Demonstration build

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The XO is often presented in demonstration, at events, to new users, or as a showcase for what would be possible under different school or low-infrastructure scenarios.


Demonstration build

There are many capabilities of the XO that aren't easy to demonstrate on a standard build. We are preparing a set of builds that can show off the features described here.

  1. Dual-boot
    • with a Fedora/Gnome or Edubuntu setup (via SD card)
    • with any simple hacks to speed up launch -- perhaps a dual-boot OpenWRT?
  2. Video (full screen)
    • ogg
    • m.youtube / kaltura
    • the best that can be done with mpeg & rm
      • has been done using a completely separate build which was stripped of absolutely everything but the ability to play video (No "OS"/GUI at all), and uses proprietary codecs
  3. Audio
    • Stereo sound to show off speakers range
    • multichannel audio from creative activity (tamtam)
    • Duet example
    • streaming audio from an online source
  4. Book Readers
    • pdf (evince)
    • js (flipbook, ICDL, jresig)
  5. Flash
    • smooth Flash animation with gnash
    • the best that can be done with Adobe Flash
  6. text-to-speech
    • Speak
  7. videochat or at least audiochat
  8. drawing w/ stylus
  9. Browsers
    • Full-fledged firefox
    • Opera
  10. New Sugar UI and configuration screen
  11. Faster load time (now in joyride)
  12. Abiword
  13. Develop/ Pippy
  14. Xaos Python fractal viewer
  15. Modified xoIRC -- auto join #olpc
  16. a plot of battery strength/usage over time, however crude, like what the Prius offers for gas conservation
  17. a compressed view for the Journal (or a way to link directly to a compressed view)

There are also a number of activities whose demos should be focused down to a couple of minutes, whose components could all be set up in advance; I'm thinking about how to effectively walk through them, without waiting to long for each one to load and set up, but without having more than one in memory at a given time. Is there some way to launch an activity while simultaneously demanding/reserving a block of memory, potentially killing other processes when starting up to improve the repeatability of demo length?

Progress

Here is what is done (from the list above)

  • full-screen full-motion video
    • Ogg / mpeg / many other proprietary codecs all fully supported via mplayer
      • In full screen mode game keys are used for control
      • Usage: mplayer filename
      • Media: Elephants Dream
  • Book Readers
  • Audio
    • Stereo mp3 playback working via mplayer
    • Streaming audio working via mplayer
  • Flash
    • gnash installed + working
    • Adobe Flash player installed + working (latest Flash runs youtube videos at 5-10fps)
  • Text-to-Speech
    • Speak installed + working
  • Tablet Example
    • Unexciting proof of concept tablet activity installed + working
    • Tablet drivers may work on joyride but there aren't any interesting activities that show it off
  • Browsers
    • Full-fledged firefox installed + working
    • See firefox2 for guide
      • Works well for the most part, it is not the ideal browser for the XO.
      • Designed for a windowed GUI, full of features that are not helpful in the XO enviornment
    • Opera
      • Works very well, definitely the happy medium between Browse and Firefox
      • See Opera for installation guide
  • New Sugar UI and Config screen
    • integrated into the joyride-1914 build used
  • Faster startup
    • integrated into the joyride-1914 build used

Difficulties / Requests

  • Playing youtube video
    • Gnash not compatible via youtubes website
    • Adobe Flash runs youtube at only 5-10fps
    • Mplayer can't seem to play the rtsp stream from m.youtube.com
  • Need a good TamTam demo

Types of demos

Situational demos

XOs used in

  1. an emergency school (school-in-a-box)
  2. a tiny village w/unconnectivity (digital courier)
  3. a disaster / zero-infrastructure intervention
  4. an agriculture/water intervention
  5. a health intervention / clinics

Learning demos

Children learning...

  1. geometry (Dr. Geo)
  2. collaborative music (lifelong K w/ distributed orchestra)
  3. language
  4. art (interactive creation)
  5. writing (abicollab)
  6. world maps

Parents learning

  1. spreadsheets
  2. geography