OLPC Unveils Plans For Tablets By 2012 102
adeelarshad82 writes "The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative outlined its product roadmap for the next three years, a plan that includes the release of tablet-based OLPC by 2012. During the next three years, OLPC plans on releasing two laptops, the first two years' priced around $200 and $150 respectively, before launching a tablet in 2011 for less than $100."
what's the point? (Score:2)
Re:I hate to say it, (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh look, it's the obligatory "The whole of the African continent resembles the Serengeti, and everyone lives in a mud hut" comment.
NO U
Re:I hate to say it, (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh look, it's the obligatory "The whole of the African continent resembles the Serengeti, and everyone lives in a mud hut" comment.
Yeah, it would probably shock most Americans to learn that there are actual cities in Africa with skyscrapers and neon lights and cell phones. They just don't see those on National Geographic specials -- no doubt because Kenyan accountants aren't as colorful as herd-following Maasai tribesmen, to say nothing of not being very effective at arousing paternalistic western feelings.
A more constructive observation might be that creating jobs in Africa by manufacturing the damn things there would help to address the other problems that stem from poverty, to say nothing of getting around the excessive import duties that will otherwise make even $100 computers unaffordable to most Africans.
Now, mind you, there are Africans living in utter destitution, and we should by all means remember to help them out, too, but if we have higher hopes for our African friends than leaving them waiting for the latest UN food convoy, lending a hand to help their less-deprived neighbors build a stable urban life is a good idea. I'm not sure the OLPC is the way to do it, but it's not a bad idea, and certainly more productive than carping from the sidelines.
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I agree.. We up here in Canada would love to have some tablets, but where would we plug them in? Our igloos have no electrical and solar chargers are out since we don't get sun for 6 months of the year.
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"I agree, EH.. We up here in Canada would love to have some tablets, but where would we plug them in? Our igloos have no electrical and solar chargers are out since we don't get sun for 6 months of the year, EH."
FTFY
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We also import chewing gum now.
Still, no Kangaroos here. Thats another desert.
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I bet a majority of children who recieve a tablet will go to town and sell it so that they might be able to one day buy a goat.
Certainly, it should help their private, er, social life.
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The developing world is not composed exclusively of places with "very little water" and "very little food", and, really, the parts of it that meet those descriptions aren't the principle target for the OLPC. The OLPC is targetted largely for countries where basic subsistence needs aren't the primary concern (if nothing else, because countries where those are the primary needs aren't likely to be able to purchase even
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But, how can we show them goatse [goatse.fr], if they have no computer?
You print it out and erect a billboard?
Wait right there (Score:2)
I'm sorry, but "goatse" and "erect" simply don't belong in the same concept.
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Goatse is capable of destroying anything standing errect before it.
HA!
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And spelling fail. I blame the remains of the White Russian in the glass before me, for noticing the red squiggly line under errect (Correct spelling being 'erect') in Firefox after hitting submit.
Note to self: use the 'PREVIEW' button next time...
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I know! The entire developing world is living in mud huts with no electricity nor running water, while at the other extreme are first world countries with all the modern conveniences. Yep, there's nothing in between those extremes.
Really, someone should hi
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Tablets are a solution searching for a problem. The XO-2 was supposed to be a 2 screen (top and bottom) touch-screen computer with no keyboard proper. This is basically a 1 screen version of that.
Now, perhaps the idea is to be a complete paper replacement, but IMO, a lack of physical keyboard just hinders a computer it for any serious use. You just can't input that well without a keyboard and the original design could always be update with a touchscreen without changing much else. They should have kept
Re:I hate to say it, (Score:4, Interesting)
> ..making it so cheap that countries wouldn't even have to think about acquiring one..
Exactly. But Negroponte is about PR and vapor, not producing actual solutions or products. It isn't a coincidence that he worked for the UN, a useless institution known for exactly the same flaws.
At his point it should be possible to build an ARM based OLPC style machine for $100 in quantity one, far less when sold by the cargo container.
