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Archives: [[OLPC talk:News/1|2006-2008]]
Could I get one for my Friend's Kids?


== Erratas & Mistakes ==
Living on the country-side in South India as a European since 15 years I DO see the use of a very cheap PC for poor childern.
In the Haiti News a Republique do Chile is mentioned, it`s not Chile but HAITI.
A few points from my perspective:


== First field test to evaluate network completed this Saturday ==
- Sell them, do not give them for free. Most people do not maintain free items seriously. Do try to get the price even lower (but not so low that they will be canibalised just for the parts)
This Saturday, professor Luiz Claudio Schara Magalhães and students from UFF's Telecommunications Engineering and Computer Science departments went to Itapuaçu, an oceanic beach in Niterói, Brazil, to run the phase one tests, which include range, throughput and latency between two XO's and one XO and one access point, using the AP standard antenna and an 18dbi omnidirectional antenna which may be installed at schools to extend range. Further tests are planned for this Friday, and results will be posted as they become available.
-----


== Universidade Federal Fluminense is evaluating XO's mesh network implementation ==
- Keep the government out of the picture (too much corruption); sell them through normal electronic shops.
The mesh network evaluation is being done under the auspices of Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa (RNP - [http://www.rnp.br]), the Brazilian organization funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Education. RNP is responsible for providing Internet access to academic and research institutions and it is funding Midiacom Labs ([http://www.midiacom.uff.br]) to develop a low cost mesh network solution. Information about the pilot, which provides free Internet access to students in the vicinity of the Engineering Campus at UFF, can be found at [http://mesh.ic.uff.br]. This technology may be used to create the infrastructure to bring Internet access to the Brazilian schools. Current information on the XO's mesh network tests will be found at [http://www.midiacom.uff.br/~schara].
-----
Please add:
OLPC-Youth initiative:
http://it4yi-wiki.skn.wsinf.edu.pl/YouthandtheOLPCinitiative
-----
$4 million order from Nigeria, Brazil, Argentina, and Thailand:
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7131519895.html


:The OLPC spokesperson was misquoted: no agreement had been signed. We continue to cooperate with Thailand, Brasil, Argentina, and Nigeria, but no one has committed to purchase laptops nor has OLPC asked anyone to sign a purchase agreement yet. We apologize for any confusion.[[User:Walter|Walter]] 21:50, 1 August 2006 (EDT)
- There are many power-cuts/ problems here: supply a hand crank please.


== Costa Rica Press Article ==
- Can you build in WiMAX? In the rural area's there are great distances to cover. Alternatively leave out any wifi and supply more local storage.


Please add the following press article on Costa Rica's press regarding the OLPC initiative. Includes an interview with Prof. Cavallo.
Africa needs technology to solve its numerous problems. This cannot wait until everyone's belly full. The reality is that there are hungry people even in the first world. This guy living in Africa must have sent his original message by a telegram.


http://www.nacion.com/ln_ee/2006/septiembre/05/aldea818336.html
== Great Project ==


-Adrian Garcia
I live in Nigeria and I am excited that my country is involved in the OLPC project.
Mesoamerica
Education and communication is traditionally greatly valued in Nigeria and this project, I believe, hits at the heart of what is essential in moving the next generation of Nigerians across the digital chasm.
www.mesoamerica.com
== Colombia Press Article ==


http://www.eltiempo.com/nacion/cafe/2006-10-09/ARTICULO-WEB-NOTA_INTERIOR-3277364.html
We have debated, in international circles, what needs to be done to help 3rd world countries breach the poverty gap. For the first time, we have finally been able to create a project that has the best chance of making a difference.


The access, motivation and education that these laptops will give these kids will be far greater than $100 of grain, rice, bread or any other form of aid.


== Translation to Brazilian Portuguese 2 weekends ago ==
I will support this project in any way that I can.


