)...
Saves my iBook a lot of heartburn.
So far my son has broken my ibook's hard-drive AND keyboard (pulled out ALL keys).

This XO can make sure he has met his match.

Oh, and i get a tax break.
 

OLPC system images

[snark23]

Here's something that might interest those who are thinking about the $400 two-fer, but want to play with XO first...

You can emulate most of it with qemu or vmware. It's easy.

    See: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Emulating_the_XO/Quick_Start [laptop.org]

Seemed a pretty sluggish on my wimpy Core Duo 1.66, but lots of that may be due to a lack of hardware accelerated video in qemu.

Anyhow, check it out. Good times.

(It does seem odd to use Python as the primary language on a slow CPU with little memory, but it seems to work okay...)

Serious question:

[larry bagina]

Why are they using x86? ARM or SHx are both much more power efficient, work with linux (and get more done per clock cycle). Did AMD give them a good deal on low end chips they couldn't get rid of?

Re:Serious question:

[evilviper]

ARM or SHx are both much more power efficient, work with linux (and get more done per clock cycle)

NO, YES, and NO respectively.

ARM and SH are both very low power, but that is entirely at the expense of performance. A good trade-off for embedded systems that don't need much processing power, but certainly not for multimedia applications. As soon as you start trying to do floating point calculations, watch your ARM/SH CPU grind to a halt. They certainly do less per clock than even older x86 CPUs, and are a long way behind fairly modern x86 CPUs like the Geode. That goes double for Intel's clock-inflated XScale CPUs, pushing 1GHz.

Re:

[pslam]

ARM and SH are both very low power, but that is entirely at the expense of performance. A good trade-off for embedded systems that don't need much processing power, but certainly not for multimedia applications. As soon as you start trying to do floating point calculations, watch your ARM/SH CPU grind to a halt. They certainly do less per clock than even older x86 CPUs, and are a long way behind fairly modern x86 CPUs like the Geode. That goes double for Intel's clock-inflated XScale CPUs, pushing 1GHz.

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

SH isn't much of a performer, but ARM certainly is - especially anything from ARM11 and beyond. The AMD Geode chip in the OLPC is 433MHz and single issue. Pretty much all modern low power ARM chips are at least that clock speed.

So, compare what they do with that clock speed? If you were to compare general/integer computation between even an old ARM9 and the Geode, an ARM9 will beat it clock-for-clock. Modern desktop x86 chips are only fast because they do a ton of translation f

How stupid can people here be?

[serviscope_minor]

I have now seen a load of comments along the lines of "you can get a cheap Walmart laptop for $400" and it's so much better.

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.

what about global warming

[someone1234]

If these laptops are so cheap, and available to everyone, people won't mind buying them in massive amounts.
This will generate a huge heap of trash.

Funny, the article doesn't talk about the display

[renoX]

Having a black-white high DPI mode, readable outside, is quite a useful innovative feature, in my book, with the low power consumption the laptop can be used as an e-book reader.

I wonder if laptops makers will license the display and scale it to 14" to sell in regular laptops? Probably not though as they're doing very little innovation.

Of course having a great product is not enough to be a great success..

Good Engineering

[psbrogna]

Reminds me of the Nicklaus Wirth work years ago when his group was designing 50 W workstations.

It once took a big room and air conditioning...

[3seas]

to hold and make operational a computer that is far less powerful than any lapop being built today, including the OLPC.

Tomorrow you will have throw away laptops. just as today you have throw away calculators.

The point is, with or without the OLPC and competitive efforts along the same line, $100 laptops and even sub $100 laptops will happen.

The question is timing. When they do happen will it be to help fill a poor countries needs or post poor?

To me poor is qualified as having need of something more vital to

Unfortunate lesson in pricing

[supremebob]

One unfortunate lesson that the OLPC team should have learned is that you shouldn't promise a $100 laptop unless you're sure that you can DELIVER a $100 laptop. Now that it costs twice as much as originally promised, many of the third world countries who were wanted to buy OLPC's aren't interested anymore and are looking at alternatives from other hardware manufacturers.

I know that's a tough lesson to learn, but it is the unfortunate truth.

Re:

[mastershake_phd]

wtf is an olpc?

Well if you don't want to RTFA, or search google, or wikipedia: Its One Laptop Per Child http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olpc [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[MyLongNickName]

Perhaps. But basic editing means you explain what acronyms are unless you are 100% confident you audience knows the term. Granted, I bet 90% of us do. But even when I first saw it, it did not jump to mind. It took a second or to.

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:

[SpectreBlofeld]

In defense of the editors... the OLPC made the front page of Slashdot several times per month at least over the last year or more. Pretty sure you're the only one who hasn't heard of it.

Re:

[laparel]

It's a pretty safe assumption that all of slashdot readers know what OLPC means. This is after all news site for geeks at heart and it's not the 1st time we've heard about it here. If you fail to understand it, just read the article is that too much to ask?

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:first post

[g0at]

But basic editing means [...] It took a second or to.

