OLPC
The OLPC Vaporware Product Line Vs. the iPad
Fri, 01/29/2010 - 10:11 — Jon
iPad or OLPC?
Update: the EE Times has a great, similar article on the OLPC fantasy vs Apple reality.
So, the XO-2 has moved from promise to hope to scrap, and has made way for a tablet-style, iPhoneiPad-like XO-3 (Read about the 3.0 model at Forbes and Engadget, with the now-in-production 1.5 and the in-planning 1.75 XOs, both using the current design but with faster processors.
OLPC, and Nick Negroponte in particular, love to use conceptual designs to create excitement. This works great in normal, commercial development a few times. Once you miss a few targets, people react very negatively too it, even if you do finally release a product. Why do you think Apple pairs announcements with already-planned release schedules?
In designing for development, even more than commercial products, this is irresponsible. First off, this is and remains vaporware with a fictional price point, and will suffer the same fate as the now-scrapped XO-2, in a Duke Nukem Forever-style race to keep up with technology, going from an initial break-out success to a scramble to license other, shinier technology and heap on endless improvements:
It was never completed. Screenshots and video snippets would leak out every few years, each time whipping fans into a lather — and each time, the game would recede from view
Secondly, it begins to reek of the computer industry hardware upgrade treadmill instead of a socially conscious product line focused on long-term platform stability and improvement. Is an iPad-style tablet really innovative? Is it even remotely as rugged as the XO-1/1.5 model? A host of cracked and scratched iPhone screens would beg to differ. What would really be more valuable to schools world-wide who already face a choice between buying computers or hiring teachers? Is it better to focus on building attention-grabbing, flashy technology better than continuing to improve around a stable hardware platform that's rugged, low-power and with a long life-span? Constantly dangling new, cheaper, better products that will come out in 1-2 years discourages developers from continuing to work on the current platform and fragments the worldwide community of hackers and tinkerers, and undermines the work already being thrown into the current OLPC model.
Forbes explains the OLPC product goals more:
In fact, that new form factor is just the beginning of OLPC's monstrous ambitions: It aims to make its tablet PC highly durable, all plastic, waterproof, half the thickness of an iPhone and use less than a watt of power, despite an 8-gigaherz processor. The price: an unprecedented $75.
Many of OLPC's goals, to be fair, are more imagination than road map. And Negroponte has a history of overpromising. The original XO never hit its original goal of $100, (it currently sells for $172) and another touch screen upgrade to the XO that Negroponte announced in May 2008 was quietly scrapped this year based on costs. [...]
Negroponte is more interested in pressuring the industry to make cheaper, more education-focused PCs than he is in manufacturing any specific machine. "We don't necessarily need to build it," Negroponte told Forbes. "We just need to threaten to build it."
At least they have a roadmap: First up will be the XO 1.5, a $200 laptop that will be available in January 2010. By early 2011, OLPC is looking to upgrade that to the XO 1.75, which will include an 8.9-inch touchscreen for $150 or less, before finally introducing the tablet-based XO 3.0 in 2012 for less than $100.
Regardless, this is certainly not a timeframe or a manufacturing goal that encourages anyone to buy anything currently released. The 1.5 should hopefully run all the 1.0 system tools, but who knows that will be available for the 1.75 and 3.0. It's taken three years to get bugs worked out of the initial XO software, with a ton of community support and a software spin-off. And besides, why even bother with the 1.5 if the 1.75 is going to have a touch screen and be available in just another year?
The XO-2 was announced originally in late 2007 but more formally in May 2008. The XO-3 instantly became the talk of the town at the end of 2009, beating Apple to the punch in announcing a tablet. I'm guessing we'll ride the XO-3 vision through late 2010 picking up some steam from Apple's iPad. We'll then get a design update to the XO 3.5, a tablet that has extra features like roll-up flexibility and will cost only $50, using the latest epaper technology. Then in mid-2011, the XO-3.x concept gets scrapped (epaper licensing is too closed and expensive, the $50 has become $225. The XO-4 is announced, and it's a super-simple object that looks more like a paperweight than a computer. The XO-4 will have a low-power, high-contrast LED projector that you can project against any flat surface, and a motion-detection camera to capture keyboard/mousing options, somewhat like the coolest of the current smart-blackboard classroom systems. The XO-4 in turn will of course never be produced due to promising advancements in holography. In the meantime, the XO 1.9995 will be in production and actual use, using the "classic" XO-1 chassis and a more powerful mobile processor.
Boingboing ran an interesting story about travelers letting youth in India, who wanted to be computer scientists, play with their iPods and such, and later wondered if that was a good idea or not:
While we were there, we met a bunch of kids who lived with no electricity but told us that, when they grew up, they all wanted to be computer scientists. So we whipped out our cameras and iPods — the closest things we had on hand to real computers — and showed them how technology works. We figured they would enjoy it, and thought it could be a valuable experience that would stay etched in their minds as something to aspire to as they continued their studies.
