Ok, well, I guess to be fair, we should give her a little more credit than that. Mary Lou Jepson [wikipedia.org] does have a PhD in opitcs and a BS in EE. She seems to be quite competent and is credited with some key design and inventions for the OLPC and also working politics with companies to design these displays specifically for the laptop, defined by the laptop. Not an easy thing to do.
So I'm guessing she was upset from the cost and believes that she can cut cost by doing again what she did for the OLPC, designing a better, cheaper display. This time, she can probably negotiate better deals as I'm sure the # of XOs in development causes display manufacturers to salivate.
So, before you accuse this of being vaporware, I would caution you that she has held up her end once for the OLPC... and she seems to be highly motivated. She's got street cred.
Now, what makes me salivate is the site's promise to keep everything open. The software's a given at this point but open hardware would be revolutionary and present yet another learning possibility for users.
Elonka Dunn [wikipedia.org]? It never ceases to amaze me when someone says "Oh yeah, I like whats-her-face a lot." You could bother to find out what her name is or admit that you don't think enough of her to remember her name.
When I was young, all the computers at school ran MacOS. My entire introduction to computing was done on Apple IIs and Macintoshes. However, when it came time to buy a computer for home, our family bought a Windows machine because it had better specs. Starting these kids out on Linux doesn't necessarily mean that they'll stay with Linux.
When I was young, all the computers at school ran MacOS. My entire introduction to computing was done on Apple IIs and Macintoshes. However, when it came time to buy a computer for home, our family bought a Windows machine because it had better specs. Starting these kids out on Linux doesn't necessarily mean that they'll stay with Linux.
Why not, Linux is widely recognised as having better specs.
Better specs don't sell though. Marketing and subsequent mindshare do (case in point : Windows - various incarnations).
I don't see the LCD screens getting down to a price making this possible. The other option would be the laser projectors but it's new technology and it'll be years before they are cheap enough. With memory prices dropping I can see it with most of the components but I can't see anyway around the display problem.
I don't see the LCD screens getting down to a price making this possible.
Hmm, I dunno, maybe Ms. Jepsen will create some innovative new display filter technology that allows 200dpi color-capable LCD screens with backlighting to be built for roughtly the same cost as a 75dpi monochrome LCD screen. Wouldn't that be something...
This is probably good news to Bruce Perens, who thinks that the recent report of Microsoft's dual-boot XO project (with Windows as well as the Linux-based Sugar OS) is a feint driven by Microsoft's fear of the entire third world learning Linux [CC] as children.
I thought we were worried about them learning to fish?
If the OLPC was supposed to be a $100 laptop but is sold for 200, then this new crazy laptop will cost 150. This is great news. Maybe they should develop a voting machine based on this technology, sell it to the government and give the laptops away for free to the OLPC.
You walk in to a computer store, and you see the 100 dollar laptop and right next to it you see the 75 dollar laptop -- which one you gonna spring for?
Time to go Crazy Eddie? They do know that Crazy Eddie was forced to sell out of his own company, fled to Israel, and later went to jail for fraud, right? There's good reason companies don't usually mention his name these days.
Although as a kid I used to go to his store to get cheap video games...
While we have investigated the possibility in the past, Microsoft is not developing dual-boot Windows XP support for One Laptop Per Childs XO laptop. As we announced in December, Microsoft plans to publish formal design guidelines early this year that will assist flash-based
device manufacturers in designing machines that enable a high-quality Windows experience. Our current goal remains to provide a high-quality Windows experience on the XO device.
In addition, there will b
I think this guy [dreamhost.com] has a lot of good points. (Just skip halfway down past the ranty bits.:-) )
The Nintendo DS...
It's cheap. ($129... and I'm sure if you order 150 million Nintendo will cut you a deal.)
It's power-efficient. (Easily lasts 14 hours on a single charge, even with the screen bright enough to be seen in direct sunlight.. there's even a hand-crank charger!)
It's a computer. (All advantages to be gained by giving a young child a laptop are also gained by giving a child a DS. Just by using a DS they'll become confident and "fluent" in the use of technology, and future "real" computer use will come much much easier. Worked for me!)
It's got wi-fi. (In fact, it even does ad-hoc networking, and allows downloading content from one host DS to all the others.. just the teacher could have the lesson plan on their DS and wirelessly beam it to all the students at the start of each class!)
It's rugged. (Nintendo's been making toys for actual children for over 100 years and Game Boys have survived actual wars.)