And once you get past the poorest of the poor, where even basic sanitation is scarce and electricity is virtually unknown, most folks manage to wrangle a TV set. So why not build a $25 computer for them by tucking an ARM into a keyboard and using that existing TV as the output. Not as sexy as pitching a tablet that will likely never actually be built (like his last big idea) but my idea would get a computer into the hands of a billion people by this time next year if somebody ran with it.
Re:I hate to say it, (Score:4, Insightful)
So, ignoring the rest of what OLPC has delivered, the 380,000+ computers [worldbank.org] in the hands of Uruguayan students that have raised the average computer literacy of 8 year olds to the average level of 18 year olds prior to the project aren't "actual solutions or products"?
(And, yes, while XO are used, the local project is a lot broader than just getting OLPC laptops -- which is exactly the point of the OLPC project, to enable broader projects in the countries that use it.)
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So, ignoring the rest of what OLPC has delivered, the 380,000+ computers [worldbank.org] in the hands of Uruguayan students that have raised the average computer literacy of 8 year olds to the average level of 18 year olds prior to the project aren't "actual solutions or products"?
I happen to be Uruguayan and currently live in Uruguay... and while I endorse the OLPC project in my country (Plan Ceibal), I'd say you're grossly exaggerating its results - we already had a very good literacy prior to it (as in, better than the US), and the XO itself might not even have been the cheapest option.
Though if the OLPC project had not existed, I doubt such a far-reaching and ambitious plan would have been implemented, so even if it was more PR than anything, it WAS important, in making the pol
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The assessment from the study cited in the article I linked to might exaggerate the results, but note that the reference was to computer literacy, not literacy -- there's a pretty big difference bet
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we already had a very good literacy prior to it (as in, almost as good as the US), and the XO itself might not even have been the cheapest option.
Fixed [cia.gov] that for you [cia.gov].
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Now, perhaps the idea is to be a complete paper replacement, but IMO, a lack of physical keyboard just hinders a computer it for any serious use.
Hmm. For the past 3000 years, we've been told the key to education is reading. For the past 30 years, we've been told the key to education is memorizing the UI for a recent version of Excel.
No keyboard means no ability to write, but despite the best daydreams of bloggers around the world, until you're educated you probably have nothing useful to write about anyway...
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Really? Because I can remember writing without a keyboard.
In fact, plenty of touch-sensitive devices without keyboards are designed for accepting writing as an input method.
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I hear it also runs Duke Nukem Forever like a dream!
Yeah (Score:3, Informative)
Sugar works fine on other platforms. At least we have that.
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Agreed. Great concept, I'll wait for someone else to develop something similar and release it. The two advantages of the OLPC stuff thus far has been rugged design (when closed, no ports are exposed, as well as being more towards the Toughbook-style design than the cheap flimsy laptops we're used to), and an open spec with Free Software. (I think they had to compromise on their wireless card, but their goal was 100% open)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
BFN? (Score:2)
Big Something Nowhere?
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He could have sold it to the first world, gotten the economies of scale on his side
Possibly not. If I understand right, lots of the reason they can be as cheap as they can is that they don't have to pay patent royalties. Most often this is because they are a charity and not directly competing with the patent owner.
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BTW as someone who has used every version of every MSFT OS, including WinFlip and XP Embedded, putting MSFT anything on a flash based device is suicide because MSFT never made an OS that don't hit swap like there is no tomorrow
I have Windows 7 installed on my Eee PC 901. All solid-state drives. Runs fine. It's a little sluggish at times, but perfectly usable. In other words, the cyanide isn't working.
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I am using a cut-down build of Windows 7 Professional on the Eee PC. I had to vLite it because the flash-based Eee PC's boot drive is only 4GB (no matter which configuration you buy). Is the OLPC's smaller than that?
Yes, swap is disabled. It didn't seem to confer any advantage, and there's not really any space on the flash drive for it, so off it goes.