Later, I found out that one of my travel mates thought what we had done was cruel. We had seduced these poor kids with luxuries they will probably never be able to afford, and sullied their pure, technology-free lives with the temptation of electronics.
If only questions like these got asked more before announcing new promises.
There's a great discussion over at OLPCNews and now also at Slashdot.
- Jon's blog
- Add new comment
- Read more
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The OLPC Haiti Project Reports Back
Fri, 11/20/2009 - 09:37 — Jon
When the IDB plans to "evaluate its performance from a quantitative standpoint," it's a good sign that they mean to do just that. The XO project in Haiti, discussed here with a cost breakdown here is bearing a ton (1 pages, to be precise) fruit, with the recent IDB report (PDF).
It reveals some promise, some best practices, and also reminds us of some common problems.
From the "I toldya so" files
Finding an XO laptop spark
Somewhat unsurprisingly, there were some hassles in the basic deployment and daily use of the XOs which have been common topics of debate around OLPCNews.com for some time now, from dealing with shipping, hardware and infrastructure limitations, and the importance of teacher training.
First, classroom usage in the Haiti project started out as laptop sharing among students due to "an unforeseen shortage," later explained with slightly more detail as "logistical barriers and shipping delays"). The project team made lemonade from these lemons and studied the sharing dynamic, concluding that students more comfortable with the laptop and/or students who already had an stronger academic skills tended to dominate laptop usage; furthering the educational divide.
Green and Cute does not mean Safe
The strong branding of the laptop, ideally destroying the market for stolen XOs may or may not work as a theft deterrent, but most of the Haitian children aren't willing to gamble with theirs: "However, more than half of the fourth-grade students interviewed reported feeling afraid to take the XO laptop home because they might be robbed."
Battery life correlates with attention span:
The evaluation also found great variation in student attention span per XO Camp session, with a rising attention span from 9:00 am until approximately 10:30 am, and declining attention span thereafter. One of the explanations for this variation, as
provided by observational data, was the low battery life of the XO laptops, which led to student fights over electrical outlets at approximately 10:30 am.
The actual problem then is not some mysterious mid-morning-onset Attention Deficit Disorder, but the real-world impacts of the reality of the XO battery life. It's great in black-and-white screen mode with wifi off and being used mainly for reading, but in real-life classroom situations; "the fully charged batteries were depleted within 3–5 hours, depending on usage. It is unclear whether this significant difference is attributable solely to a technical default or if the XO laptops were distributed without first being properly charged."
Even when working in a constructivist paradigm, teacher involvement and training helps:
School and MENFP staff also commented on the limits of constructivist pedagogy within the framework of the OLPC pre-pilot project... 42 percent believed that teachers and students were simply not used to a constructivist model of education and needed additional guidance to ensure its success. However, 100 percent of school and MENFP staff interviewees believed that the constructivist model was a good one to follow.
Clearly, however, the path from rote memorization to a more exploratory framework still had some ground to cover, based on not only the above sentiments, but some choice student quotes like "When I use it, I’ll understand what I’m working on much better, which will make it easier to memorize."
Haiti also reveals a valuable role for constructivist style, student-led learning in low-resource environments:
Particularly in settings of extreme poverty, where
educational materials and resources are scant and teacher quality is lacking, the implementation of child-centered learning can increase students’ ability to think independently and to develop problem-solving skills more rapidly. Technology that is explicitly child-centered and designed for individual use has the potential of accelerating educational development in the short term.
The question remains, though, where (if ever?) does that change? With unlimited funds, few would argue that better trained teachers and high-quality teaching materials would not be the best path to improve education, but in the vast middle ground, at what level is do you throw in the towel, and stop focusing on teachers and start finding other tools to improve education?
Training and Localization
Project recommendations focused on training - both technical and pedagogical training for the teachers, including more training on constructivism, with other recommendations towards safety, methodology, and ideas to deal with the power problems.
Some insightful recommendations from the teachers themselves include some of the hardware hassles OLPCNews.com readers will be familiar with (*cough*touchpad*cough*), some clear UI improvements that more recent software updates have begun to address, and (mainly) localization challenges:
Include a map of Haiti.
Include a game in which sentences appear out of order, thus requiring students to arrange the words in proper order.
Include the Cut, Copy, and Paste features typically available on computers.
Improve the touchpad, which quickly loses sensitivity and proved difficult for students and staff to use effectively.
Include a longer-lasting battery, since the current battery lasts only about 2 hours.
Include activities specific to Haitian culture. For example, when teaching about science, it would be useful to have an XO laptop activity that compared the traditional or natural medicines of several countries, including Haiti.