It's powerful enough. (If it can handle Mario Kart tournaments, it can handle Multipli Kation tables.)
It's small and has a touch screen. (Like the iPhone. Just like laptops have replaced the desktop, in the future ever smaller portable electronics will replace the laptop. Why teach on antiquated technology?)
It's forward-compatible. (Nintendo's portable systems have very long life cycles. Any software you write for the DS will very likely still be runable on the hardware they're selling in a decade.)
Children love it. (You want a teaching tool that's "fun to use?" You want a teaching tool that's "collaborative" You've hit "the jackpot.")
It's a world-wide standard. (Over 53 MILLION have been sold already. The platform has thousands of developers. The future leaders of the developed world are growing up playing Nintendo DS.. why give the future leaders of the developing world anything less?)
It's already used for education. (Millions use their DS to learn a language, develop logic skills, practice cooking, learn math, read books, research, and browse the web every day!)
Nice idea. For me, the disadvantage compared to the OLPC is that you can't run (or at least I don't know of one) a development environment on the DS itself. And even if you could, it's usage would be challenging.
It doesnt have a keyboard and the screen is way, way too small to be used for anything serious like schoolwork. Just because theyre third-world doesnt mean they deserve junk like this. Their ergonomics should be important to us. Its a real shame it isnt.
Well, this has many of the same problems the Classmate does, according to TFA. It isn't waterproof, it's not very durable despite your assertions (if you don't know someone with a broken one, you need to get out more), and the battery life/expense/environmental-effect isn't very good. Like the sibling posts mentioned, it also requires licenses to develop for, and it has no keyboard, making input tedious. In addition, there are some general factual errors with your post. Hanafuda isn't "for children," so I wouldn't say Nintendo has been in the toy business for a 100 years. Also I don't know of any software to "learn cooking" on the DS any better than you can "learn guitar" on the PS2... Cooking Mama gives you a "general idea," but you're not going to succeed without a real recipe. The kind you can look up on Google. With an XO.
This is huge news. I've always said we need a computer that many people in the world can afford. With 5-6 Billion People a 600 to 700 machine is so far beyond their reach. I'd really like to see a $25 machine but $75 great.
My theory, un-tested is that most family's can't afford to budget more than 1 weeks income every 3-4 years for a computer. Of course the wealthy can do whatever they wish. Personally I spend $800 on a monitor every 5-7 years and $400 to $500 on a new CPU/Box every 14 months.
With a price at $75 I would expect that means there is at leaset 1 BILLION people whose family can now afford such a device, and may be more than that. I'd like a machine that 4 Billion people could afford every 3-5 years. They we will have a real shot a planet wide culture. Today we have A few 100 million to a Billion people spending most of the $$, most of the energy, etc.
Putting a cheap computer in their home will not change economics but it can help teach them to read, and give them a path to education, which might take a few generations but will help all over time.
Personally low powered desktops would be better than laptops esp. a model that could use the TV screen to lower costs, for those homes that have TVs.
I think EIC is US thing? I'm not really sure. I'm fairly sure that the bulk of the world's poor, up to 5 Billion of them in places like China, India, Africa, etc. don't get EIC.
When I saw the quote, I thought about the scene in the book where the Moti Engineer took apart and put together Lady Sally's palmtop computer which was thought to be impossible because everything was one single unit.
To hit $75 for a laptop, the same technology will be required.
I was thinking along similar lines. But an 89 still costs over $100. How do they plan to make a computer for less than a calculator costs?
Perhaps by not trying to charge $100 for something that was barely state-of-the-art ten years ago, and depending on their monopoly position in the market to ensure that people pony up?
The TI calculators are a prime example of how a market can stagnate when there's no competition. Pretty much since HP abandoned the educational market (which struck me as a bad idea, given how the professional market is getting eaten up by computer software packages) TI has rested on its laurels. Sure, every once in a while they toss out an incremental upgrade -- a little more RAM or Flash here, a little better screen there -- but by and large they're not doing a damn thing with their lineup, and they haven't decreased the prices much at all.
The TI-89 isn't bad -- it's probably the best handheld calculator out there, depending on how you feel about the HP-49 series -- but I can't help but wonder what we'd have if TI actually had some motivation to actually turn out a new model and cut prices every year or so, like the rest of the computer-hardware industry.
