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Education Portables Power Hardware

OLPC Halves Power Consumption For XO 1.75 160

Posted by timothy from the conservative-versioning dept.
angry tapir writes "One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) has reduced the price of the next version of its notebook to US$165 and power consumption has been slashed by half compared to the previous version. The XO-1.75, with its 8.9-inch touchscreen, will start shipping in the second quarter of this year."
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OLPC Halves Power Consumption For XO 1.75 More

OLPC Halves Power Consumption For XO 1.75

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  • I'm convinced, after looking at the proposed specs and the mock-ups for the that the $165 price-point is a pie-in-the-sky fantasy.

    But... If it does miraculously appear for under $200 and can run Android or some other Linux variant, I'll buy 3 or 4...

    • The XO 1.0 supposedly cost $188, so $165 isn't surprising. Unless you think they've been lying all along and no OLPC customer has outed them.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        The actual cost of non-premium hardware is very, very little. For instance the screen in most netbooks only costs about $10-$15, probably less in bulk. The only reason Ipads cost so much is they use under-clocked top of the line CPU's, IPS displays with lots of SSD space and a capacitive touchscreen in an expensive aluminum case. Now if you stick to a cheaper non-IPS display and use a resistive touchscreen and reduce the storage capacity and put it into a cheap plastic case... and you end up with a cheap

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by perryizgr8 ( 1370173 )

          The only reason Ipads cost so much is they use under-clocked top of the line CPU's, IPS displays with lots of SSD space and a capacitive touchscreen in an expensive aluminum case.

          and don't forget the 200% apple tax.

          • So where are the other 10" touchscreen slates with similar performance and capabilities at half the cost?

            • I expect to see the market flooded with such devices in the coming months.

              And 200% isn't wrong. Well it is, but there's a grain of truth behind it. I speced out a 15" macbook pro with a regular pc laptop, matching the components as close to identically as I could. The macbook was almost exactly double the price. While I accept that the build quality is much better with the macbook, a 100% markup is kind of a lot.

              When I bought my current macbook in 2008, the price differences weren't that much higher...

              • And 200% isn't wrong. Well it is, but there's a grain of truth behind it. I speced out a 15" macbook pro with a regular pc laptop, matching the components as close to identically as I could. The macbook was almost exactly double the price.

                No you didn't. You speced out something you thought was comparable to a 15" macbook. Maybe it had comparable memory, processors, harddrive space, and video drivers, but it still wasn't really comparable. You were giving up something. Case quality, battery life, keyboard quality, screen quality, weight, or maybe proper configuration on sale. Just because you don't value such things as much as "ZOMG look at this framerate!" doesn't mean they have no value.

                I know because 3 months ago I did essentially the same

                • I would very much like to know what your methodology was because your results appear to be far different from mine.

                  The only real difference I could see was the build quality and the battery. The prices I was looking at didn't indicate any discounts.

                  • I checked again to be sure, and interestingly enough I could no longer find the exact model I had seen earlier. Maybe it was indeed being liquidated, I don't know.

                    So I went ahead and did some comparison checking. Here's what I found. These prices are Canadian. Also, I left out the extra bits for brevity. Mac had the nicer body and backlit keyboard. The non-macs have much more expansion options, in some cases having the option for a docking station. So perhaps the price difference isn't as striking, b

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Bozzio ( 183974 )

              Sorry quacking duck, but a 200% tax would triple the price. Now that I've bested you in a game of wits, buy my game! (see below).

              • Yeah, you're right... math skills not so good that early in the morning. OTOH, you've made my comment even stronger, i.e. the challenge is now to find a comparable 10" slate computer for 1/3 the price (i.e. starting around $165 USD).

          • also volume, volume and volume. It's what makes it possible for Apple to do all of their own custom ASICs, reducing size, complexity, manufacturing costs and power consumption dramatically.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kuzb ( 724081 )
      Or you'll buy 0 since they don't sell them to us.

  • Courtesy of ARM (Score:5, Interesting)

    by markass530 ( 870112 ) <markass530&gmail,com> on Saturday January 08, 2011 @02:01AM (#34802116) Homepage
    surprised this wasn't in the summary but "The XO-1.75 is the first OLPC laptop to use chips based on processor technology from Arm Holdings, which has been a huge factor in reducing power on the laptop, " Good stuff, and it seems as if the mythical $100 price is within shooting distance

    • Yes, if you use a rifle with a powerful scope, you just might be able to hit a sign with $100 printed on it, with an XO-1.75 lying on the ground next to you.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Unless of course the US dollar keeps losing value. When the OLPC announcement came out the US dollar was worth about $1.60 Australian now it is pretty much on par, so it is a real question whether the OLPC has hit it's price target or not. To be fair based up logical reason, the OLPC can not be blamed for the failing US economy and so the reasonable answer is the are much closer to the price goal than just number would indicate.