Hi, 2 weekends ago (18 and 19 January) I revised the current and finished missing Brazilian Portuguese translations for Core and Bundle activities in Pootle. Left off was Etoys, which is currently 50% translated. This was following a call for help on irc, so that students in Brazil could take advantage of Update.1 in their native language.
The laptop is [[not for individual sale]]... Ministries of education will purchase, just like they do with textbooks... Or should they not spend any money for education?
I discovered 2 interesting things with the exercise: 1 - That Sugar and the core activities have less text in comparison with other desktops. This is because of the highly iconic and visual nature of Sugar itself, as well as of the activities. This bodes well for the multilingual future of the XO, as a new language, in my own estimates, could be added in a couple of days. 2 - To translate the TamTam series of music and sound activities, I had to follow a crash-course on the theory of sound, thankfully aided by Wikipedia, Wiktionary and a other resources. I immediately learned how deep they could be, following the philosophy of "a low floor" and "a high ceiling" that all the activities should target for, since it frees students to delve as deep and wider as they which into the subject matter, in this case in the appreciation of sound and music. [[User:HoboPrimate|HoboPrimate]] 22:54, 2 February 2008 (EST)


== G1G1 passes German customs / Awesome battery ==
----
'''It's ridiculous!''' I live in africa and the last thing we need are PCs. Children here need food, water, medication, clothes- they need food so they wont die of hunger, get it?? A laptop is useless, and by the way, 100USD is too expensive for somenone who has no money to eat on.


Just wanted to let folks know that I got my G1G1 XO through German customs. They had me open the box because they were curious. They put "green laptop" on the form for "item entering the EU". The letters sent by OLPC and signed by Negroponte explaining the price policy were worth gold, as they only assessed my value-added tax on $199, not on $399, and there were no import duties imposed (yeah!).
And now for the good news about the battery: my brother charged it in the States fully, it was 10 days in transit, and still had 75% battery showing when I first booted it up! That quickly went to 50% as I began fussing with Flash videos (that wouldn't load). Now I gotta find that US-to-European converter. Thank you for making the adapter handle 110-240V! [[User:WiseWoman|WiseWoman]] 10:54, 15 February 2008 (EST)


== Please link Trac tickets when you can ==
----


Try using the nifty [[Template:Trac]] by [[User:Katie]]
Answer,
eg {{Trac|5269|rfe }}
Thanks,[[User:Adricnet|Adricnet]] 08:22, 20 February 2008 (EST)


== links ==
as you see, dear african ''(btw: are you really?)'', your message here reached my bedroom in Italy today thanks to a pc (maybe a really really cheap one), isn't it?
The news as of 2/22/08 is very interesting, but also very light on links to more information / details. More links would certainly be appreciated -- dave stanford [[User:216.165.145.153|216.165.145.153]] 08:52, 22 February 2008 (EST)


Dave,
--[[User:87.4.183.151|87.4.183.151]] 06:04, 17 March 2006 (EST) Francesco R. - Castelfranco Veneto - Italy
Thanks for your input. If you have specific suggestions for links, please add them here, or if you need help finding things you could hop on [[IRC]] or mail help at laptop dot org. Lots more options at eg [[ Support]].
Thanks,


[[User:Adricnet|Adricnet]] 05:23, 2 March 2008 (EST)
---


Please add this link to [http://www.olpcnews.com/about.html olpcnews.com] --[[User:SvenAERTS|SvenAERTS]] 22:07, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
Another Answer:


== Added content from Community-news ==
if the last thing you need in africa are PCs, will africa ever start needing them? Children need food, water, medication, etc. - this is true and the most important right now, but that is by far not the only important thing for the african future! Simply providing food, water, medication, etc. does never cure the underlying reasons for their lack. If we strive to provide only the basics it might help a bit immediately but will not sustain for too long... it tends to make things rather worse in the long run - it only deepens economic dependency. Of course that does not mean we should stop providing the basics though. But if you ask for limiting help to the basic priorities, you could therefore just as well ask for stopping all the help... sad but true. Africa needs all help it can get and on all levels to become independent, free and strong!