Right.

-b

Re:How do you get one of these?

[larry bagina]

You can buy two for $400 [xogiving.org] starting november 12th. One for you, one is donated to a 3rd world kid.

Re:How do you get one of these?

[arth1]

Correction: One is donated, if, and only if at least 5,000 people sign up for the deal.

Without any other committing statements contradicting this, I take it to mean that if 3,000 people sign up, they'll send out 3,000 very overpriced XO's to those who order, and the poor kids get no machines.

And no mention about who is going to pay for the infrastructure needed for the machines either, if they reach the 5,000 goal. Not only do they need a support apparatus, but the machines themselves need electricity (the crank never came out, and the other battery charging implements are still not in production, if they ever will be) and Internet (the applications on the XO are leased and have to be renewed over Internet every so often). Just handing out machines like it was bread won't do people any good.

Re:

[CandyMan]

Where's "locally"? That's a very sweet deal...

Re:

[TheRaven64]

I bought an R31 for about that price from eBay in the UK about three years ago; it's my main machine for Étoilé development. I had to bump the RAM from 256MB to 1GB when I started working on the compositing manager though. You can get slightly old laptops very cheaply second hand.

Re:

[tompaulco]

Wow. $400 is expensive even for TWO $100 laptops, heck, even 3. Probably would be a good price for 5 of them though, and a downright bargain for 6 of them.

Re:

[e9th]

Here's one way. Not cheap, but you're doing good. http://www.xogiving.org/ [xogiving.org]

Re:

[tompaulco]

Frequently on a geological scale. I used to get hand-me-downs that were already a year old, and were not replaced during my time with the company. The only time I got one replaced while in the same company was when my first one was stolen, and they gave me a different hand-me-down. I only got my first brand new laptop about a year ago, but it was bought without my input from Compusa (an HP). It sucked hard. Kept turning off with no notice, and when you rebooted, it would get so far and turn off again. Nobod

Re:

[cerberusss]

Kept turning off with no notice, and when you rebooted, it would get so far and turn off again. Nobody believed me.

Sometimes it's better when it's *completely* broken. It may sound strange, but you'd do the company a service by actually break it somehow...

Not broke, not lost.

[Dog135]

I've had the notebook that I'm typing on right now for about 5 years. The battery's shot, but the power supply works (though patchworked with new wires) and the laptop itself still works fine. Sure, 500mhz won't play many games, but it works fine for going online.

I also have my other laptop from the late '90s. I've never lost or broke a laptop. So in my experience, it's 0% lost or broken.

"Your experience is statistically insignificant" - mutant from cut Futurama scene.

Re:

[falconwolf]

I've had the notebook that I'm typing on right now for about 5 years. The battery's shot, but the power supply works (though patchworked with new wires) and the laptop itself still works fine. Sure, 500mhz won't play many games, but it works fine for going online.

I also have my other laptop from the late '90s. I've never lost or broke a laptop. So in my experience, it's 0% lost or broken.

My experience with laptops has been compleatly different than your's. My first laptop had to have it's hdd and

Re:

[Fred_A]

That's why kids get Legos while the grown ups play with laptops, and the Olpc project had to go through all of this to create such a kid resistant beast.

I still have all of my laptops here as well although my iBook is probably going to get sold and once had to replace the keyboard on my old Sony PictureBook (a book fell on it from an overhead shelf) :(.

Re:

[TheRaven64]

I use a laptop as my primary machine, and replace it every three years because that's how long the warranty lasts. My last one spent several weeks a year in for repair, and so having a spare one is useful. They're so expensive to repair that I don't want to have that as an unexpected cost; if I replace each one when repairs stop being free then it's typically still fast enough to be used as a spare when the primary one fails and the replacement cost is an expense I can plan around. That said, when this o

Re:

[QuantumRiff]

I sure like that the battery costs about $10 to replace..

Re:Power & display

[spuzzzzzzz]

Laser printers print at 600dpi and above, but you don't need a magnifying glass to read the output. The point is that the size of a character on-screen should not depend on the dpi of the display. If the GUI is properly designed, the fonts will be large enough and the high pixel density will allow the fonts to be smoother.

Re:

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

If the GUI is properly designed, the fonts will be large enough and the high pixel density will allow the fonts to be smoother.

Agreed. Despite owning a MacBook Pro with a decent-size screen, I've found myself reaching for this XO B4 to read documents / lengthy websites just because it's way easier on the eyes to read at 200 dpi. The web browser (Gecko-based) does the right thing with fixed-size elements, namely scales them up to 96 or so dpi. This makes math in Wikipedia articles look a bit odd. Other than

Re:

[pantherace]

Microsoft thanks you for your devotion to their fixed pixel sizes. Linux, or Mac, I've not really had a problem excluding some old apps (think xlib programmed things). Windows on the other hand...