Some Good News
Haitian kids ♥ XO laptops
The software was not a problem - core Sugar Activities like Record, Write, Browse and Paint were well woven into curricula and represented the vast majority of classroom usage. Students would explore the other programs, but this exploration declined when activities were used in class. Also, introduction to the Internet "drastically reduced usage of the Paint and Record programs after being formally introduced to the Internet and receiving an essay-writing assignment." If you think that's a steep drop off, just wait till you show them Facebook, Twitter, and LOLCATS.
The decline in exploration is unfortunate, but could indicate student comfort and expertise levels increasing in programs they use more often. I certainly am a bigger fan of Excel than Access, and Photoshop more than MSPaint:
"when a clear activity was presented to the students and the students were given projects to work on using specific software programs, use of those programs increased steadily, while exploratory usage declined."
Actual skill and teaching improvements
The role of technology - and how to evaluate it - is the topic of lively debate. The Haiti OLPC project team did an impressive job gathering a mixture of hard numbers, survey responses and basic observations. Even so, educational progress with the laptop remains hard to measure. Some high points were clear improvement in spelling (possibly thanks in part to spellcheck) and improved writing (perhaps simply a better tool to write with?).
Regardless, there were clear process improvements for teachers:
Students wrote daily journal entries on the XO laptop. Like their written assignments, these were edited by the teachers. During interviews, most teachers said it was easier to edit students’ work done on the XO laptop. Thus they were able to spend more time working one-on-one with students and less time lecturing. Increased individual attention may have thus been a significant factor in the perceived improvement of student’s reading and writing skills.
Still, the potential value was best stated by the students themselves:
Students believed the XO laptop could be used to facilitate the learning process through the use of tools such as the Internet and a calculator because, as student #40 stated, "Everything you need is on the laptop."
Well, almost everything.
I'm Still Not Convinced
Wed, 11/18/2009 - 14:45 — Jon
At the IADB seminar on ICT in the classroom, I asked Nicholas Negroponte why not sell the XO laptop -- at or near cost -- to anyone who wanted one? This gets beyond the hassle of having to convince bureaucrats of the value of the laptop without running pilot programs and delaying the eventual adoption. It (hopefully) creates some side markets in support, software development for non-educational uses of the laptop like rural healthcare, and could enable educational uses without going through the schools themselves, even.
Granted, there are some concerns. OLPC has thus far maintained a clarity of focus by working towards their mission of universal access, rather than having to worry (like Intel and Microsoft) about capturing an emerging market. Working at the ministry level potentially could reduce the transaction costs of each "deal," but more importantly, it guarantees some level of equitable distribution of the laptops, ensuring not just those with money will get access.
And this equity is important - for a education project within a school; you have to have all the students with laptops, or you by definition don't have a 1:1 program and you don't have a good shared computing setup either. Lack of computer saturation also opens it up to higher risk for theft.
The Inter-American Development Bank and ICT4Edu
Tue, 09/15/2009 - 20:03 — Jon
Today's IADB event, Reinventing the Classroom, brought together thought-leaders, practitioners and government officials to discuss the role of technology in education in Latin America. In sum, it was a lot of preaching to the choir. This particular choir, however, hailed from many different churches, temples, cathedrals, and bazaars.
Everyone present believed in the importance of technology in education, but there was enough differences in opinion and methodologies to keep it interesting. It ranged from presentations on real-world experiences of projects in Portugal using a variation of the Intel Classmate to projects in Brazil and Argentina to the amazing Plan CEIBAL of Uruguay, using the OLPC XO. Presenters extolled the virtues of free and open source software as well as the familiar Windows XP.
By the end of the day-long seminar, I felt an odd mix of hope and despair.
In Defense of the Laptop
Wed, 09/09/2009 - 15:32 — Jon
Reading Alanna Shaikh's writeup on the OLPC Program as a failure in the UNDispatch and clicking through to Timothy Ogden's harsh commentary, I began to feel a bit defensive for OLPC. I know, it's a bit out of character, but not really.
SJ Preaching to the Open Source Choir
Perhaps this is because SJ reminded me of some of the core good things that remain part of OLPC during his talk at the OLPC Learning Club / HacDC.org seminar Tuesday night. SJ went off on tangents on the value of open hardware in society, and the simple concept for learners when they realize that they have complete ownership and ability to open up and modify not only the tools inside the apps on the OLPC laptop, but the code that creates the tools, the code that is the operating system underneath those tools, and the hardware itself that the OS is running on top of. This is empowering and fundamentally and importantly different from a Microsoft environment, where everything is closed and locked down once you try to step outside the walled gardens.