      So will the OLPC project now reach for a $50 price target based upon adjusted

  • it's about time (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Locutus ( 9039 ) on Saturday January 08, 2011 @02:02AM (#34802122)
    They should have started with ARM to begin with. Had they done that then they wouldn't have had the issues with Intel back stabbing them nor Microsoft wasting their time. Better late than never I guess.

    LoB

    • I hardly think that Intel stabbed them in the back by working on a competing product (and more expensive) product. Is it wrong to have a choice in the marketplace? That's as bad as when Microsoft insisted computer makers only sold DOS/Windows and not any competing OS. How is it that OLPC suddenly became the underdog for being monopolistic?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Locutus ( 9039 )
        they stabbed them in the back by not only creating a sub standard device but by also going after XO accounts and hound them to switch to the ClassmatePC. That is stabbing in the back or would it be two-faced. They were on the OLPC board and even donated lots of $$ to the project but undercut the project with their own.

        And I say sub standard because the Classmate PC was not outdoor readable like the XO, it wasn't designed with the device to device mesh networking, and it was much more power hungry than the X

    • Re:it's about time (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jmorris42 ( 1458 ) * <{gro.uaeb} {ta} {sirromj}> on Saturday January 08, 2011 @05:02AM (#34802706)

      > Had they done that then they wouldn't have had the issues with Intel
      > back stabbing them nor Microsoft wasting their time.

      Did you read the press release? It's thank you sir, may I have another! They cite Microsoft's (likely vaporware or App store locked down) porting of Windows to ARM as being the reason the ARM version is now a viable notion. They still can't imagine a world without teaching the kids to be good Microsoft Office Users.

      > They should have started with ARM to begin with.

      No that would have been pointless at the time. If it isn't apparent by now their whole plan was to wave the penguin flag until Microsoft came through with a cheap enough deal you haven't been paying attention. ARM would have made that plan impossible. Besides, they had AMD in as a partner at the beginning... until they used them as a lever to force Intel to give em a sweet deal. Problem was once Intel got AMD out they stopped giving em free stuff because by then it was clear there was zero chance Negroponte was actually going to be able to deliver on any of his promises.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Pecisk ( 688001 )

        Truth to be told, problem isn't with OLPC, but with their 'customers'. They were happy about getting laptops cheaply, but when they discovered that they won't run Windows, but Sugar or Fedora they weren't pleased. So OLPC tried to work with Microsoft to port Windows XP to OLPC 1 and OLPC 1.5, Microsoft made half-assed effort, didn't quite succeeded, and OLPC were back to recommending Sugar/Fedora combo (or simply Fedora).

        So while they could say that ARM could run Windows desktop OS, as you said it is still

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Locutus ( 9039 )
          wrong, Microsoft went in after the OLPC MOUs and signed sweet deals with these countries and fed them millions of dollars in 'special' packages. These special packages required they use Microsoft Windows software so when OLPC came back, they had to tote the Microsoft word and require the devices ran Windows.

          ARM has been around for years and there was even XScale at the time along with other ARM designs. Debating performance capabilities would be appropriate since I don't think any of those ARM devices ran s

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Locutus ( 9039 )
        I did not read the press release and will have to just to see the bits on following Microsoft further. That would be yet another dumb ass move by OLPC. I don't believe the org originally planned on dealing with Microsoft since many who left had done so after the Linux based product was shipping and Negroponte started moving closer to Microsoft.

        LoB

      • They cite Microsoft's (likely vaporware or App store locked down) porting of Windows to ARM as being the reason the ARM version is now a viable notion

        I've not seen the press release, but if it is then it's bullshit. The XO 1.75 has been in development with an ARM chip for a long time before MS decided to port Windows 8 to ARM. If anything, the cause and effect are the other way around - Microsoft sees lots of third-world countries deploying ARM-based infrastructure and wants to be able to sell them Windows.

    • Had they done that then they wouldn't have had the issues with Intel back stabbing them nor Microsoft wasting their time. Better late than never I guess.