I added a news update in what I hope was an acceptably wikified format from [http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/community-news/2008-April/000123.html Kim's post to community-news] ... hope this is OK
---
:—[[User:Hobart|Hobart]] 15:02, 28 April 2008 (EDT)
:: Thanks, Hobart, that's great. See also the talk at [[OLPC:Newsroom]]. --[[User:Sj|Sj]]&nbsp;[[User talk:Sj|<font style="color:#f70; font-size:70%">talk</font>]] 15:05, 28 April 2008 (EDT)


== Old sections archived ==
Yet another answer: '''Empowerment and Self Help'''
I archived some of the old sections.


== Improving community-news generation and coverage ==
Africa was colonialized as were many other areas of the world such as Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, ...Vietnam, Cambodia, etc. as well in more recent times Hungary, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria etc by the USSR. (Even the USA by England ..) Now that Africa is no longer colonialized and there is no "apertheid" what prevents its free nations from being on the road to self-sufficiency? That is a critical question every African must ask - and must demand creative and committed answers from its leaders.
We're talking about better ways to track and cover community news; feel free to add your thoughts on the same below. [[user:sj|sj]]


Here's one possibility, for adding comments/news items to this page:
Seems that without meaningful education and a feeling of empowerment by people the only African hope is await CARE packages from more dynamic and successful continents. That is a sad hope for the African continent. An initiative like OLPC can't solve Africa's chronic health and food problems. For that there are organizations like the UN, and even that is not the solution. Africa's, and any continent's and nation's, only real hope and escape from dire circumstances is self-help and forming local helping communities based on a strong sense of kinship. If these are missing there is no real hope.
<inputbox>
type=comment
default=OLPC talk:News
width=20
height=10
buttonlabel=Add new news blurb
bgcolor=#fffcf9
preload=Template:New news item
break=yes
align=left
editintro=Template:News item headertext
</inputbox>


{{news-item
Only Africans can help Africans. Others can apply band aid solutions.
|submitter=sj
|date=10:00, 9 June 2008 (EDT)
|topic=testing
|summary=This is a news item test. Just a test!
}}


{{news-item
OLPC can plant valuable seeds whose fruit will ripen maybe after a decade or more. Sometimes there are no quick fix solutions and often quick fixes tend to make problems worse.
|submitter=
|date=
|topic=
|summary=
}}


== Glastonbury 08: XOs power GreenCyberPod ==
[[User:Larry Pfeffer |L Pfeffer]] March 18, 2006


{{Powered by Solar chargers and using 5 XOs loaned by the OLPC project we have set up an internet access point in the Glastonbury Festival Green Futures field. This is England and it is Glastonbury so it is intermittently raining and cloudy but the Green Radio team - thanks to Ricardo Radio - have a bank of 6 solar panels, which are generally providing enough power to recharge the batteries. The Glastonbury wifi is WPA, and very intermittent, so connectivity is courtesy of the truly wonderful Olly Lawrence from GreenPeace International who has rigged us up a subnet from the GP source.
----------------------------


Trade is steady - proceeds will go to OLPC (but the contribution won't register I suspect) - and there is a lot of interest in the XO from the slightly startled festival goers.
'''Yet another yet another answer''',


Pics to follow
Quote from somewhere:
"Give someone bread, he eats for a day, teach someone how to make bread, he eats for a lifetime"


|submitter= pete cranston
----------------------------
|date= 28th June, 08
|topic= news
|summary=
}}


== 2009 ==
The OLPC project is acting (in my mind) in a way that will free the emergency needs of Africa and similar in the long-terms. It is a long-term GREAT project.
Instruction: 100$ to grant ACCESS, communication, and unlimited BOOKS.
Future employment: open source software and culture is the emerging countries freedom.
As you teach people to act the collaborative way, as you teach them they can do the same things investing on their learning curve and not in the major softwarehouse products, they will never be "computer slaves".
This project was "saved" from having an OS-X based OS, and hardly attatched from Microsoft.