I've never had my DS, PSP, XBox 360, PS2, Wii, or Gamecube crash. Ever. And I've used each one of those systems more than I've ever used a graphing calculator . . . and curiously enough, I have had my TI-81 crash. Lost all its saved data too.
Modern technology doesn't imply frequent crashing. Modern technology and complex code doesn't even imply frequent crashing. I have no doubt that you could build a cheap graphing calculator on a 400mhz XScale chip, with maybe 128mb of storage, with a full GUI and a hierarchical filesystem, just as stable as they used to be.
The $100 OLPC initiative was start when $100 was worth substantially more. It they have gone with a 100 Euro laptops, they could really trick the thing out.
That just shows you how overpriced graphing calculators are. Don't you think the prices should have dropped a bit more in the past 10 years? I guess when every HS student across the country has to buy one for their college prep classes there's not much incentive to compete on price.
There's nothing a graphing calculator can do on a test question that you couldn't do faster with a regular scientific calculator and some clever thinking. They're not only overpriced, they're a crutch that directly hinders college prep classes.
You can use the HP graphing calculator instead, you just have to know how to use it. In fact, from what I have heard the HP calculators dominate in the actual engineering working world while the TI calculators are mostly limited to education. That ought to tell you something about the relative usefulness of HP calculators compared to TI.
I was not allowed to use a programmable or graphing calculator on any exams. I used a Sharp EL-546 for my scholastic career. It was about $25. For that, I got matrix solutions, simpson's rule, algebraic substitution, polar and rectangular vector calculations, stats, function recall (so you can go back) and a bunch of other goodies.
At work, I do not use a "graphing" calculator. I use that old sharp (or calc.exe) for the few minor calculations that I have to do. For anything else, I use the simulation programs on the computer.
Really, who uses a calculator for anything important? You get the right tool for the job. As far as I'm concerned, using a graphing calculator instead of a sim (or RW tests) is the same as using a wristwatch.
As an educational tool, it doesn't have to be that complicated. Look at the laptop type devices being put out by Leapfrog, V-tech and Fisher Price. All in the $50 range. Adding a larger screen and internet access, might be possible for $75. It depends on what you want it to do and the profit margin expected. My Atari 2600 put some darn good games in 4K. The XO laptop is close to duplicating a full featured laptop for only $200. It is a resounding success. If for profit companies can build on that with a number of educational appliances that cost $75 and down, even better. If OLPC and the XO have a problem it isn't the hardware, it's software designed to allow kids to learn themselves and an inability to market that idea. Like schools in the US, the administration wants control, and they often resent kids learning on their own.
I think this is a good point. A $75 'educational device' might not really be a general-purpose computer in the way we're familiar with it, and that might be perfectly okay. There seems to be a big assumption that general-purpose PCs are the way to go in the classroom, and to be honest I don't see a lot of evidence of this. It seems like a bit of a leap of faith, really. Obviously, a general-purpose computer is better than nothing, so I'm not denigrating the OLPC, but that's not to say that the modern PC i
OLPC is good enough to access content like MIT Open Courseware. Expanding access to content like that from what was previously available to these kids is just amazing.
There are a lot of brilliant people in the world who, for lack of access to good education cannot realise their potential. I would prefer that your lack of imagination not prevent them. We are going to need them.
I would also prefer that the next billion people to come online in the digital age not be burning 300 watts each to support Microsoft bloatware. That's a lot of carbon for no real benefit.
Or why not just make sure they all get their vaccinations, a good supply of pencils and paper, and an interesting book to read from the nearby library each week? Doubt that would cost more than $75 per child in desperately-poor Thirdworldistan.
$75 per child might get you a school library of a couple thousand books, but wouldn't you rather give them all of Wikipedia and Project Gutenberg?
Fact is giving cheap computers to "poor" nations does not make them any happier, healthier, richer, or more educated. It just means that they have cheap computers. It may change the social dynamics around a bit, like reading a book at home on a computer instead of at the local school or library. It may even mean that somebody may get to work for IBM as a programmer through one of their off-shoring initiatives.
At any rate, since computers started to become superfluous in the West I have NOT noticed that people became more educated, happy, employed, etc (I'm sure those ppl still making big $$$ in the IT field would disagree). Yep, a shift in jobs for some people, and easier to do some second-hand research; but overall (unless you are a Gamer) I wouldn't say it has had a dramatic effect (for the better) on people's lives.
Don't get me wrong, I am certainly in favour of cheap computers, especially for poor people, but people should realize WHY they want this, and the reality of their ideals.
