OLPC laptops on general sale
p2pnet.net News:- Bad news, really bad news, for the corporate laptop industry.
One Laptop Per Child laptop computers are due to start shipping in July.
Dubbed the XO, they’ll cost around $150 created expressly for the world’s poorest children living in its most remote environments.
“The laptop was designed collaboratively by experts from both academia and industry, bringing to bear both extraordinary talent and many decades of collective field experience in every aspect of this non-profit humanitarian project,” says the OLPC site. “The result is a unique harmony of form and function; a flexible, ultra low-cost, power-efficient, responsive, and durable machine with which nations of the emerging world can leapfrog decades of development – immediately transforming the content and quality of their children’s learning.”
If you’re going to start your kid off with a laptop, which would you rather have: an over-priced unit from one of the Big Name makers, pre-loaded with Microsoft O/S and other self-serving corporate clutter, whether you like it or not?
Or a nice, clean, easy-to-use, open source Linux-powered box with a 366-megahertz processor, 512 mb of flash memory instead of a hard drive, and USB 2.0 ports so more storage can be attached?
For most intelligent parents who care about what their kids are exposed to, the answer is, of course, ‘I’ll take the OLPC laptop.’
And the bad news for Biggie manufacturers, not to mention Bill and the Boyz who’d dearly love to see young minds force-fed with their stuff, is, they’ll soon be able to.
“The backers of the One Laptop Per Child project plan to release the machine on general sale next year,” says the BBC. “But customers will have to buy two laptops at once – with the second going to the developing world.”
“But”? No problem. It’s still cheap at the price.
“In addition to cutting costs – by designing lower-priced circuitry and using an open-source operating system, among other things – it also improved on the standard laptop by slashing the machine’s energy use by 90 percent, ideal for a device that could be charged by hand-cranked power in rural villages,” said PopSci Grand Award, announcing the XO was a winner.
“The biggest power hog is typically the display, so engineers invented a new LCD. Each pixel has one part that reflects light and one that lets light pass through a colored filter. Turn on the LED behind the screen, and a full-color image appears as rays stream through the tinted filters. Turn it off to save power, and light bounces off the reflective parts of the pixels to form a black-and-white image perfect for e-mail or e-textbooks. Even more efficient, the CPU suspends itself when the image is static.
“Expect the tech in full-price laptops in a few years.”
Also See:
BBC – $100 laptop could sell to public, January 9, 2006
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January 10th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Get one for the kids? I’ll get one for jmyself =) I wonder if they will they be taking advance orders
January 10th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
i never fully understood why the bad news?
January 10th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
they don’t want the competition
January 10th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
open source? oh the horror !!!!!!!
January 10th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
What brand of soda do you drink?
January 11th, 2007 at 3:58 am
but its meant to children who are poor and cant afford a laptop. how the hell would these children afford a much more expensive one?
January 11th, 2007 at 9:43 am
I see this as making children of developing nations into the dependent, addicted consumers of developed countries. That laptop will eventually need replacing due to hardware faults or obsoleteness, and the market is just waiting to consume the souls of these people by giving them new ones, not for free, but at a substantial cost. The “free” laptops will get them hooked to the technology, much like listening to music or watching TV will most likely cause consumers to invest more money into those items at a later date. This is money that could be better spent on more urgent needs, such as food and housing. It might even encourage crime amongst those who can’t pay up for the new laptops. As great as technology is, this is not the kind of way to use it to help solve the problems of third world countries.
Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC#Criticism.
January 12th, 2007 at 12:25 am
No… it’s Microsoft and PC makers that don’t want the competition.
January 12th, 2007 at 12:35 am
“This is money that could be better spent on more urgent needs, such as food and housing.”
Do you want developed nations to keep give developing nations hand outs ad perpetuum or do you want them to become educated enough to take care of themselves?
Anyway, it doesn’t have to be either/or… we aren’t going to give them laptops instead of food.
And how can they become ‘addicted’ to something that you and I take for granted? Surely you can’t deny them the opportunity to have the same opportunities we take for granted.
I for one am more than happy to pay for two to get one of these. I get a cool little portable computer, it promotes open source, and someone in a developing nation gets one to help in their education.
More here: http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2007/01/one-laptop-per-child.html
October 14th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
I agree it is a good deal for a portable computer and I love open sourcing and the rest of the world will be help as well. A WIN WIN situation for all concerned.