2009 anyone? The page is locked or I would drag it into the now myself :-). --[[Special:Contributions/98.234.55.240|98.234.55.240]] 17:22, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
But... the need will be to prevent family from selling the laptops to feed themself!!!

Please, SELL these PCs in the first world, $200 each. With the earned money finance the project.
I'd buy it!

Luca Vascon, Venice, Italy. March 18, 2006

--------
'''Vascon said''': Please, SELL these PCs in the first world, $200 each. With the earned money finance the project.
I'd buy it! ---- ---

--- '''ME TOO''' --[[User:Dagoflores|Dagoflores]] 03:42, 19 March 2006 (EST) AGS MEX


'''I think MANY(1st world) people will buy it.'''

---------

Hunger and medical attention are the most needed, I agree. And trying to get gouvernments to stop violence and start respecting people's lives and rights. But while now being idle, the young generation is not getting any education, the African continent stands still in it's own developement and will not evolve into prosperity.

Forming it's own local networks and with free access to the internet, this generation can and will be educated. One has to learn how to read and write, otherwise you can't use the laptop. But even THAT can be done from this laptop. And after that, all is available at their own fingertips. And do not only think in ways of education, but specially in information.

Due to the developement of the internet and the free source of information, the first world has hurdled into the next millenium. Also the third world countries can start to close this gap and speed up their developement. The increase in free available information, will have a positive effect on the personal developement of people.

The current HIV and Aids crisis in African countries can be slowed down through the use of direct information. In stead of staying ignorant or being mislead by self-called healers, children will be informed of the real risks of non-protected sexual contacts. Parents will learn how to protect their children from the risks of infection.

People can look for solutions of local problems. What can be done about getting water to the surface? Where can I get a pump for my village?

In a later stage it will also have a positive side for the international Aid organisations and their workers. Instead of having to travel all over these countries looking for problems to solve, the information will directly to them. This will safe time and resources and therefore money.

But I agree with Luca Vascon from Italy. We have to prevent that these laptops are being sold. Or stolen to use as trade goods. The only way to do this, is make them so generally available, that it is not worth stealing or selling them.

I also would really like to have one. I am going to travel the world for a year and this laptop would be perfect to carry around. Developed for rugged situations and self-sustaining for power, so that I can use it everywhere. I would like to have more memory, but that cannot be that expensive. And I would pay for it as well. And for the $ 200, they can give away 2 instead of 1.

Richard Seinstra, Capelle aan den IJssel (The Netherlands)
21-03-2006

--------------------------------------------------------

Africa needs technology to leapfrog to suatainable development. Africa will benefit tremendously from this project.

--------------------------------------------------------
As an outsider, we always seem to have an answer... "the power of internet, education, exposure, communication etc etc....". We fail to understand what does an average African really needs. And believe me its not obvious. I guess we can all try, but the best answer would come from Africa itself.
The laptop in itself is no good, we need to focus on software... i.e. the applications, the content, the course material... all that needs to be looked at, and then only we'll feel the true power of $100 laptop.

Prabhdeep, Montreal
April 4, 2006

--------------------------------------------------------
I live in Vancouver BC. I'm quite lucky to reside in one of the high tech cities of Canada.

Consider this. Say the technology was taken care of and the laptop was to go for sale for $100. Is there any charity that would be willing to have 1st world families buy the laptop and have them shipped to countries with needs?

This could take care of the resource management (the money going to the corrupt government).

__________________________________________________________________________________________

I think this is a very good idea, I strongly believe in the power of education. But I also fear that many governments won't be willing to spend the money because of corruption and other issues. The idea of a charity buying the laptops seems a bit unlikely to me. How about teaming with a TV station and organizing a telethon to raise money? I think people would be willing to contribute to this project, especially because it's more tangible than other initiatives: the money made will be dedicated to the production and shipping of the laptops.