ICTs in the Classroom: Next Thursday at the IADB
Wed, 09/09/2009 - 14:23 — Jon
Next Thursday at the IADB is a huge event delving into the role of ICTs in the classroom, with heavy-hitters including Nicholas Negroponte of OLPC, Tabaré Vázquez, the Uruguayan President (no doubt discussing CEIBAL), and Mike Trucano of InfoDev, who has been spearheading a cool-headed data-driven look at ICTs -- See the full schedule and RSVP at http://events.iadb.org/calendar/eventDetail.aspx?lang=En&id=1444
CEIBAL (Conectividad Educativa de Informática Básica para el Aprendizaje en Línea) is a laptop program for public schools in Uruguay, and one of the largest and most active OLPC deployments.
I'll be there asking annoying questions about total costs for ICTs versus teacher salaries, problems with software licensing costs, and the importance of enabling technology, and taking notes on my cute little OLPC XO laptop.
And no, I don't see that being incongruous.
Use the XO Chat Mesh, Luke.
Wed, 08/05/2009 - 09:39 — Jon
It's Raining OLPC TCOs (1 of 4)
Tue, 08/04/2009 - 08:58 — Jon
Update: Hello readers from Alanna's post on the OLPC at UNDispatch - You should check my original article on the OLPC TCO - written back in 2006 - over at OLPCNews.com.
If you poke around enough on the Laptop.org wiki, you find a few interesting corners. Linked from their work in creating a training and reference document for OLPCCorps, a link to an Excel spreadsheet to calculate OLPC-specific costs for a deployment, which has been created and maintained by OLPC's John Watlington
Collaboration and the XO Mesh
Wed, 07/08/2009 - 10:46 — Jon
Time to mesh XOs
Unless you're lucky enough to live within mesh range of many other XO users (or are part of an XO deployment or an innovative classroom project, you probably have a pretty empty "neighborhood," and look to Internet jabber servers to connect with other XOs.
The state of the public jabber servers of recent has been in flux for a while, but seems to be settling down.
XOChat.org seems to have disappeared from the Internet (any word on why?), and scouring the OLPC Wiki for community servers has led to more dead ends than I care to relate. To be fair, I've mainly been using Pidgin.im instead of my XO to test the networks out, and some servers, including XO1Share.org, isn't playing nice with my IM client - but does seem to have a decently vibrant community of XO users on it. Jabber.laptop.org and jabber.sugarlabs.org are the other contenders currently (and jabber.laptop.org allows IM clients!, Sugarlabs throttles non-OLPC connections).
There is also a scaling limitation in that any server can only take ~150 concurrent users.
Mobiles vs. Computers in Education
Thu, 06/11/2009 - 09:15 — Jon
This is my response to the current EduTech Debate on the role of mobiles Vs. computers in education. Join the conversation and disagree with me!
I'm sure I sound like a broken record by this point; but there are roles for both mobiles and computers (be it 1:1 computing as with the OLPC, or 1-computer classrooms, or simply computer labs). Mobiles have high penetration rates (but how young? elementary school?) but limited capabilities beyond 1:1 or expensive 1:many communication. Computers are much more fragile and require more infrastucture, but have such a wealth of educational software and information (especially if you add in the Internet).
Neither are silver bullets to heal a failing education system, but both could play a role in extending education (call-backs to listen in to class for rural youth unable to attend school regularly?) if implemented with a reasonable and maintainable budget and good integration into the existing education processes.
XP on the XO, round three.
Thu, 05/28/2009 - 10:20 — Jon
Who's using XP?
With a surprising lack of fanfare, OLPCNews recently revealed that Sugar is beating out Windows XP in XO deployments:
Apparently the conversations are going pretty much as many of us had expected: Initially country representatives inquire if Windows XP runs on the XO laptop. That doesn't really come as a surprise - for many people Windows is the definition of a computer. However, upon further investigation every country decided to stick to Sugar.
It's hardly a surprise, based on the wretched state of XP on the XO for educational purposes.
The surprising part is that after thousands of people screaming (including myself) about XP on the XO, the news that everyone is choosing Sugar went almost unnoticed.
This is a very good, if somewhat Pyrrhic, victory - there was a lot of time and effort lost to get XP to run, and a lot of bad blood created.
Long-term, however, the fact that head-to-head, Sugar is winning installations after review by education ministries is fantastic:
-It's an important mindshare victory for open source, especially at the operating system level (on the computing side) and at the ministry-decision-makers level on the policy side. This win will put downstream decisions on software on a more level playing field (hopefully?)
A revolution you can run with : FrontLineSMS on the OLPC \o/
Wed, 03/25/2009 - 12:47 — Jon
I recently saw Ken Banks present at a local speaker series run by IREX. He gave an updated version of this presentation from POPTech, on the power of mobile phones in citizen empowerment, NGO communication, and a host of other amazing stories of using the available, appropriate technology in remote and rural locations which are often off-grid and without Internet access. By attaching a computer (Linux, Mac, or Windows) to a cell phone with a data cable and installing his (free, open source) software, FrontlineSMS, that computer is turned into a messaging hub; sending and receiving text messages via the cell phone to hundreds of contacts.