      OLPC was sold to the third world education minister as a one-size-fits-all, take-it-or-leave-it bundle.

      The XO hardware. The open source software. The Sugar UI. The constructivist philosophy of education straight from the Western media lab.

      The minister wasn't buying.

      The plain truth of it is that of the 1.8 million XO laptops deployed, about 120,000 are in R

    • Disclaimer: I'm VP of Hardware Engineering at OLPC

      ARM processors powerful enough the support the user experience we wanted weren't readily available (at the price point we work at) four years ago, when work started on the original XO design.

      There were several errors in that news article which I would like to clear up:

      • the XO-1.75 will not have an 8.9" screen, but will continue with the sunlight readable 7.5" screen designed by Mary Lou Jepsen (now at Pixel Qi) used in the XO-1 and 1.5.
      • the $165 pri

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by naz404 ( 1282810 )
        Mod parent up please. Straight from source.

        Very interesting info, especially the one on ARM having been pursued for years.

        AFAIK, on the Linux side, one thing OLPC did was go out of the way to customize the firmware that MS worked on *to be able* to dual boot to Linux, since the firmware of the Windows version MS worked on was made to be able to boot only Windows and not Linux.

        On the Windows side too, it wasn't "selling out" on OLPC's part. Governments requested that the units be able to run windows

        • AFAIK, on the Linux side, one thing OLPC did was go out of the way to customize the firmware that MS worked on *to be able* to dual boot to Linux, since the firmware of the Windows version MS worked on was made to be able to boot only Windows and not Linux.

          I believe the SD slot was also part of it (To make it capable of running Windows. The SD slot, which is one of the few truly open implementations). Both the dual-boot firmware mods and the SD slot also make it more useful to G1G1 owners as they can more easily boot into other Linux distros, more appropriate to them as a first world adult (and not a third world child).

  • But didn't we learn from the promise and price fiasco with the 1.0 and beta of this hardware? I personally remember being very excited in the mid 2000's about this hardware, how it was going to save the world, bring tech to the masses and the promise of a reasonable computer bringing network computing to the masses around the world (including the US where there are 30-40 million people without modern computers). The lack of bandwidth (price and locale) as well as the internal issues in OLPC made this a fo

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Hooya ( 518216 )

      > I'm just not holding my breath on this evolutionary release (soft and hard)

      oh, but I do hold my breath, every time, for the "release" (and yes, some would call it vital to the evolutionary process) and wait for it to go soft from hard.

      • That is my point, its a promise and no delivery in real market terms. The real problem is that folks have a dream, but it doesn't come to fruition via either reality or forced-up-the-market power of a large corp. OLPC is just a pipe dream, over promise and under delivery regardless of intent. I do not hold my breath, for I will die before what has been pipe-dreamed becomes reality. Maybe in due time, 20-30 years, the folks of the world will be liberated. Until then, I deal with reality as best as I can

        • fantasy of an equal society where a majority of non-modern cultures

          Of course it's a fantasy. The ideas of "equal society" and cultures with ANY distinguishing characteristics are mutually exclusive.

    • Re:I know this is going to come off wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by c0lo ( 1497653 ) on Saturday January 08, 2011 @03:35AM (#34802414)

      But didn't we learn from the promise and price fiasco with the 1.0 and beta of this hardware?

      Side-effect learning: they were the first to step into what is now called netbook and probably the very existence of the netbooks and ebook readers has roots in their first attempt (even if they failed on price, they showed there is a market for low-end laptops). Keeping into acount they are not a for-profit, it's still remarkable they managed to pull such a trick.

    • You're entitled to your perceptions, but the XO is far from the CrunchPad. Since Negroponte's overpromising, OLPC has shipped two generations of hardware, several software releases for the laptops (and a school server), and developers have created a few hundred activities for the UI. The hardware and software was "real and inventive", now they're actually executing and delivering it while the technorati drool over new shiny.

      From http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Deployments [laptop.org] , "There are over 1.85 million XOs in t

  • How many laptops does a kid need?

    • Thats a good question. My son has a DS, an iPod, his mums MacBook, his HP laptop running ubuntu. And now the 3D DS is coming out....

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Macrat ( 638047 )

      How many laptops does a kid need?

      Depends on how often the schools has the computers stolen.

  • prehistory meets postmodernity (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Schlemphfer ( 556732 ) on Saturday January 08, 2011 @02:42AM (#34802266) Homepage

    On the one hand, this article makes a clear case that there will be children in Chad mindlessly turning a crank for one hour and 47 minutes in order to do their homework for the night.

