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OLPC Wins Popular Science Award

Posted by Zonk on Sat Nov 11, 2006 02:36 AM
from the little-puter-that-could dept.
Education Hardware Technology
paulmac84 writes "Popular Science has released their Best of What's New 2006 awards. In the computing section the One Laptop Per Child project took home the Grand Prize. From the article: 'The goal of the XO is simple and noble: to give every child a laptop, especially in developing countries, where the machines will be sold in bulk for about $130 apiece. But the One Laptop Per Child nonprofit, formed at MIT, didn't just create a cheap computer. 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.' The Innovation of The Year Award went to 'the alpha nail that makes your home twice as tough'. Sometimes the simple ideas really are the best."
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dptalia writes "It's that time of year again, where everyone is putting out their best of 2006 lists. Last week, Popular Science did it, and today, Scientific American has released their top 50 list. Of note are improvements in RFID technology, discoveries in nantechnology, and net neutrality."
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  • It'd be nice to see some of the cost cutting ideas carry over to computers sold over here; I'm by no means poor enough or remote enough (or young enough for that matter) to qualify for olpc, but at the same time, the idea of sufficiently upgrading my current system has been well outside my grasp for some time now.
    • the idea of sufficiently upgrading my current system has been well outside my grasp for some time now.

      The OLPC are very low end laptops, not remotely like a full featured one.

      They serve a minimal purpose, they are just a first step.

      You might read the specs and find the PC your using is better than a OLPC unit.

      http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Hardware_specification [laptop.org]

      On another note to get PC parts cheap, you might hit Ebay.com and www.pricewatch.com
  • ... looks a lot like that (c) [maxbahr.de] Colornagel.

    CC.
    • You mean a ring shank nail? You're right, nothing new there. RTFA to see the other features (max dia middle, twisted top, larger head) and why they're important.
  • .. writes a furious letter to Popular Science, complaining that this is giving children access to violent video games and that he's personally go round to each child's house and stomp on their laptops?
  • Are these laptops edible? Do they come with anti-theft protection?
    • If you keep feeding a person, do you really help that person and yourself in the long run?
      OLPC is a great supplement to helping developing nations. They are not edible, but over time they might be helpful in putting food on a few tables.
        • Build a man a fire, he'll be warm for an evening..

          cover him with gasoline and strike a match over him, he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

  • I just don't get the point (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kuciwalker (891651) on Saturday November 11 2006, @03:45AM (#16803598)
    I understand and agree with the point that many of the places where these are going already have fresh water, food, etc. and investments in education are absolutely critical to their growth. But how are laptops really going to help at all? Computers are magical educational devices. You need good teachers for computers to be effective at all in the classroom. I don't know how much training teachers in these countries have using computers as educational tools. And then, why not just have a few shared computers? I don't think there's a single Western country that even approaches one laptop per child, and that's because they aren't the alpha and omega of education like some think them to be.

    • Re:I just don't get the point (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MichaelSmith (789609) on Saturday November 11 2006, @05:08AM (#16803826) Homepage Journal
      Computers are magical educational devices. You need good teachers for computers to be effective at all in the classroom. I don't know how much training teachers in these countries have using computers as educational tools

      Firstly young kids are amazingly tech savvy. Secondly the most important use case for this laptop is as an electronic book reader. In an environment where paper text books the ability to share electronic copies of reference material is very valuable.

      In any event, we will know how this went in a year or two. I can't wait to find out how it goes.

    • I would imagine that it takes them about as long to be useful for all those things as it took the industrialized nations. Possibly less.

      As it currently stands, there are already people who have used and know computers, just very few of them, and their job opportunities are limited by their general lack. Once these start coming into use, the population segment that is most tech savvy (many children, some adults, pretty much anyone who is already familiar with computers) will start developing its own inf
    • But how are laptops really going to help at all?

      Have you ever sat down in front of your computer by yourself
      and gone online and learned something ?

      I think the best lesson is teaching ppl to teach themselves,
      until recently that required shipping tons of books all
      over the planet and cutting down entire forests.

      Also understand this is not the final version/incarnation of OLPC,
      better things are to come, this is in truth just phase 1.

      Wifi via stratosphere based solar powered balloon platforms may be next, etc et
  • From second TFA: finally, a tape that no hooker can break!

    Sorry, I saw Borat tonight, I'm a little punchy.
  • Funny how these 100$ systems don't seem like the type to take tons of time loading. I remember 13 years ago watching Doom II install on a mac and take an hour and half more or less. With what a person who has never done computing might do it'd seem blazing fast and like a movie.

  • Yes, Children need housing, food, water, medical care, parenting, etc.

    Nobody has ever argued against this.

    But children also need an education.

    They need it, their communities need for them to be educated, as a global society we need them to be educated.

    Furthermore, not all developing nation children are starving refugees in camps. Many are rural children living in stable housing, going to school part of the time. Or urban children in comparable circumstances, with water & food but facing little up

    • The children of Massachusetts need food, clean water, and shelter before they need $100 laptops! Many children on the mean streets of Wellesley, MA die of starvation or exposure every day, or join local warlords as child soldiers so they can get a few scraps to feed themselves. How are these laptops going to help them?