That's pretty amazing. Three reasonably available pieces of hardware and you have a tool to send alert messages out, receive election monitoring information through, or communicate with field medical workers to coordinate and track supplies and treatment information. Or track corruption. Or report human rights violations. Or share news and tips in places where the media is not independent, as one of the FrontlineSMS success stories shows:
Another path forward for the One Laptop Per Child Project
Fri, 03/20/2009 - 10:11 — Jon
I've long been an advocate for selling the XO commercially or at least following a Grameen Village Phone style approach to create OLPC XO-centric small business models. Or simply just enable smaller pilot projects to spread the XO technology. I still believe any or all of these offer amazing benefits to expanding the scale of the OLPC XO, re-establishing the XO as the dominant player in the low-cost, rugged, low-infrastructure-requirements laptop, ideal for education projects around the world.
This doesn't seem to be getting much traction, despite apparent interest. Let me propose a different path forward, closer to the original "we sell laptops in batches of 1 million or more to governments" idea: Drop education.
Let's get together and mesh alright (One Laptop in Jamaica)
Sun, 03/15/2009 - 10:59 — Jon
OLPC and F/LOSS enthusiast Dr. Sameer Verma, an Associate Professor of Information Systems at San Francisco State University has been beating the XO drum in Jamaica with this presentation to the University of the West Indies/Mona (UWI) and at the ICT4DJamaica conference (with great photos) last September.
You probably already know Sameer from either his role as organizer of SF-OLPC or his OLPCNews guest entry earlier this year, OLPC Jamaica, and the beginnings of a pilot project in August Town, a community near UWI, a stone's throw away from where I lived while in Jamaica.
$10 laptop in India?
Thu, 02/26/2009 - 10:08 — Jon
I'll believe it when I see it, but the Times of India is reporting that the promised $10 laptop is closer to a reality, but right now it's as real as the crank on the original XO design.
Who knew cardboard was so exciting?
I'm growing weary of promises for new / better / cheaper technologies for ICT4D - whether it's the pure-touch-screen tomfoolery of the XO-2 or new designs from India (remember that they've been promising this since at least late 2006, and the XO-2 has been a diversionary tactic starting in 2007 and formally announced May of last year.
We're missing the point here, as usual. ICT4D is not about the ICT, it's about the "D" - Development. Use whatever technology is best suited for the problem at hand, don't wait on the next big thing or spend money to develop it, at least starting out. This is why mobile phones are such an attractive tool - amazing install base, even in the developing world, low cost, low-power, but provides limited connectivity and 2-way (limited) data flow.
Small is bigger than big for OLPC deployment
Sat, 02/07/2009 - 19:20 — Jon
Via Morgan Collett we learn that OLPC is discontinuing it's "small" deployment support of 100-1000 XO laptop purchases:
Deployments should be any scale
Unfortunately, as some of you might have heard "Change the World" aka "Give a School" aka "Give 100, Give 1000" will cease to exist. We are just waiting for the info to be taken off the main website (any second now). We are doing this in an effort to refocus back to large-scale deployments that create change in a major way. We WILL honor all requests that we have received prior to the info being taken off the website.
As I commented last night, this is ridiculous - why can't OLPC perform remotely as well as every other computer manufacturer on the planet? Especially with a first-mover product with (for now) unmatched features.
I want 1-laptop deployments, 5-laptop deployments, and 10-laptop deployments. I really hope there's a good reason why that's not as easy as it seems.
The XO Files Part IV: New Years Resolutions for 1CC
Wed, 01/21/2009 - 05:50 — Jon
This entry is part four in the series, "The XO Files: I Want to Believe in the XO" Read Part I here, then Part II, The New 4PC Market, and its Failings, and Part III: Re-imagining the OLPC Distribution.
The XO Files Part IV: New Years Resolutions for 1CC
The XO Files: I Want To Believe
The beginning of 2009 isn't going so well for the OLPC Foundation over at 1CC, with layoffs and very disappointing G1G1 sales.
To (finally) close up my "I want to believe" series on how things went wrong, and how things could go very right with the OLPC dream, let me offer some resolutions for the Foundation to consider for 2009.
I will decide on a mission statement
That is, "I will accept that OLPC is and has always been a laptop project, not an education project". And that's OK, if presented as such. The world needs a laptop like the XO, and it can still help improve education. But let's agree that the XO is a laptop and not an education miracle, and treat it as such - a wonderfully well-designed and flexible tool that can be used in many contexts in international development projects and in more quotidian ways as well. This opens up more "markets" for the XO, widens the potential scope, and creates a much larger and diverse user-base who can benefit from and contribute back to the ongoing development of the XO.