At any rate, since computers started to become superfluous in the West I have NOT noticed that people became more educated, happy, employed, etc (I'm sure those ppl still making big $$$ in the IT field would disagree). Yep, a shift in jobs for some people, and easier to do some second-hand research; but overall (unless you are a Gamer) I wouldn't say it has had a dramatic effect (for the better) on people's lives.
I'm not sure whether there's been much of a real "happiness" benefit (although I have no idea how you'd really quantify happiness -- "how happy are you, on a scale of 1 to 10"?), but computers have contributed real productivity gains to the U.S. economy, which in general have helped to expand purchasing power. Plus there are a lot of fringe benefits. (Probably far exceeding the real productivity gains, which are difficult to measure and engender lots of argument based on the methodology.)
Joe Worker may not care much about 'computers' either way, but he can now make long distance phone calls for a fraction of what they cost a few decades ago. I suspect within a generation, the idea of "long distance" phone calls being different from "local" ones will probably be lost on the young, if it hasn't been already. And there are cellphones, which except for very rural areas I don't think you can say haven't had an impact.
And even beyond that, there's all the goods that you can buy down at your local MegaMart or even grocery store. One of the only reasons you can buy so much cheap stuff from halfway around the globe is because of logistics and supply chains that have been honed to razor-thin margins by computer models, managed using computers, and operated over information networks. Huge amounts of global trade are only feasible because of computerization. And that doesn't even get into the personal-communication and leisure activities that are only possible because of them.
Of course, some people will always argue that technology and development haven't done anything to promote "happiness," and perhaps we'd all be better off if we'd never developed agriculture in the first place. But to me, that represents a lot of second-guessing (from the very cushy armchair of modern civilization) of decisions made by our long-dead ancestors, who have felt at every step of the way that new technologies were a benefit and chose to implement them.
So: will giving computers to poor nations necessarily make them happier? I've no idea. I also don't know if it necessarily will make them richer or more educated -- that really has more to do with how the computers are used, than the computers themselves. But without computers they're going to be kept out of a vast amount of the economy, and that will almost certainly assure that they're poor. They aren't a guarantee of anything, but they seem quite absolutely necessary as a starting condition to have much of a shot at all.
like reading a book at home on a computer instead of at the local school or library
Heh I grew up in Pakistan, not exactly the most impoverished of nations and the largest city has one large scale public library (there are local ones in high-end areas that cater to local neighborhood residents).
In order to read say a 3 investigators novel in middle/elemntary school I had to fork over 10 cents / day to a local private library. The household income at this point was in the range of 200 dollars (6k rupees) a month on which a family of 7 lived. And we were considered middle class. In comparison buying a new (pirated) book was around a dollar with a 'genuine' copy being around 6 dollars.
As you may guess even renting books from the local library was not exactly affordable in great quantities.
Far more relevant though, is back in the day my school had computer programming classes (BASIC) which I was virtually flunking, the whole thing seemed completely alien to me. A generous uncle bought us our first computer and my grades went from 50/100 to 99/100 and stayed in that range. I'm now earning well above the middle class in the US as a software engineer. For every person like me that actually got access to a computer and was able to leverage that there are probably hundreds if not thousands that were smarter then me and didn't. Imagine the potential lost, regardless of which field of study you think of.
imnsho this is a brilliant idea provided the likes of small minded governments and Intel don't completely screw it over.
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday January 10 2008, @02:35PM (#21988574)
Q: I understood that you have one or more patents in screen technology which are in the XO laptop. Are you taking those patents with you for licensing, or do they belong to OLPC? Can you clarify the patent situation for us?
Mary Lou Jepsen: When we eventually filed papers to make the OLPC 501c6 real, we also then started hiring (in early 2006). I then assigned the inventions that I had both already made and would make to OLPC. Pixel Qi -- my new company -- is now licensing my inventions from OLPC. This isn't an OLPC employee benefit, it's a deal I created with OLPC and Pixel Qi, and the benefit will go to OLPC and to the children of the world, lowering the price of the laptops, and thus allowing more kids to get laptops.
But you fail to see that whatever computer she creates may not compete with the OLPC at all. The OLPC is aimed at underdeveloped countries and is a non for profit effort, whereas this new computer could be aimed at the general American market (open market). They are completely two different kinds of markets, and it can even be argued that one of them is not a market.