    Yet on the other hand, these kids have orders of magnitude more computing horsepower than I did as a Reagan-era high school kid in an upper middle class community. Hard to know who should envy who.

    • Turn the crank. I thought maybe I would like to live disconnected from technology, and while I find it tolerable bordom set in easily after a few months. I live in Northern Mozambique where the other option is soccer with a plastic-bag ball or sitting. Turning a crank to use a computer is sure less mind numbing for these kids (although they are used to it).
      • To be fair the kids also spend their time hunting rats and birds to eat. That's kind of fun.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by naz404 ( 1282810 )
          The hand cranks have been phased out. They're very tiring and inefficient & broke off from test laptops. The human-powered solution is now currently a yoyo-like pull-string device (think starters on motorboat engines/generators). For the XO-1, 1 minute of pulling = 10 minutes of battery life. Since switching to ARM cut a lot of power consumption, should last longer with the XO-1.75s.
        • haha, a troll mod- somebody thought I was kidding.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      They could possibly just set up a goat to walk in circles or something and have a few little gears going. Bam! They now have a goat walking/laptop charging business.

    • On the one hand, this article makes a clear case that there will be children in Chad mindlessly turning a crank for one hour and 47 minutes in order to do their homework for the night.

      No it doesn't, it says that it's possible to charge it with a hand crank in 1 hour 47 minutes. The original design for the XO-1 had a hand crank, but the torque on the case damaged the prototypes so it was removed. You can charge it with an external hand crank, but it's more likely that you will charge it with a pedal device if you are using human power - they shipped some of these with the XO-1 orders. You can also charge it from a solar or wind generator quite easily - wind turbines powerful enough to

    • ".. that there will be children in Chad mindlessly turning a crank for one hour and 47 minutes ..."

      Still, walking 20 miles to get it reloaded on a powerline sucks too.

      But now it's only half the cranking needed that the previous model required, if this continues, the kids won't get any exercise soon.

  • Get cranking (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    McNierney recharged the XO-1.75 with a hand crank. It takes 1 hour and 47 minutes to fully recharge the battery by hand, he said.

    I wish they also said the average life of one charge to put the quote into perspective.
    But close to a couple hours to charge the battery makes me think they should come up with some more passive solutions.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by naz404 ( 1282810 )
      Hand crank's been phased out in favor of a yoyo-like pull-string generator. More efficient and less tiring.

  • Great! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by afabbro ( 33948 ) on Saturday January 08, 2011 @03:01AM (#34802324) Homepage

    Great! Can't wait to buy one.

    Note that I said one.

  • It always was a way to get R&D paid for under the guise of charity. They could have easily made a computer for under a hundred dollars, but that wasn't what they were trying to do.

  • Decentralize the technology (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Troll-Under-D'Bridge ( 1782952 ) on Saturday January 08, 2011 @04:19AM (#34802568) Journal

    The main problem with the OLPC, the one thing that made the project open to subversion by companies like Intel and Microsoft, is its centralized model of development. You get the laptops or tablets from one source, say, the central government of the country that buys into the idea or some buy-one/donate-the-other scheme. I understand that it's supposed to be more of an educational than a computing project. But this set-up generates dependency. What happens when the machines are damaged? More importantly, what happens to the next batch of children without laptops? Since the machines are manufactured in the usual Asian places (hint: two countries claiming the same name), this will likely result in a foreign exchange outflow from a country that can least afford it, as certain essential non-technological items (e.g. food and basic medicine) may need to take priority.

    What the OLPC should have set out to develop is a RepRap [reprap.org]-like infrastructure that will allow the adults (or even older children) of the community that takes part in the project to manufacture the laptops by themselves from cheap, readily available components. If this isn't 100% possible, then give them at least enough transfer of technology to allow them to build the least technological parts, like the case or the keyboard. Think of a laptop case made out of recycled plastic or hard laminated cardboard. Then again, how far off is the day when we can run a desktop OS on an Arduino [arduino.cc] board?

    Don't just give them fish. Teach them how to fish.

    Computers made using such technology might appear crude at first, but not much cruder than the devices that ushered in the PC revolution.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gmuslera ( 3436 )

      The computers aren't the goal of the education (at least, for the target age of the XO) but the medium. They aren't learning computing, but math, language, geography and so on, using the computers as a much improved version of blackboard or paper and pencil.