I will stop overreaching
Microsoft, the "third world" and anti-virus
Wed, 11/19/2008 - 10:27 — Jon
For the past year or so, I've repeatedly been trying to bring up what I see as a huge, gaping hole in any project which uses Microsoft products for an ICT4Development rollout - computer viruses. Windows XP, when connected to the Internet sans protection, lasts as few as four minutes before becoming infected, and rarely more than a day. Multiply that by hundreds of thousands of OLPC XOs running Windows (with no mention of anti-virus software to date), and you have a nightmare scenario pretty rapidly.
The much-debated VitalWave TCO paper we discussed at the World Bank, which argued that the higher cost of Linux administrators balanced out licensing costs for discounted Microsoft and anti-virus software, even admitted the significant costs of purchasing and maintaining a subscription to anti-virus tools
If Microsoft wants to continue to capture the developing world market, this is going to be a barrier. They can drop their own licensing costs for the XP Starter Edition (which at this point is zero cost to them) down, and hand out older Office software; but the initial and subscription costs for anti-virus software are not (directly) under MS's control. Regardless, having anti-virus protection directly impacts the functionality of the device - if installed, A-V can slow a less powerful computer down to a crawl during a scan and at startup, but the consequences of not having it can render the system absolutely useless.
So it comes as little surprise that Microsoft has announced a free anti-virus software for XP and Vista that targets lower-powered systems (cough, like the OLPC?) to address both these problems and lower the cost barrier for adopting MS:
TCO for low-cost computing in Education
Mon, 11/10/2008 - 11:55 — Jon
The video archive of last Thursday's discussion at the World Bank on the total cost of ICT4E projects is now online at the Bank's eDevelopment thematic group blog
Tomorrow: Total Cost of Operation and ICT4Education
Wed, 11/05/2008 - 16:24 — Jon
Come by for a lively discussion on TCO (that I get to start out!)
From the world bank:
EVENT REMINDER
A World Bank ICT and Education Community of Interest Discussion, in coordination
with
the e-Development Thematic Group, infoDev and the DC-based Technology Salon
How much does it really cost to introduce and sustain computers in schools?
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): A Study of Models of Affordable Computing for
Schools in Developing Countries
World Bank webcast: How much does it really cost to introduce and sustain computers in schools?
Wed, 10/29/2008 - 06:14 — Jon
I'll be leading the discussion at the World Bank this Thursday with a presentation by Vital Wave Consulting on their recent TCO calculations for low-cost computing models (both lab- and 1:1 computing approaches).
Come by or watch the event live online! (rsvp below).
A World Bank ICT and Education Community of Interest Discussion (EduTech), in
collaboration with the World Bank e-Development Thematic Group, infoDev and the
Technology Salon invite you to a seminar/live webcast:
How much does it really cost to introduce and sustain computers in schools?
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): A Study of Models of Affordable Computing for
Schools in Developing Countries
The latest OLPC Upgrade
Tue, 10/21/2008 - 10:57 — Jon
OLPC Upgrading - like an old defrag!Last Thursday, I upgraded my OLPC over some beers -- sometimes, the best (and worst) ways to really test technology's limits is while slightly inebriated. The upgrade (using a Microsoft Unlimited Potenial USB stick gimme as the boot USB.
The upgrade went surprisingly smoothly, and it even included a good chunk of activities, which saved a big post-upgrade time sink in Update.1
Venezuela Chooses the Intel Classmate over the OLPC XO - kinda
Sun, 10/05/2008 - 09:18 — Jon
The Chavez likes Intel -- but not Windows? (BBC)The BBC is reporting that Venezuela has ordered a million laptops "based on the Intel Classmate" in partnership with Portugal:
Venezuela is buying the portable computers as part of a $3bn (£1.66bn) bilateral trade deal with Portugal that also covers housing and utilities. Portugal is manufacturing the blue and white laptops under licence from Intel and are broadly based on the chip maker's design of its Classmate computer. [...]
The deal with Venezuela follows an agreement between Intel and Portugal, signed in August for Classmate machines.
Under that deal Portugal agreed to buy 500,000 machines to enable every six-to-10-year-old in the country to get one.
It sounds like this is an extension of Portugal's original tender for 500,000 laptops, but whether the hardware changed discussed are merely the same ones already mentioned or not is uncertain, but the article does hint that it will be further hardware-customized for Venezuela. The BBC article describes the modified Classmate as:
The 3G OLPC Laptop
Fri, 09/26/2008 - 15:15 — Jon
That's three grand, not third generation. A (possibly biased) report by Vital Wave pegs the 5 year TCO of the OLPC at $2,700.