Reading your (few and ancient) journal entries, apparently you have wondered in the past why you have been called a Troll.
I don't get why Slashdot gives so much press to these people when they admit they can't maintain their own goals,
"Citation needed", except you're probably merely talking about the OLPC target price of $100 versus the recent actual price of $188. Well, duh, "target price" is a hope for the future. Initial price being higher is not "admitting they can't maintain their own goals". Sheesh.
the program is mired in political bullshit,
"Citation needed", very definitely. "Mired" is unsupportable, and "political bullshit" is created by their enemies (clearly including Intel at this point), but you phrase it as if OLPC themselves did something wrong. I call bullshit.
and the very idea of giving kids a laptop and acting as if it will cure all their ills is idealistic at absolute best.
"Citation needed" once again. You make me tired. Talk about hyperbole. No OLPC person has ever said that the OLPC goals will "cure all their ills". That's bigtime bullshit, and you should be ashamed for the misrepresentation, you really should.
OLPC is bust,
"Citation needed" yet again! They are shipping. They're an ongoing concern. There is no strong evidence that they have actually "failed" (either short term or long term) in any sense at all.
Netcraft confirms.
I searched Netcraft and saw nothing about OLPC, but maybe I just wasn't thorough enough. Still, this smacks of merely more of your trolling.
Before posting, I checked your slashdot journal and your website. Your research seems interesting, you seem superficially as if you might be an interesting person, but apparently once in a while you just get irrationally angry on some topic and, given what you yourself have said on the topics in question, do not understand that that's what you have done. Introspect more, then you will see why (once a year or so, since you post infrequently) people say you are a big time Troll.
You're being so much of a troll here that it makes me wonder what you did 5 years ago to get +1 Karma. Maybe you should wonder, too, and then try to repeat your positive side, rather than your negative side!
I For One... (Score:4, Funny)
That's "vapour", for my fellow POHMs.
Giver Her a Little More Credit (Score:5, Insightful)
So I'm guessing she was upset from the cost and believes that she can cut cost by doing again what she did for the OLPC, designing a better, cheaper display. This time, she can probably negotiate better deals as I'm sure the # of XOs in development causes display manufacturers to salivate.
So, before you accuse this of being vaporware, I would caution you that she has held up her end once for the OLPC
Now, what makes me salivate is the site's promise to keep everything open. The software's a given at this point but open hardware would be revolutionary and present yet another learning possibility for users.
Parent
Elonka Dunn? (Score:3, Informative)
$200, $150, $75...where does it end? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:$200, $150, $75...where does it end? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:$200, $150, $75...where does it end? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
...and (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No matter if that base was 10c or $10 billion.
How to trust somebody doing calculations if he is nearly off by a factor of two?
Does school OS have anything to do with home OS? (Score:4, Insightful)
When I was young, all the computers at school ran MacOS. My entire introduction to computing was done on Apple IIs and Macintoshes. However, when it came time to buy a computer for home, our family bought a Windows machine because it had better specs. Starting these kids out on Linux doesn't necessarily mean that they'll stay with Linux.
Re:Does school OS have anything to do with home OS (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was young, all the computers at school ran MacOS. My entire introduction to computing was done on Apple IIs and Macintoshes. However, when it came time to buy a computer for home, our family bought a Windows machine because it had better specs. Starting these kids out on Linux doesn't necessarily mean that they'll stay with Linux.
Why not, Linux is widely recognised as having better specs.
Better specs don't sell though. Marketing and subsequent mindshare do (case in point : Windows - various incarnations).
Re:Does school OS have anything to do with home OS (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
A major roadblock (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm, I dunno, maybe Ms. Jepsen will create some innovative new display filter technology that allows 200dpi color-capable LCD screens with backlighting to be built for roughtly the same cost as a 75dpi monochrome LCD screen. Wouldn't that be something...
But what about the fish? (Score:3, Funny)
Let's do the math (Score:2)
AWESOME IDEA (Score:2)
Crazy Eddie? (Score:2)
Although as a kid I used to go to his store to get cheap video games...
Microsoft won't be allowing dual boot (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
How about a DS? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Nintendo DS...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How about a DS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:How about a DS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
World Class Machine (Score:3, Insightful)
My theory, un-tested is that most family's can't afford to budget more than 1 weeks income every 3-4 years for a computer. Of course the wealthy can do whatever they wish. Personally I spend $800 on a monitor every 5-7 years and $400 to $500 on a new CPU/Box every 14 months.