Diana, Madrid
April 10th, 2006


____________________________________________________________________________________________

OLPC seems to be just one of many great projects to emerge of the MIT Media Lab over recent years that demonstrate intent to use the wealth of knowledge and resource available to the western world to help our less well off friends. Exploring this site however, while I can find believe that a $100 dollar laptop can be made and understand why laptops are great, I cant find a document that actually details the actual need, or attempts to answers many of the questions that have been raised on this page. Is there such a doucument available to the public?? Without wanting to knock a project which I'm sure has a rich future, it would be great to hear answers to some key questions:

How do you give a $100 laptop to a family who makes perhaps $1-5 a day?

How do you persuade aid agencies in the wisdom of paying for high complexity solutions to the developing world, no matter how inexpensive, when written into many of their mission statements is "to help the developing world help themselves" i.e. help them to decide what they need and help them build it?

Who is this $100 laptop specifically for? (country, average income, other facilities) - claiming that the light from OLPC is the brightest source of light in a cambodian family house prompts me to ask are we addressing the REAL problems...

I contributed to the KINKAJOU project with Design that Matters and took the idea to many international agencies in the UK and these were just the kind of questions I struggled to find answers for.

Keep up the good work

Gareth Sumner,
Cambridge, UK. 15th April 2006

Latest revision as of 22:07, 22 March 2009

Archives: 2006-2008

Erratas & Mistakes

In the Haiti News a Republique do Chile is mentioned, it`s not Chile but HAITI.

First field test to evaluate network completed this Saturday

This Saturday, professor Luiz Claudio Schara Magalhães and students from UFF's Telecommunications Engineering and Computer Science departments went to Itapuaçu, an oceanic beach in Niterói, Brazil, to run the phase one tests, which include range, throughput and latency between two XO's and one XO and one access point, using the AP standard antenna and an 18dbi omnidirectional antenna which may be installed at schools to extend range. Further tests are planned for this Friday, and results will be posted as they become available.

Universidade Federal Fluminense is evaluating XO's mesh network implementation

The mesh network evaluation is being done under the auspices of Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa (RNP - [1]), the Brazilian organization funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Education. RNP is responsible for providing Internet access to academic and research institutions and it is funding Midiacom Labs ([2]) to develop a low cost mesh network solution. Information about the pilot, which provides free Internet access to students in the vicinity of the Engineering Campus at UFF, can be found at [3]. This technology may be used to create the infrastructure to bring Internet access to the Brazilian schools. Current information on the XO's mesh network tests will be found at [4].

Please add: OLPC-Youth initiative: http://it4yi-wiki.skn.wsinf.edu.pl/YouthandtheOLPCinitiative

$4 million order from Nigeria, Brazil, Argentina, and Thailand: http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7131519895.html

The OLPC spokesperson was misquoted: no agreement had been signed. We continue to cooperate with Thailand, Brasil, Argentina, and Nigeria, but no one has committed to purchase laptops nor has OLPC asked anyone to sign a purchase agreement yet. We apologize for any confusion.Walter 21:50, 1 August 2006 (EDT)

Costa Rica Press Article

Please add the following press article on Costa Rica's press regarding the OLPC initiative. Includes an interview with Prof. Cavallo.

http://www.nacion.com/ln_ee/2006/septiembre/05/aldea818336.html

-Adrian Garcia 

Mesoamerica
www.mesoamerica.com

Colombia Press Article

http://www.eltiempo.com/nacion/cafe/2006-10-09/ARTICULO-WEB-NOTA_INTERIOR-3277364.html