The XO Files Part III: Re-imagining the OLPC Distribution
Wed, 09/17/2008 - 05:50 — Jon
This entry is the third in the four-part series, "The XO Files: I Want to Believe" Read Part I here, and
Part II, The New 4PC Market, and its Failings
The XO Files: I Want To Believe
Part III: Re-imagining the OLPC Distribution
Concern over the original distribution plan was what got me writing for OLPCNews.com. The belligerent anti-pilot-project attitude, the requirement to buy the laptops in lots of 1million units, and the hushed discussions about the costs beyond the "$100" laptop. What has OLPC done and what should it continue to change to make XO deployment smoother and more successful?
The XO Files Part II: The New 4PC Market, and its Failings
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 03:33 — Jon
This entry is part two in the series, "The XO Files: I Want to Believe in the XO" Read Part I about the Laptop Project / Education Project disconnect here.
Part II: The New 4PC Market, and its Failings
The XO Files: I Want To Believe
The OLPC XO is a path-breaking, jaw-dropping piece of technology. And not just any traditional, consumer-focused (faster, shinier) way, but in specific and strategic areas that make the laptop perfect for developing world situations where it might be damp or dusty, the sun might be your light source at school, and you probably don't have reliable electricity at home. It happens to be that those same constraints also produce technological solutions that make the XO attractive to a certain set of users who want a no-frills, but highly functional laptop (like world travelers), as I mentioned in Part I -- it's lightweight, rugged, and low-power (solar chargeable), but powerful enough to connect to faint wifi, play movies, or review digital photos.
The XO Files: I Want to Believe
Fri, 09/05/2008 - 23:30 — Jon
The XO Files: I Want To Believe
Reading WorldChanging's "editorial retrospective" by Ethan Zuckerman on the article on the OLPC XO he posted in June, 2006 really made me wish that the project had, well, worked out better. Articles like Ethan's remind me of the good work and ideals that have gone into the OLPC XO, which both refreshes me and frustrates me further. This post begins a four-part series on the One Laptop Per Child project, some of the key problems it has faced, and the amazing promise that it still holds for international development and global education.
I Want To Believe: Part I: Laptop project or education project?
The XO, despite anything else, remains an amazing chunk of technology and an exemplary model of innovation for change. Ethan Zuckerman focused on the amazing feats of engineering possible with a bit of foresight, some tight cost and design constraints, and some really smart people:
NPR Covers the OLPC
Wed, 08/27/2008 - 10:44 — Jon
OLPC fell short?Morning Edition's Cyrus Farivar talks about the One Laptop Per Child project:
One Laptop Per Child was an ambitious promise to children in the third world. The project has had trouble with its leadership, finances and competitors. Instead of the legacy of education for third-world children, the One Laptop Per Child program has spurred an industry in low-cost laptops for consumers.
Picking Nits with Microsoft over XP-on-XO
Thu, 08/21/2008 - 05:15 — Jon
XP on the XOSo after the LaptopMag review of XP on the XO, the W2 Group ("a global marketing services ecosystem that helps CMOs in their new role as builders of communities and content aggregators") sent a letter over to OLPC President Charles Kane Jr. , which was posted on the OLPC Wiki "at Chuck's request".
XP on the OLPC XO, Round Two
Tue, 08/12/2008 - 05:18 — Jon
While my review of the XP experience was based on dissecting the XP on XO video that the Microsoft Unlimited Potential folks put together, the lucky bastards fine folks over at Laptopmag got to play with the XPXO hands-on last week, and have posted their review, which answers a few of my outstanding questions, but largely support
One old OS per Child
Sat, 08/09/2008 - 07:11 — Jon
I keep swearing that I'll shift gears and focus more on the good parts of the One Laptop Per Child project like the fusion of public and private interests in India, but then I keep getting pulled in to the stupidity du jour.
More on OLPC in India
Wed, 08/06/2008 - 14:54 — Jon
NextBillion reposts an article from Businessweek which clarifies some of the news on OLPC in India:
The OLPC / OSS Dream
Wed, 07/30/2008 - 10:27 — Jon
The always-amusing XKCD webcomic illustrates the secret dream on the OLPC project in encouraging children to learn and, in doing so, learn programming:
The world's (new) cheapest laptop (for today)
Mon, 07/28/2008 - 17:03 — Jon
Following fast on the heels of the CherryPal low-cost computer is the Impulse, advertised at $130 for each laptop (but you have to buy 100 at a time). It has, frankly, unexciting specs and wifi is an optional dongle (ew). Network World has more details on the Inspire, but more importantly, the blossoming 4PC market:
Slashdotted
Sun, 07/27/2008 - 00:01 — Jon
I seem to be up at Slashdot.org again with the OLPC; this time with my OLPCNews piece combing through the video of Windows on the OLPC (also published on JonCamfield.com. The comments are a lot better this time around, with a few complaints about my clear anti-MS bias.