With a price at $75 I would expect that means there is at leaset 1 BILLION people whose family can now afford such a device, and may be more than that. I'd like a machine that 4 Billion people could afford every 3-5 years. They we will have a real shot a planet wide culture. Today we have A few 100 million to a Billion people spending most of the $$, most of the energy, etc.
Putting a cheap computer in their home will not change economics but it can help teach them to read, and give them a path to education, which might take a few generations but will help all over time.
Personally low powered desktops would be better than laptops esp. a model that could use the TV screen to lower costs, for those homes that have TVs.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Fyunch-click - You fixed *what*? (Score:3, Insightful)
To hit $75 for a laptop, the same technology will be required.
myke
What they don't seem to realise is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:If we're going to go that cheap... (Score:4, Insightful)
The TI calculators are a prime example of how a market can stagnate when there's no competition. Pretty much since HP abandoned the educational market (which struck me as a bad idea, given how the professional market is getting eaten up by computer software packages) TI has rested on its laurels. Sure, every once in a while they toss out an incremental upgrade -- a little more RAM or Flash here, a little better screen there -- but by and large they're not doing a damn thing with their lineup, and they haven't decreased the prices much at all.
The TI-89 isn't bad -- it's probably the best handheld calculator out there, depending on how you feel about the HP-49 series -- but I can't help but wonder what we'd have if TI actually had some motivation to actually turn out a new model and cut prices every year or so, like the rest of the computer-hardware industry.
Parent
Re:If we're going to go that cheap... (Score:4, Interesting)
Modern technology doesn't imply frequent crashing. Modern technology and complex code doesn't even imply frequent crashing. I have no doubt that you could build a cheap graphing calculator on a 400mhz XScale chip, with maybe 128mb of storage, with a full GUI and a hierarchical filesystem, just as stable as they used to be.
Probably based on Linux.
Parent
Re:If we're going to go that cheap... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:If we're going to go that cheap... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:If we're going to go that cheap... (Score:4, Interesting)
I was not allowed to use a programmable or graphing calculator on any exams. I used a Sharp EL-546 for my scholastic career. It was about $25. For that, I got matrix solutions, simpson's rule, algebraic substitution, polar and rectangular vector calculations, stats, function recall (so you can go back) and a bunch of other goodies.
At work, I do not use a "graphing" calculator. I use that old sharp (or calc.exe) for the few minor calculations that I have to do. For anything else, I use the simulation programs on the computer.
Really, who uses a calculator for anything important? You get the right tool for the job. As far as I'm concerned, using a graphing calculator instead of a sim (or RW tests) is the same as using a wristwatch.
Parent
Stop thinking of it that way. (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3)
Obviously, a general-purpose computer is better than nothing, so I'm not denigrating the OLPC, but that's not to say that the modern PC i
Unable to imagine does not create anything (Score:4, Interesting)
OLPC is good enough to access content like MIT Open Courseware. Expanding access to content like that from what was previously available to these kids is just amazing.
There are a lot of brilliant people in the world who, for lack of access to good education cannot realise their potential. I would prefer that your lack of imagination not prevent them. We are going to need them.
I would also prefer that the next billion people to come online in the digital age not be burning 300 watts each to support Microsoft bloatware. That's a lot of carbon for no real benefit.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
$75 per child might get you a school library of a couple thousand books, but wouldn't you rather give them all of Wikipedia and Project Gutenberg?
Re:If we're going to go that cheap... (Score:4, Insightful)
At any rate, since computers started to become superfluous in the West I have NOT noticed that people became more educated, happy, employed, etc (I'm sure those ppl still making big $$$ in the IT field would disagree). Yep, a shift in jobs for some people, and easier to do some second-hand research; but overall (unless you are a Gamer) I wouldn't say it has had a dramatic effect (for the better) on people's lives.
Don't get me wrong, I am certainly in favour of cheap computers, especially for poor people, but people should realize WHY they want this, and the reality of their ideals.
Parent
Re:If we're going to go that cheap... (Score:4, Interesting)
Joe Worker may not care much about 'computers' either way, but he can now make long distance phone calls for a fraction of what they cost a few decades ago. I suspect within a generation, the idea of "long distance" phone calls being different from "local" ones will probably be lost on the young, if it hasn't been already. And there are cellphones, which except for very rural areas I don't think you can say haven't had an impact.