      -A MA resident

  • The Innovation of The Year Award went to 'the alpha nail that makes your home twice as tough'. Sometimes the simple ideas really are the best."

    Yes, simple ideas are best... LIKE USING SCREWS INSTEAD OF NAILS.

    You'd think for hundreds of thousands of dollars, construction companies would spend one second longer to actually make your house hold together... But no.

    Tell all the libertarians, this is their system (no goverment forcing them to improve safety/quality), at it's best.

  • http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Image:EToys_-_new_displa y.jpg

    Logging in and running X (or equivalent) as root.

  • Obviously if they have electricity to charge and use the laptops they are gonna have Water. Most of you people think most 3rd world countries dont have food/water. Well they do, or they would be dead. You got this image in your head from what they feed you on TV. Donate to X chartiy to save Y kids from dying due to lack of water. Im not saying that everyone does have access to clean water. But im sure if they have televisions and microwave ovens then they got water. The next step is to boost these kids
    • For 130 dollars you can probably immunize a child against most contagious diseases.

      • Re:Abraham Maslow never mentioned laptops (Score:4, Insightful)

        by patrixmyth (167599) on Saturday November 11 2006, @03:26AM (#16803522)
        So go spend $130 on immunizing children. If you don't like what they're doing to make the world a better place, then go make it better your own way. Maslow didn't tell us how to make our world better, just what motivates our basic self-interest.
      • Yes, but it won't include any capacity building. These laptops can help you learn and use that education to make more money in the future. It's a "teach a man to fish" kind of thing.

          • Teachers help you learn. Not laptops.

            Anything that delivers information to you helps you learn. Books help you learn. Computers help you learn. Looking at the world around you helps you learn.

            Teachers are (ideally) people who focus on delivering knowledge in the way that facilitates efficient learning, by adapting the information flow to the level and capabilities of the learner. A perfect teacher would choose between directed and self-directed approaches based on what is best for the particular st

          • You seem to know very little about teachers and laptops. Are you, by chance, a teacher?
      • You can
        -immunize 100 children against those diseases
        OR
        -give 100 people the ability to access, share and store enough information that they can learn how to develop vaccines themselves, and immunize as many as they need to, not only against currently-known diseases but many others that could crop up... ...you're aware that vaccination is centuries-old technology, right?
        • How would a laptop with no internet connection that's given to a mostly-illiterate population do anything? In case nobody realizes, the only reason a few governments are buying into this program is because someone found a way to steal money from it. This is the only reason ANY third world country buys into ANY foreign aid/infrastructure improvement program. If they actually wanted to increase the educational level of their population, they would be printing books and funding libraries, not buying obsolet
          • heh... yeah. Printing books and carting them out into the jungle is way more cost-effective than loading up, I dunno, a few thousand onto a 5-ounce chip and meshing it with 100 other 5-ounce chips that can instantly duplicate the entire library if you turn the crank a few times.

            By the way, what does "obsolete computer hardware" mean in the context of a society with no electricity.

            And where did you get the idea that these machines were for software development/programming?
            • Yeah, it's real expensive to print books. That's why I get 3 different phone books and tons of unsolicited catalogs in the mail. And a $100 computer with a cheap tiny LCD display is the best way to read books, especially while you are cranking it. And of course it is absolutely necessary that every computer has a built-in library, because people read hundreds of books at the same time.

              Oh, and you must have missed that whole thing about the view source button and whatnot.

      • Well, Brazil aready has the widest immunization program on the World (it reaches a bit more than 90% of children). Can we have the OLPC now, or you'll put other priorities?

    • How about we give them computers, so they can learn how to make their own wells?
    • Exactly. Hell, laptops don't even seem to help students in industrial nations. One of my cousins goes to a private school (in Sydney) where every student is required to have a laptop, from what he says everyone just uses them to waste time gaming :p. I go to the university of Sydney and suprisingly few people carry laptops around. Nobody in my 3rd year physics classes does, and only one (out of 20 or so) in my computational physics class does. However, USYD has ready access to computing facilities for all the students anyway, perhaps if that wasn't supplied students would feel more of a need for their own laptop.

      One of the things we need to realise is that we use computers mainly as tools for dealing with a modern world. We need to do banking, so many of us use internet banking, many shop online because the service is available, we type reports on computers because we're involved in work/studies which require them. None of these things are required by a mostly agricultural society attempting to exist without enough clean drinking water.

      OLPC is a great idea, but only because the people who came up with it exists in a world where laptops are a usefull tool. If you want to help their education send them books. I've heard reports form people working on a Christian missionary ship the Doulos and quite often when they arrive in a poor country teachers will go to the ships bookshop and whatever they've got end up being that year's material.

      Anyway, there's probably someone on Earth who will benefit from OLPC, and it seems a lot of good engineering was achieved through the project, but I believe it's too early for it to be usefull to most of its intended audience.

      • Re:A better goal: One water well per village (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Drogo007 (923906) on Saturday November 11 2006, @03:51AM (#16803616)
        "If you want to help their education send them books."