I really do use it as my carry laptop, though. It does what I need it to do (which is MS Office, e-mail, and Web, pretty much).
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What prevents some other organization/company from producing OLPC laptops? Suppose someone approached OLPC with a request to license the designs and manufacture them for sale, with perhaps some part of the profits going back to OLPC?
In fact, Negroponte's comment seems to indicate that he w
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They did. It's called Windows CE. It used a fixed amount of memory, so it won't page to disk/flash.
I wonder why they chose XP over CE on the OLPC devices. Because CE would be a better fit here.
Then again, CE is just similar to desktop Windows, and barely compatible (besides some special readers for MS formatted files, and ActiveSync to transfer those).
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Internet = Porn. Masturbation is the only real cure for overpopulation.
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OLPC announces vapour-ware.
ASUS releases actual product a year or two before.
OPLC never materialises.
The cycle continues.
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Fat lot of good that will do... (Score:2, Funny)
Don't they know that the world is going to end that year? [wikipedia.org] What are they thinking?
pre-doom stock inflation (Score:1)
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What's stopping you? I make up tags all the time ... sometimes they even persist and the story stays tagged that way for hours or more.
Really? Not once have I ever applied any tag, not even the more standard/common/generic ones, refreshed the Slashdot main page, and seen my tag still in place. My personal user page shows that I used such a tag, but not the main page. I have Excellent karma, frequently receive mod points, and otherwise don't appear to be on any shitlists. I have never received a good explanation for this. Someone somewhere is able to tag stories and have it stay on the main page, else I wouldn't see them there. But no
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In other news... (Score:1)
Reliance on technology as an end in itself? (Score:2, Interesting)
I still am not entirely sure about this project -- there seems to be more of a reliance on technology as an end in itself, simply crossing fingers for some kind of digital third-world transformation to occur.
Instead of outcomes, they seem to be focusing on outputs, namely laptops distributed. But what are they supposed to do with them practically? Does it give them a pocket library, replacing books if not thousands of books? Will this help them with agriculture? Are there any structured curriculums for lear
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It seems just to be a bunch of vague educational programs wrapped in sweet talk without any specific outcomes intended.
Hasn't that been the American way of education for the past century? We turned out better than they turned out, maybe they should pragmatically give our method a try? An amazing amount of effort has been applied to avoid making that frank admission.
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From the beginning, the OLPC project has been clear that it is an education project in which technolgoy is a means of enabling a particular mode of education, not a project in which technology is an ends.
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"If you want to see how this turns out, look at America's school system, for example, where there's been at least a 20-year focus on giving every child a computer for the sake of it. Granted, some school systems use technology in an excellent fashion. But how many billions were spent on computers that did nothing more than, on occasion, provide a replacement for typewriters when students needed to type a proper paper?"
US students have no real economic incentive to learn (being poor here is inconvenient but
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Anyway, the point is there is more than a little bit of educatio
Dupe? (Score:3, Funny)
Weren't these prices posted when OLPC first came out?
Negroponte, please.
Plans for a release... (Score:2)
At 3x the projected cost, and 4x the timeframe..
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Hi, I'm from 2015. It's 7x the timeframe now.
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Half the price (Score:1)
This is about half the price of a PS3. Is it realy that good of a value for what you get, expecially since you cannot buy one in the US, just to mess around with, for that price.
Oh well, just imagine a beowulf cluster of them anyway.
Unfortunate timing (Score:2)
But in 2012 I will no longer be a child :(
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The holy grail... NOT (Score:5, Informative)
Tablets seem like a solution in search of a problem to me.
Re:The holy grail... NOT (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem IMHO is people are still trying to make tablets too much like a desktop computer. It needs to be small, thin, light, and of course cheap with rudimentary pen-based data entry. It doesn't need to be a super-powerful computer which can run the latest version of Windows and calculate Pi to 1 million digits in 30 seconds. The most processor-intensive task it should have to handle is handwriting recognition. In that respect I think an OLPC tablet would be closer to the ideal than the 4-pound $1k tablets on the market today (ebook readers are getting there too). Make something which can replace the clipboard, and businesses will buy them in droves, I think.