Re:

[1u3hr]

Aargh! Where does this craze for higher and higher pixel density come from! Whats the point of more pixels on the screen if the screen is still the same physical size....Already I have to frequently use the 'increase font size' on my browser to get the text to a reable size - and my display is SXGA/19"= 86ppi !

A trivial problem. A browser preference to use a minimum font size will fix that. In any case, hardly any fonts on a PC are bitmaps (i.e. defined by pixels). Most are outline (defined by curves, li

Re:

[tompaulco]

I find it ironic that the OLPC project is always regarded with such high praise, while any mention of a school district investing in laptops is always met with disdain and remarks such as "why does a kid need a laptop anyway? He'll just break it/lose it/trade it for drugs".

laptops required

[falconwolf]

I find it ironic that the OLPC project is always regarded with such high praise, while any mention of a school district investing in laptops is always met with disdain and remarks such as "why does a kid need a laptop anyway?

More and more colleges are requiring laptops. Some even require a specific brand or model with a specific OS, usually Windows. Some colleges include a laptop in the tuition, others require students to get one themselves.

Falcon

Re:

[falconwolf]

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 co

Re:

[Xemu]

Text books in the Third World are expensive, especially when they have to be replace yearly do to editing of corrections and updating them.

I don't think you see how basic the need is in the third world. The need is huge for very basic skills in reading and algebra. Those books don't have to be updated at all.

You can buy more than 100 books for the $100 of a single OLPC, providing reading material for an entire school.

Re:

[falconwolf]

Text books in the Third World are expensive, especially when they have to be replace yearly do to editing of corrections and updating them.

I don't think you see how basic the need is in the third world. The need is huge for very basic skills in reading and algebra. Those books don't have to be updated at all.

I hope you don't mean all they need in the Third World is to add, subtract, and read.

Falcon

Re:

[g1zmo]

Virtually all academic subjects, all the way up to college and even much of the graduate level, were laid out decades if not hundreds of years ago. The cycle of expensive textbook replacement and revisioning is an appalling money-making scam perpetuated by the publishing industry, not unlike the tactics of a certain Northwestern U.S. software company and their operating system upgrade paths.

Proper books stick around for many many years, enriching the lives of generations of children and adults alike. Th

Re:

[falconwolf]

Virtually all academic subjects, all the way up to college and even much of the graduate level, were laid out decades if not hundreds of years ago.

That may be true for English textbooks but it's definitely not true for books in Swahili [wikipedia.org], Hausa [wikipedia.org], or many other languages. And the places where these languages are spoken is where the XO can help the most. What you're saying shows a typical Eurocentric attitude.

Falcon

e-books

[falconwolf]

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."

Falcon

Re:

[tompaulco]

It is intended to be down to $100 by 2008. For the record, some casual browsing turned up a brand new AMD powered Compaq for only $400. I bet by 2008, we'll be down to $350 or $300. Of course, you can find your fill of used laptops on eBay for $100 that offer several multiples of the performance of the OLPC. But I guess it's about the widgety kid-tailored interface.
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

Re:

[SpectreBlofeld]

Why is he modded as troll? The summary says they're $100 and he's pointing out they're not, even in Uruguay. Look, he cites a source and everything.

Re:

[gnasher719]

Why is he modded as troll? The summary says they're $100 and he's pointing out they're not, even in Uruguay. Look, he cites a source and everything.

You may not have noticed, but the US dollar has lost lots of value in the last two or three years. So the cost in US$ has gone up a lot.
But three years ago, this thing could have been announced as a "150 Euro laptop" and today that would be spot on.

Re:

[Belial6]

I figured that the lesson learned from the $100 laptop was how to get other of people to pay for your commercial R&D while praising you for being a humanitarian by claiming that your product will be much cheaper than is realistic, claiming that you are doing if for charity, and maybe selling a few thousand at cost when you get it far enough along to be manufactured.

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

Re:

[timmarhy]

i know.

i'd say i learnt 50% of what i know about pc's and technology in general on equipment that is still out there and working today, and that can be had for $50 or less.

3rd world kids don't need a fancy new fucking laptop.

Re:

[satoshi1]

If you want all that, then you've missed the point of this project.

Re:

[SEWilco]

Wouldn't you rather pay $2,000 to have your $100 laptop sent to a special clean room facility to recover the data?

How exactly does that work on flash-based storage?

Very profitably, actually. Why do you ask?

You're forgetting something

[cheros]

This laptop isn't just a computer, is also acts as a book. Unless you change 'One Laptop Per Child' to 'One laptop per child and a projector and a serious source of power' this is not going to work.

It's very likely it'll be one laptop per 2 or 3 children in reality, because those nations *are* that poor, but that's still cheaper and more flexible than books. I prefer books to read, but they're a precious and costly resource. With the laptops there is much more flexibility in delivering content.

BTW, there

Re:

[maubp]

Is that figure of 60% of kids have eye deficiencies and require glasses to read for the USA, the developed world, or global? I strongly suspect its not that bad in the rural africa where kids on balance spend more time outdoors, less time reading, and almost no time watching TV.