OLPCs with CellModems
Mon, 07/14/2008 - 16:03 — Jon
Someone's stealing my best ideas
Wayan found a gem in the Times of India article on OLPC and World Bank funding:
OLPC joyride no so joyful (or, what Jon did all day Sunday)
Mon, 07/14/2008 - 11:40 — Jon
So, this weekend I thought it'd be a great time to upgrade to the latest joyride builds, which are rumored to have solved the earlier record problems, and hopefully the SD card corruption issues as well. This is supposed to be an only-mildly-painful experience, with a few command line tricks, a few boot tricks, and so on. Nothing serious.
XKCD on upgrading difficulties (and sharks)
Could Many Give Many?
Tue, 07/08/2008 - 05:36 — Jon
Give Many XO minimums
So there's an ongoing tension between small projects interested in using OLPCs and the guys over at 1CC who are too busy to really deal with a ton of small orders, regardless of the value of the particular cause, the built-in support it may already have, or any other warm, fuzzy reason. If the order doesn't get up to the Give Many standard, it falls on seemingly deaf ears -- all good reasons to negotiate a term sheet when navigating the GiveMany waters.
I wrote about this general problem first in a long and academic paper when OLPC was still selling in only lots of a million laptops and only to governments. I railed on OLPC for missing the importance of the small but well supported projects in favor of unmanageably huge (but big-number) projects, and proposed a solution -- peer networks of small schools, governments, and any other interested parties banding together to be able to meet the minimum order.
DC XO Chat Server
Mon, 06/30/2008 - 05:22 — Jon
Join local activities!So, after xochat went into deep hibernation (though it's back to stay and has its own regional servers), Wayan asked for friends to chat with:
XO laptop owners need more jabber servers to mesh network on. Every time I look at my empty neighborhood view I am sad. Yet I am not geek enough to run a jabber server solo. I need the help of a jabber expert to set one up for DC.
Portability vs The World
Fri, 06/20/2008 - 11:17 — Jon
The DC area mailing list for nonprofit technologists has been alight with suggestions on what the best portable machine is this past week, debating screen size (gotta be able to see that spreadsheet!), storage, raw computing power, optical drives, and even the need for floppy swap drives.
The general sense is that everyone wants portability, but is unwilling to sacrifice anything to get it. I say bollocks -- you can keep your sore shoulders, I'll make a few minor sacrifices, adapt my lifestyle a bit, and carry on. After the jump is my full response.
On Hubris and the 1CC version of OLPC
Fri, 06/13/2008 - 20:32 — Jon
Business Week has a good article summing up the recent history of the OLPC project and it's difficulties with sales numbers, fading promises, Intel, and its internal strife over the Microsoft decision. None of that information is particularly new, but the article continues and goes in to some insightful problems with the educational model of the 1CC OLPC project; namely, hubris.
More on Ubuntu's NetBook release
Tue, 06/10/2008 - 11:16 — Jon
Project HA-T1093
Thu, 05/22/2008 - 06:53 — Jon
No, it's not some early George Lucas film, it's the IADB project title for the "Pilot of the One Laptop per Child Model" in Haiti that Wayan gave a great overview of at OLPCNews.com:
MS on XO: It's so bad you have to laugh
Fri, 05/16/2008 - 10:49 — Jon
Check out this video of James Utzschneider from Microsoft's Unlimited Potential team walking us through Windows XP on the OLPC XO (Video via OLPCNews.com
http://mediadl.microsoft.com/MediaDL/WWW/U/unlimitedpotential/WindowsXP_...
OLPC Now Microsoft-only
Thu, 05/15/2008 - 22:46 — Jon
Pots, kettles and OLPC fanaticism
Wed, 05/14/2008 - 10:30 — Jon
Like most in the OLPC community, Ivan Krstić's discussion on the OLPC yesterday left me (almost) speechless, and even Wayan at OLPCNews left it mostly as a repost of Ivan's essay, and slashdot is, well, talking about Australian government issues it seems.
Negroponte on the future of OLPC and Sugar
Wed, 04/23/2008 - 16:19 — Jon
The Big NN sent out an email, reposted at OLPCNews.com, with the current status of OLPC and Sugar, it's UI, to address the issues finding their way out of the woodwork after the recent staff turnover:
The Opposite of Schadenfreude
Wed, 04/23/2008 - 10:48 — Jon
OLPCNews has been ripe with the continuing disintegration of OLPC, from Mary Lou Jepsen who got out just in time, then with Ivan's departure due to differences, and now as the search for a new CEO goes on so that Negroponte can "step aside",
Updating the XO
Mon, 04/14/2008 - 13:50 — Jon
I updated my OLPC from the shipped build 656 to the release candidate for the muh-anticipated Update.1, here's what I did and what happened:
- from a root terminal, olpc-update candidate-703