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Just thinking about it now, perhaps ChromeOS would be a good match for such a device.
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Panasonic Toughbooks? Yeah, but they start at several thousand dollars for the rugged ones...
Personally, I'd just as soon buy 3 of these (even at the $300 they'll come out at) than spend 4 times that for the 'rugged' one. That, or I'd pick up a used Toughbook.
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It doesn't need to be a super-powerful computer which can... calculate Pi to 1 million digits in 30 seconds. The most processor-intensive task it should have to handle is handwriting recognition.
Calculating pi to a million digits is a lot easier for the average computer than performing good handwriting recognition.
People have some pretty warped ideas about what is simple and easy vs. what is complicated and difficult.
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I totally agree that tablets are not all they are cracked up to be (Keyboards ftw!) but in the context of the OLPC they make the most sense. They have the less parts/meterials and you have to remember that the OLPC computers are not used like standard laptops and are made to provide computing to people with minimal education and encourage interaction between the youngsters.
They make music, draw and play games more than word processing in a very hands on fashion. Tablets are also very much like a book - th
lack of consistency = higher support costs (Score:4, Insightful)
Different hardware models every year, different complete form factor when the tablet gets out... surely these people could take a page from the people who design for corporate laptop orders, and make a rugged model that simply doesn't change for 3-5 years? These poor countries have enough trouble paying for these up front without having to worry about not being able to cannibalize parts among the models when some break.
Not to mention the possibility that the hardware user interface may change enough among the models to require some extra training for teachers of classrooms with mixed hardware.
Oh, and will it will be harder to care for tablets, which don't have a protective cover over them when being carried around? They might be "unbreakable," but what about unscratchable?
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"the XO-3 should really be considered a concept model, much like the XO-2 which it seems to be replacing."
So... these weren't intended to be used practically?
XO-1.5/1.75 shipping? (Score:3, Insightful)
More photos (Score:3, Insightful)
over at PC World [pcworld.com]. Actually, I like the idea of the XO-3. Sure, it's totally blue-sky, but it's great to have at least one outfit taking a completely clean-slate design approach to mobile computing.
I like the hinged-panel XO-2 and MS Courier better, however. I think it's just more practical to have one part of the screen that can tilt up into the light. That said, the ring thingy of the XO-3 is interesting, too. I hadn't really thought about the mechanics of trying to hold a panel with one hand while touching with the other.
Remember 10/GUI [10gui.com], Clayton Miller's 10-fingered touch screen interface? Imagine a flexible 10/GUI touch pad that could be pulled out from under the XO screen. That might be interesting.
Another vaporware (Score:1)
Over at OLPC News (Score:1)
CherryPal just announced it's Africa Netbook available for sale today through it's website for a retail price of just $99, something that OLPC had promised years earlier and failed to deliver upon. While it is certainly not developed to live up to the specifications of the XO, the Africa Netbook does boast:
7-inch display
400MHz processor
256MB memory
2GB flash storage
Linux or Windows CE
4 hour battery
Just don't work with (Score:2)
http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/11/30/1731239 [slashdot.org]
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/12/07/2046242 [slashdot.org]
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/12/11/1655204 [slashdot.org]
Or anyone named Negroponte. Oooh, too late.
One really crappy laptop per child (Score:2, Funny)
It all sounds so fantastic, that all children should have access to a laptop.
Well, recently I was in the tiny Pacific country of Niue, where every child actually has a laptop.
More than that, basically the entire nation (of 1,500 people) is a wireless hotspot, so every child can access the internet.
But don't be misled, the laptops given to the children perform about three functions. They do connect to the internet, but even doing something as simple as a google search is next to impossible, because the speed
the release of tablet-based OLPC by 2012 (Score:2)
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Shall we... play... a game?