        Isn't something like OLPC the perfect medium for distributing books? Instead of one book in that volume of space, dump hundreds or thousands on it. Suddenly distributing useful books to the world becomes much easier.

        People go on about how useless these would be to the average third world person. But combined with some basic education and the proper set of software, these could be the most incredibly useful things concieved of. Health problems? Pull up the medical journals/textbooks stored on the OLPC. Agricultural Problems? Pull up information on farming, wells, animal husbandry, etc.

        The way PopSci described the laptops, they're low power tools that don't share a whole awful lot in common with what your average slashgeek thinks of when you say the word "laptop". But as the parent poster alluded to, they make an absolutely perfect way to get useful information to the third world in a very widespread way.
    • Yes, but what do we do for the villages that already have wells? Do we let them wait until our global hunt for the last village without a well has finished?

    • Give the laptops to the girl children and point out some websites about emancipation, human rights and birth control!
      That would be a big step in solving one of the biggest problems humanity faces.

      And it would realy annoy the fundamentalists...

    • Re:A better goal: One water well per village (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Denial93 (773403) on Saturday November 11 2006, @03:52AM (#16803618)
      Most poor do not live in rural villages. Estimates put around 1 billion of them into suburban slums. So they can buy water and food if they have money. But the rampant lack of it means no one has interests to protect against those who thrive from the situation, i.e. gangs. What these people need most is some means of income that doesn't involve crime and, chiefly, is accessible to a larger fraction of the population than just the mobile, young, single males who work as day-laborers downtown. I.e. they need some viable economy, and while they don't need to compete with the big inner-city businesses, they need to be strong enough to warrant some police protection and allow some resistance against gang rule.

      I do think processing power is an important part of that, because it makes possible small businesses and social organization (unions, churches, even soccer leagues), thus creating a stable society where it plainly doesn't exist now. Most significantly, masses of laptops are more likely than individual valuable items (like wells) to escape seizure and monopolization by those with the means to just take things. Even if One Laptop Per Child only allowed teenagers to mass-produce copies of current movies and sell them downtown, that's a move into the direction of equal distribution of wealth, and a stable society.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jbrader (697703)
      I am really tired of this argument. Of course its geek thinking the people who thought of it are geeks, so they're using the expertise they have to help out. If your a doctor than stop bitching and use your expertise to help out in some different way.
    • Yup, I understand that some people think OLPC will make for a better world. But this is geek thinking. However for the poor in rural villages, there's much more need for more basic things like clean water and other non-geeky needs.

      In the short term, this is true, and those sorts of needs can't be ignored, but things like the OLPC project are aimed more at the long term. If we don't give these countries the intellectual resources to become self-sufficient and use their natural resources well, then the weste

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Alef (605149)

      Yup, I understand that some people think OLPC will make for a better world. But this is geek thinking. However for the poor in rural villages, there's much more need for more basic things like clean water and other non-geeky needs.

      This argument is repeated over and over again. Yes, there is no doubt there is a need for clean water in many areas of the world, but there is also a need for education and basic access to information technology. Why is there a problem that some people are trying to mitigate t

    • Try to give a poor country $100 million to dig wells and see where the money goes. A ministry for water would be created, contracts with earth moving companies would be signed, and before the first well were dug the money would be gone. The problem with pure water isn't the investment needed. The biggest problems are the corruption of the government that keeps people poor and lack of education on the importance of pure water.

      So, why are these laptops different? Because of two fundamental things. First, no m

    • Look at Grameen Bank, whose founder just won the nobel peace prize. It provides micro-loans so people can start businesses, etc. The guy started with 27 dollars but now Grameen Bank has millions and millions of outstanding loans. How did he manage it? He didn't go, "oh, these people need water. Here's 27 dollars, go get yourself some water." He said, "how do provide the poor with opportunities to make more money?" So he gets more money because from the interest on his loans and he is then able to provide mo
      • The well and the computer are not mutually exclusive. (Unless the kids in the village decide to throw the computer down the well, of course.)

              Actually, I think that's termed inclusivity.
      • OK, here's a question that occurs to me.

        It looks to me like a good deal of money and effort is going into this OLPC project. It's non-profit, but presumably people are being paid for their time, and manufacturing so much hardware must cost a lot.

        Was this project preceded by a published study that shows that this is the best way to spend all that money in order to benefit the intended recipients? Or did the people running this project just decide to "do computers" because that was the field they happen

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by burns210 (572621)
      A late stage beta system (full display, case and hardware) is being built as we speak. The first 1000 machines will be in hands of developers, test countries and the like before the end of the month.
      • AFAIK, guys from linuxbios (I'm lurking their mailing list) already have it.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by burns210 (572621)
          There are "A-test" out in circulation. About 500 in the world. B-test boards are pretty rare (relatively) and are mostly in the lab still. The full laptops betas (case, display, etc) are being assembled for the first time this month.

          The A-test board is likely what LinuxBIOS has, because b-test and the new systems are using an OpenFirmware-based solution.

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