OLPC Available to the Public Early 2008 192
Zoxed writes "The BBC is reporting that the OLPC will be available to the public early next year on a buy-2-get-1 basis through eBay. With its cheap price, fully open spec. and full/open hardware support for Linux, expandability, 2W rating and LinuxBIOS booting it sounds like an embedded-Linux hackers favorite new toy."
Good present for grandparents as well? (Score:5, Interesting)
I would buy one. (Score:2, Interesting)
They should totally open the hardware to hacking
hell even encourage it. Maybe a power Adapter hack
incase you want to do something like coding.
i dont know, just throwing ideas out..
Couple Thoughts: Case Color and Good Idea.. (Score:5, Interesting)
b: You can stop the reselling problem (one worry is always that by selling them you'd create an adult market and therefore encourage theft) by a simple expedient: a different color case. Make purchased OLPCs black, and kid ones in cheerful old-school iMac colors, and now they are vastly different products from a retail viewpoint.
Re:I would buy one. (Score:4, Interesting)
That's more open than anything you'll find in an American store.
The hardware needs to be durable and sealed tight (to keep out dust), so I think encouraging hardware hacks may work against the goals of giving poor children a long-lasting device. But that's not to say you couldn't take a hacksaw to it and explore... no doubt, many people will do just that once it's put on the market..
OLPC and it's cultural implications (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Good present for grandparents as well? (Score:2, Interesting)
Abiword is already running on it, albeit with a simplified interface. You can download the image for the OLPC OS and give it a go, it's very easy to do. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar_Instructions#Insta lling [laptop.org]
I actually find the interface a little non-intuitive for the beginning user, which I find at odds with it's goals. The documentation itself states
Essentially you start with a blank screen, to launch a program you move the mouse to edge of the screen which brings up the program bar. It seems to me it would have made a little more sense for the program bar to be active by default (at least when no programs are currently active). Or at least a little "Start here arrow" for the first few boots."
While I'm being critical, I'd also change the Abiword icon to look more relevant to a pen and paper activity (It's currently the AbiWord logo), and rejig the web icon to be a bit of a more obvious globe.
Re:Good present for grandparents as well? (Score:3, Interesting)
My cell phone is $150 at t-Mobile with a 2 yr contract, or $200 with a 1 year. On e-bay, unlocked, it is $165.
It runs Windows Mobile 5.0, has WIFI, uses very little power thus could be charged off cheap solar power. It has 200MHz processor at over 2GB of disk space, 64MB RAM.
I have Opera, Skype, VNC, and other applications on it. For $20 I have added 2GB of disk space from the base 64. It has bluetooth and I can hook a bluetooth mouse/keyboard to it.
Sure, this ain't no laptop. It's "not there" yet. However, a friend has Mobile 5.0 release 2 and has Terminal Services client and office viewers. We are close.
The new iPhone runs OSx. Some new cell phones are on UMPC platform and run Windows XP tablet edition, starting at around $900 up to $2000.
I venture to say that in 5 years, our cell phones will do everything an office PC does. As long as you are not a gamer cad cam or video guy, you could do all your work off your cell phone. Having a docking station at home/work.
Given the mass market of cell phones, and the willingness of people to fork over cash for them, I'd say we will get a device that can do all the basic computer functions soon. And through the second hand market we could provide these to 3rd world countries at about the same price.
I may be wrong, but I don't think so
Re:Good present for grandparents as well? (Score:4, Interesting)
But beyond that, you're quite correct- my T-Mobile MDA which I purchased when it was *much* more expensive ($495 with a 2-year contract) is exactly the type of platform I'd like to give to cutomers, except for the aforementioned problem of keyboard and screen (lack of USB type A host connector is also a problem, but I'm working on that one- Windows Mobile 5.0 supports USB OTG, and all that is required is a special cable with a separate power source).
Re:OLPC? (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason its so exciting to see philanthropy dominated by folks like Bill Gates or Mark Shuttleworth is that they're smart enough to know they don't know everything. They go out and hire the top percentage of specialists for the problem they want solved and they ruthlessly weed out the failed ideas as soon as failure is obvious.
Its not their tech savvy thats exciting, its their business savvy and the fact that it is obviously working better than what we had. Witness Warren Buffett, arguably the best investor of his generation, plowing all of his money into the Gates Foundation.
Further, witness the really fundamental change from the status quo of them stating that by a given moment in time all of their money will be gone. Recognizing that they are about solving specific problems and that when those problems are gone so should the money be.
Re:OLPC? (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, a water treatment facility would be a different story, since trucking in water for the indefinite future would be the bigger undertaking. But nobody is actually talking about doing that. "Providing clean water" isn't meant to be taken literally; rather, it's a shorthand for providing water purification/filtration systems of various scales.
Re:Summary is rather hyperbolic (Score:2, Interesting)