      Yes, it generates dependency. Not all countries have the infrastructure or raw materials to build that kind of computers in an affordable way. But most of what matters (OS/applications) is open, you can install sugar in "normal" laptops, desktops PC, o

    • You're insane if you think that a developing company can assemble laptops for even 4x what it costs Quanta to crank them out by the hundred thousands. Getting to one laptop per child in a school is expensive enough already.

      Transfer of technology is important (though less important than educating kids), and the OLPC open source software facilitates that; anyone can participate in development and I think Uruguay is off developing its own software. But turning a mass-produced rugged device into a locally-made

  • OLPC revolutionized Laptops - time to do it again? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Gopal.V ( 532678 ) on Saturday January 08, 2011 @04:31AM (#34802608) Homepage Journal

    I never thought I'd be a beneficiary from the OLPC project. I'd never be able to use an OLPC for anything I do. But I love how the project has put a bent in the technical landscape of portable devices industry. It was a failure as an education project perhaps, but it succeeded in more than one way as a laptop research project.

    When OLPC came out in 2007, the laptops were on a lap-melting, back-breaking rush towards bigger & faster. Nearly everything came in with a Core2 or a Core2 Duo, with lots of RAM (yeah, guess what you can't save power on, RAM needs a strobe whether it has data or not). The fact that OLPC came out in 2007, sort of forced the geeks to look at weight as a valid concern for a consumer device. Not to mention questions about why a 1995 top-end laptop ran for 4 hours on batteries, when a 2005 one won't do the same at the same weight.

    Less than a year after OLPC came the rush of netbooks. Finally machines that people can afford to buy (like here in India) and carry around without being tied to a wall plug. Scroll paste a few years, it is not only consumers, using them. I see Rasmus [lerdorf.com] post PHP benchmarks off his netbook, I see entire teams (like Inkscape) suddenly sit up and re-work their UI workflows/dialog-space for it. I see the Notion Ink use OLPC Pixel Qi tech in the new tablet.

    Socially speaking, the project has been a great failure. But technologically, it has left a huge impact on portable devices everywhere. As for the former, the project probably forgot that "Charity begins at Home". Refusing to sell full-price to americans wanting them shows a complete lack of understanding of how economies of scale & price segmentation would've worked out. I'm not going to mourn the failure of Negroponte, but I'll just give the technical folks at OLPC a big thumbs-up.

    I'll happily pay 200$ for an arm netbook'ish if they'll sell me one in India. Hell, I'll even fix all the things that don't work for me - for FREE. Not all of us are poor & in need of a hand-out. Heck, I'm at the verge of putting in a pre-order for a Notion Ink Adam, for double the price, if the hype pans out.

    • Socially speaking, the project has been a great failure. But technologically, it has left a huge impact on portable devices everywhere. As for the former, the project probably forgot that "Charity begins at Home". Refusing to sell full-price to americans wanting them shows a complete lack of understanding of how economies of scale & price segmentation would've worked out. I'm not going to mourn the failure of Negroponte, but I'll just give the technical folks at OLPC a big thumbs-up.

      I think it is unfair to declare this project a great failure, even in the social area. The project hasn't ended yet, and considering the highly ambitious goal they have set themselves, it is no wonder it takes them time to reach it. But I agree that the technology spin-offs of the project are remarkable too, although I think you should give Negroponte some credit for that part too.

      I'm not so sure mass-selling the original OLPC on other markets would have been a good idea. The support organization to do t

    • I'd never be able to use an OLPC for anything I do.

      Actually, I still use my original XO-1 for one thing that no apparently other netbook or laptop can do: it is the only netbook I know of that can be read in full sunlight. When I go to the beach, I can sit 5 hours in the sun while working - in my case, using the bash shell, which is perfect for my particular project. To my knowledge, no other netbook or laptop can do that. If there is one, let me know so I can prepare for next summer... I still hate

    • AFAIK RAM uses only a little amount of power, even when you have lots and lots of it. Since having more memory is bound to shave of some power consumption in other areas, it's probably the dumbest area to cut down in order to save power.

    • When OLPC came out in 2007, the laptops were on a lap-melting, back-breaking rush towards bigger & faster. Nearly everything came in with a Core2 or a Core2 Duo, with lots of RAM (yeah, guess what you can't save power on, RAM needs a strobe whether it has data or not). The fact that OLPC came out in 2007, sort of forced the geeks to look at weight as a valid concern for a consumer device. Not to mention questions about why a 1995 top-end laptop ran for 4 hours on batteries, when a 2005 one won't do the same at the same weight.

