Former OLPC CTO Aims to Create $75 Laptop 207
theodp writes "Mary Lou Jepsen, who left her One Laptop Per Child CTO gig on Dec. 31st, has reemerged with her sights set on a $75 laptop that will be designed by her new company, Pixel Qi, which is described as a 'spin-out' from OLPC. In a Groklaw interview, Jepsen calls for 'a $50-75 laptop in the next 2-3 years' and says it's time to go Crazy-Eddie on touchscreen prices as well."
This is probably good news to Bruce Perens, who thinks that the recent report of Microsoft's dual-boot XO project (with Windows as well as the Linux-based Sugar OS) is a feint driven by Microsoft's fear of "the entire third world learning Linux as children." Update: 01/10 21:22 GMT by T :
ChelleChelle adds a link to an excellent interview with Jepsen in the ACM Queue, in which she discusses OLPC and some of the technologies it contains.
Re:Does school OS have anything to do with home OS (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was young, all the computers at school ran MacOS. My entire introduction to computing was done on Apple IIs and Macintoshes. However, when it came time to buy a computer for home, our family bought a Windows machine because it had better specs. Starting these kids out on Linux doesn't necessarily mean that they'll stay with Linux.
Better specs don't sell though. Marketing and subsequent mindshare do (case in point : Windows - various incarnations).
How about a DS? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Nintendo DS...
Unable to imagine does not create anything (Score:4, Interesting)
OLPC is good enough to access content like MIT Open Courseware. Expanding access to content like that from what was previously available to these kids is just amazing.
There are a lot of brilliant people in the world who, for lack of access to good education cannot realise their potential. I would prefer that your lack of imagination not prevent them. We are going to need them.
I would also prefer that the next billion people to come online in the digital age not be burning 300 watts each to support Microsoft bloatware. That's a lot of carbon for no real benefit.
Re:Giver Her a Little More Credit (Score:2, Interesting)
let's look at the specs again (Score:2, Interesting)
Let's take that in context.
The enormity of the price overrun is attributable to M$ getting OLPC to increase the specs drastically [olpcnews.com] until the hardware became at least theoretically possible to run M$ Cruftware. If M$ boosters cannot kill the OLPC, they have to [dailytechnobabble.com] at least slow it down by any means necessary. Failing to do so means that a market for notebooks opens up without their monopoly. Todate M$ business model has focussed largely on leveraging the desktop monopoly Bill's mom got for him from IBM. We have a few decades of experience to watching M$ products and services become less and less competitive. Preserving the monopoly is the only way to keep the cult going.
Further, if Linux takes over the new market, or even breaks into it, the old markets will want it, too. We're almost there, with manufacturers like Dell and Lenovo almost offering Linux pre-installed.
Re:How about a DS? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft won't be allowing dual boot (Score:3, Interesting)
Yikes! To me, this reads like Microsoft aren't planning to introduce Windows as a dual-boot option, rather they intend to replace Linux entirely on the XO machines. How are they going to do this without increasing the cost of the laptop? I suppose they would have to give the OS away for free, but what are the legal implications here? I recall hearing that it can be illegal to drop your price to zero in order to flush out a competitor. If this is the case, then I wonder if this isn't a rather risky move for MS, especially considering their history of lawsuits for anti-competitive practices.
Re:If we're going to go that cheap... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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.
Re:If we're going to go that cheap... (Score:2, Interesting)
However due to their monopoly and influence over school calculator choices and rules for calculators in tests, they can keep this huge profit and still have 99% of the market. They actually try to, and successfully do, change / mold rules to ensure the competitions products have features that are disallowed on tests. Teachers also greatly affects the choice of calculators (basically it's mandated by the school). If this isn't a monopoly with questionable business practices, I don't know what is.
I should perhaps clarify that the information in this post was mentioned in meetings by higher ups. One of the reason a project I was working on was canceled was that it couldn't really be sold at the kind of margin they are used to.
I unfortunately do not feel comfortable posting this with my account name exposed.
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.