And even beyond that, there's all the goods that you can buy down at your local MegaMart or even grocery store. One of the only reasons you can buy so much cheap stuff from halfway around the globe is because of logistics and supply chains that have been honed to razor-thin margins by computer models, managed using computers, and operated over information networks. Huge amounts of global trade are only feasible because of computerization. And that doesn't even get into the personal-communication and leisure activities that are only possible because of them.
Of course, some people will always argue that technology and development haven't done anything to promote "happiness," and perhaps we'd all be better off if we'd never developed agriculture in the first place. But to me, that represents a lot of second-guessing (from the very cushy armchair of modern civilization) of decisions made by our long-dead ancestors, who have felt at every step of the way that new technologies were a benefit and chose to implement them.
So: will giving computers to poor nations necessarily make them happier? I've no idea. I also don't know if it necessarily will make them richer or more educated -- that really has more to do with how the computers are used, than the computers themselves. But without computers they're going to be kept out of a vast amount of the economy, and that will almost certainly assure that they're poor. They aren't a guarantee of anything, but they seem quite absolutely necessary as a starting condition to have much of a shot at all.
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Re:If we're going to go that cheap... (Score:4, Insightful)
Heh I grew up in Pakistan, not exactly the most impoverished of nations and the largest city has one large scale public library (there are local ones in high-end areas that cater to local neighborhood residents).
In order to read say a 3 investigators novel in middle/elemntary school I had to fork over 10 cents / day to a local private library. The household income at this point was in the range of 200 dollars (6k rupees) a month on which a family of 7 lived. And we were considered middle class. In comparison buying a new (pirated) book was around a dollar with a 'genuine' copy being around 6 dollars.
As you may guess even renting books from the local library was not exactly affordable in great quantities.
Far more relevant though, is back in the day my school had computer programming classes (BASIC) which I was virtually flunking, the whole thing seemed completely alien to me. A generous uncle bought us our first computer and my grades went from 50/100 to 99/100 and stayed in that range. I'm now earning well above the middle class in the US as a software engineer. For every person like me that actually got access to a computer and was able to leverage that there are probably hundreds if not thousands that were smarter then me and didn't. Imagine the potential lost, regardless of which field of study you think of.
imnsho this is a brilliant idea provided the likes of small minded governments and Intel don't completely screw it over.
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That's answered in the Groklaw interview (Score:5, Informative)
Mary Lou Jepsen: When we eventually filed papers to make the OLPC 501c6 real, we also then started hiring (in early 2006). I then assigned the inventions that I had both already made and would make to OLPC. Pixel Qi -- my new company -- is now licensing my inventions from OLPC. This isn't an OLPC employee benefit, it's a deal I created with OLPC and Pixel Qi, and the benefit will go to OLPC and to the children of the world, lowering the price of the laptops, and thus allowing more kids to get laptops.
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Re:The rich get richer, etc. (Score:5, Informative)
As you see, your post is plain wrong and very unfair to Ms. Jepsen. Too bad it was modded +3...
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So by the time we can buy one... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Citation needed", except you're probably merely talking about the OLPC target price of $100 versus the recent actual price of $188. Well, duh, "target price" is a hope for the future. Initial price being higher is not "admitting they can't maintain their own goals". Sheesh.
"Citation needed", very definitely. "Mired" is unsupportable, and "political bullshit" is created by their enemies (clearly including Intel at this point), but you phrase it as if OLPC themselves did something wrong. I call bullshit.
"Citation needed" once again. You make me tired. Talk about hyperbole. No OLPC person has ever said that the OLPC goals will "cure all their ills". That's bigtime bullshit, and you should be ashamed for the misrepresentation, you really should.
"Citation needed" yet again! They are shipping. They're an ongoing concern. There is no strong evidence that they have actually "failed" (either short term or long term) in any sense at all.
I searched Netcraft and saw nothing about OLPC, but maybe I just wasn't thorough enough. Still, this smacks of merely more of your trolling.
Before posting, I checked your slashdot journal and your website. Your research seems interesting, you seem superficially as if you might be an interesting person, but apparently once in a while you just get irrationally angry on some topic and, given what you yourself have said on the topics in question, do not understand that that's what you have done. Introspect more, then you will see why (once a year or so, since you post infrequently) people say you are a big time Troll.
You're being so much of a troll here that it makes me wonder what you did 5 years ago to get +1 Karma. Maybe you should wonder, too, and then try to repeat your positive side, rather than your negative side!
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