      In my experience, smaller and lighter laptops (subnotebooks) have been around for a long time, but before the OLPC, they were expensive premium items. The OLPC made it clear that you could sacrifice some of the premium features, and make it both small and cheap.

      While the advances in technology were probably playing a part, there was also a social acceptance factor. Surprisingly, people were content with machines that looked and felt cheap. You could see the same thing with regular laptops, which some yea

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      Bah, I doubt OLPC had anything to do with it at all. The thing that launched the whole market in 2008 was because Intel suddenly had a dedicated low-power design in the Atom not just LV/ULV versions that were custom versions/bins of existing designs with large dies. The extremely small die size compared to all the other processors gave Intel a reason to flood the market with cheap computers and still make a very, very solid margin.

      New processor designs take 3-4 years from start to completion which is why In

      • Bah, I doubt OLPC had anything to do with it at all. The thing that launched the whole market in 2008 was because Intel suddenly had a dedicated low-power design in the Atom not just LV/ULV versions that were custom versions/bins of existing designs with large dies. The extremely small die size compared to all the other processors gave Intel a reason to flood the market with cheap computers and still make a very, very solid margin.

        Intel pushed Celeron-M / i915 platform for "Classmate" as a competitor to OLPC. Asus partnered with Intel for the original EeePC: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2141742,00.asp [pcmag.com] What does it contain? Celeron-M, not Atom. In fact the Celeron-M can't even make use of the power saving SpeedStep on identical Pentium-Ms. It seemed clear these Celeron-M machines (either in Classmate, or in EeePC) was a stop-gap until Atom could be released.

        Atom was originally designed for other embedded applications, and not

  • With the previous OLPC laptops, a lot of effort (IIRC) went into finding hardware chips from manufacturers willing to provide open drivers.

    Will the same thing apply to this new OLPC? Or are they abandoning the idea of openness?

  • It's about training teachers ... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MacTO ( 1161105 ) on Saturday January 08, 2011 @07:06AM (#34803160)

    I've tracked the OLPC project and have worked in educational technology for years, and arguments over processors and power consumption are bullshit. The same goes for the philosophies of education behind educational technology. At the moment, the biggest issue is teacher training. Simply put, most teachers don't know how to use computers in the context of classroom teaching. That's even true when it comes down to the basics. Sticking an ARM processor into the case isn't going to solve that. Getting the computer to run on 2 Watts isn't going to solve that. Praying that the child is smarter than the teacher when it comes down to adopting new technologies for learning isn't going to solve that. Indeed, this emphasis upon technology over learning and these idle hopes that children are better at using technology for learning have left educational technology in the same cesspool that it was in 30 years ago: teachers, the people who are responsible for guiding children through the process of learning, are almost as ignorant about how to use it today as they were way back then.

    (For what it's worth, I think that there is some value in the 'student is smarter than the teacher' mentality when it comes down to educational technology. Yet that only works for a subset of children, since it involves a lot of self-motivation.)

    • To their benefit, OLPC has talked about this as part of their mission. They're not ignoring it, but one thing I'm finding is that OLPC is playing a Long Game (possibly because sales of the devices themselves hasn't been lucrative enough to finance the later phases of the rollout as quickly as they'd hoped).

      Teacher training is an issue in the developed world as well. I work with assistive tech for kids with disabilities, and I always hold that if I walk into a classroom and the teacher says "Oh, thank God yo

  • I have a G1G1 OLPC 1.0 that we bought in a fit of enthusiasm back when they first came out. These days, it sits untouched.

    The greatest highlight on the device was the great screen. I certainly hope Pixel Qi finally starts shipping in volume at a reasonable price. The eReader mode looks great, and I'm sure they've improved in the intervening time. The tough, splashproof hardware was nice too.

    Unfortunately, lowlights abounded: It was incredibly slow. It took forever to boot and applications starting too

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by r00t ( 33219 )

      Unfortunately, lowlights abounded: It was incredibly slow. It took forever to boot and applications starting took way too long to start.

      This is the expected result when you write your GUI in Python. (same as Ruby or Javascript)

  • It is unconscionable to construct a summary specifically about power consumption without actually stating what the effing power consumption is. We have units for these things, people. Why always use the relative ones?

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