Translation to Brazilian Portuguese 2 weekends ago

Hi, 2 weekends ago (18 and 19 January) I revised the current and finished missing Brazilian Portuguese translations for Core and Bundle activities in Pootle. Left off was Etoys, which is currently 50% translated. This was following a call for help on irc, so that students in Brazil could take advantage of Update.1 in their native language. I discovered 2 interesting things with the exercise: 1 - That Sugar and the core activities have less text in comparison with other desktops. This is because of the highly iconic and visual nature of Sugar itself, as well as of the activities. This bodes well for the multilingual future of the XO, as a new language, in my own estimates, could be added in a couple of days. 2 - To translate the TamTam series of music and sound activities, I had to follow a crash-course on the theory of sound, thankfully aided by Wikipedia, Wiktionary and a other resources. I immediately learned how deep they could be, following the philosophy of "a low floor" and "a high ceiling" that all the activities should target for, since it frees students to delve as deep and wider as they which into the subject matter, in this case in the appreciation of sound and music. HoboPrimate 22:54, 2 February 2008 (EST)

G1G1 passes German customs / Awesome battery

Just wanted to let folks know that I got my G1G1 XO through German customs. They had me open the box because they were curious. They put "green laptop" on the form for "item entering the EU". The letters sent by OLPC and signed by Negroponte explaining the price policy were worth gold, as they only assessed my value-added tax on $199, not on $399, and there were no import duties imposed (yeah!). And now for the good news about the battery: my brother charged it in the States fully, it was 10 days in transit, and still had 75% battery showing when I first booted it up! That quickly went to 50% as I began fussing with Flash videos (that wouldn't load). Now I gotta find that US-to-European converter. Thank you for making the adapter handle 110-240V! WiseWoman 10:54, 15 February 2008 (EST)

Please link Trac tickets when you can

Try using the nifty Template:Trac by User:Katie eg rfe (Trac #5269) Thanks,Adricnet 08:22, 20 February 2008 (EST)

links

The news as of 2/22/08 is very interesting, but also very light on links to more information / details. More links would certainly be appreciated -- dave stanford 216.165.145.153 08:52, 22 February 2008 (EST)

Dave, Thanks for your input. If you have specific suggestions for links, please add them here, or if you need help finding things you could hop on IRC or mail help at laptop dot org. Lots more options at eg Support. Thanks,

Adricnet 05:23, 2 March 2008 (EST)

Please add this link to olpcnews.com --SvenAERTS 22:07, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Added content from Community-news

I added a news update in what I hope was an acceptably wikified format from Kim's post to community-news ... hope this is OK

—Hobart 15:02, 28 April 2008 (EDT)
Thanks, Hobart, that's great. See also the talk at OLPC:Newsroom. --Sj talk 15:05, 28 April 2008 (EDT)

Old sections archived

I archived some of the old sections.

Improving community-news generation and coverage

We're talking about better ways to track and cover community news; feel free to add your thoughts on the same below. sj

Here's one possibility, for adding comments/news items to this page: <inputbox> type=comment default=OLPC talk:News width=20 height=10 buttonlabel=Add new news blurb bgcolor=#fffcf9 preload=Template:New news item break=yes align=left editintro=Template:News item headertext </inputbox>

testing
This is a news item test. Just a test! sj   10:00, 9 June 2008 (EDT)
'   '

Glastonbury 08: XOs power GreenCyberPod

{{Powered by Solar chargers and using 5 XOs loaned by the OLPC project we have set up an internet access point in the Glastonbury Festival Green Futures field. This is England and it is Glastonbury so it is intermittently raining and cloudy but the Green Radio team - thanks to Ricardo Radio - have a bank of 6 solar panels, which are generally providing enough power to recharge the batteries. The Glastonbury wifi is WPA, and very intermittent, so connectivity is courtesy of the truly wonderful Olly Lawrence from GreenPeace International who has rigged us up a subnet from the GP source.

Trade is steady - proceeds will go to OLPC (but the contribution won't register I suspect) - and there is a lot of interest in the XO from the slightly startled festival goers.

Pics to follow

|submitter= pete cranston |date= 28th June, 08 |topic= news |summary= }}

2009

2009 anyone? The page is locked or I would drag it into the now myself :-). --98.234.55.240 17:22, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://wiki.laptop.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=OLPC_talk:News&oldid=200554"