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<div style="font-size:90%; float:right;">
You can subscribe to the OLPC community-news mailing list by visiting the [http://mailman.laptop.org/mailman/listinfo/community-news laptop.org mailman site].
__TOC__
</div>


To contribute a story or news idea, see the '''[[OLPC:Newsroom|OLPC newsroom]]'''.
=Laptop News 2008-01-05=


For coverage of recent OLPC updates, see our [[twitter]] feed and [http://blog.laptop.org OLPC blog].
1. Intel: John Markoff’s article in Saturday’s ''New York Times'' provides an accurate description of the events of the past 48 hours regarding Intel (See http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/05/technology/05laptop.html). We made a sincere effort of rapprochement, but it was clear from even the way that Intel terminated the relationship—with an “inadvertent leak”—that their was no reciprocal sincerity. We made great strides before Intel joined us and we will continue to make great strides now that they have left the OLPC association.


This page historically hosted announcements and news about OLPC, along with the Sugar Labs [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Current_Events '''current events'''] page.
See also two recent ''Wall Street Journal'' articles (access to the full 2nd article requires a subscription until two weeks have elapsed from date of publishing): http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119948070480568405.html and http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119940537839566305.html.


== Upcoming pieces ==
2. Lagos: Ayo Kusamotu filed a preliminary objection to the Nigerian keyboard lawsuit (See [[Lancor]]). The details of the case have been discussed extensively on Groklaw (See http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071226210020415).
; Claudia
: Learning Chat piece: 278 words, ready now. [[File:Learning Chat.docx]]
: Making Learning Visible: Claudia's (& Walter) original is 25 pages. Submitted to a journal. w/o OLPC Background it is down to 12-15 pages w/ screenshots.
: This can become a 4-part series.
; Antonio: Homo docens: 500+ words, Antonio approved my edits. [[File:Homo docens JLedits.docx]]
: Further work: we can definitely ask him to contribute on a quarterly basis but I've found that I have to be very specific as to what I am asking to do and he has to be comfortable that it is consistent with his academic work.
: Ask for a new piece on the epidemiology of learning
; Rodrigo:
: [[Ometepe]] - A beautiful piece with wonderful images. RAH posted a personal and lengthy version (1500+ words) that he shared with his private distribution list. I made an edited version (1200 words) that could be shared publicly. Must check with RAH on this. [[File:Ometepe articulo por Rodrigo Arboleda.pdf]] [[File:Ometepe by Rodrigo Arboleda (3).pdf]]
: I had hoped that we could do a video series with Rodrigo but the budget hasn't been approved. Giulia - can we get an answer on this?
; Rwanda:
: Rwanda case studies
: Ceri Whatley - summary of importance of headmasters - confirm subset to reuse
: Social mapping project - 1- or 2-part piece - check w/ Julia
: Grandmother project - 2- or 3-part piece - check w/ Julia (and is there more to that awesome series?)
; Other Africa
: So. Africa case studies
; Peru and Uruguay:
: ''Oscar B's piece on the IADB study?''
: You said that Uruguay and Peru produce a ton of content on a continuous basis. I'm struggling a bit with how we can easily get the content and translate it into English. Giulia - could Olga help? I don't want to burden her with more work. Maybe we do this every 2-3 months.
; Other LatAm:
: Colombia: Sandra's quarterly? newsletter and website could feed into this. Plus english translations.
: Nicaragua: Regular update, beyond Ometepe?
: Paraguay: Contact [[ParaguayEduca]]
: Mexico: Ask Mariana @ OLPCMexico
; OLPC Australia: Great text and videos.
; OLPC Europe: Quarterly update from them?
; OLPC Oceania: Quarterly updates from Mike Hutak
; OLPC Jamaica: Quarterly update from Sameer, good videos.
; North America
: Miami - David! and a story from Chester
: Canada - Jennifer Martino, Q


== News archives ==
3. School Server: A long delayed update to the School Server software to fix problems with large file transfers due to a now antiquated libertas driver has finally happened. Pick up Build 141 ([[XS_Installing_Software#OLPC_XS_141]]), request an Active Antenna build through our developer program, and turn some old junker PC near you into a school server! This was delayed by the holidays and a QA process which turned out to be as necessary as it was difficult. Several problems and unwanted interactions had crept into the build, but these were mostly fixed in this release. (John Watlington finally gave up getting an early version of the school server software to work properly with the Active Antenna he had for testing the upgrade process. After upgrading to Build 141 (stable) it worked fine.)


'''[http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/community-news/ Weekly OLPC News postings]''' to the community-news mailing list give updates on recent work. Weekly summaries were also posted on-wiki during [[OLPC:News/2008|2008]]. Weekly postings to the list were put on hold at the start of 2009, and started again in 2010.
We now have a jabber server running on the schoolserver in Cambridge (See [[Ejabberd Configuration]]), and are starting to test against it. We have seen the “register” button work! This should reach a school server build by the beginning of next week.


Archives: [[OLPC:News/Archive 1|2005-2006]]
4. Open firmware (OFW): Mitch Bradley made a number of improvements this week. It now reports the OFW version when in a failure condition to simplify field support; the “remove all power” error message has been made clearer; and the status of the game buttons is indicated when pressed.
| [[OLPC:News/Archive 2|2007]]
| [[OLPC:News/Archive 3|2008]]
| [[OLPC:News/Archive 4|2009-10]]


=== Translations ===
5. Embedded controller (EC): Richard Smith reports that several EC issues are pending. The one that has received attention the SCI Mask Corruption bug (Ticket #5467). While chasing this bug, Richard found several small but critical typos in the handling of some of the commands he had added since November. The net result of these typos is that under some conditions, a value passed in as data would be run as a command and some commands would not get run at all. Unfortunately, fixing those typos does not fix #5467. Its cause goes much deeper into the EC protocol handling. The next couple of days should shake out what the problem is and get it fixed for good.
Sporadic translations of news archives from 2008 and earlier can be found here:
: [[OLPC:News/lang-de|German]] | [[OLPC:News/lang-es|Spanish]] | [[OLPC:News/lang-ja|Japanese]] | [[OLPC:News/lang-ko|Korean]]


== [[OLPC:Videos|OLPC videos]] ==
Battery problems: A growing number of reports of short battery life are coming in. People are starting to run olpc-logbat bat and Richard has
For a history of videos about OLPC and the XO, see [http://olpc.tv olpc.tv] and [[OLPC:Videos]].
been looking at the resulting data. Based on the data he's seen so far, he conjects that either (1) there are some “funky” batteries in the field; or (2) the EC is failing to charge the battery up to full capacity, yet it is marking it as full. Most of the data gathered so far has been discharge info. Richard will be responding to many of the trouble tickets requesting several cycles of charge/discharge while running olpc-logbat to flush out whats going on.


== Sugar news ==
The report of “shutdown yet no red LED” is the result of the capacity never going below 15% but the battery voltage dropped to the critical cutoff point, followed by the EC dropping system power. An enhancement Richard will make to the EC code is to also do something with the status LED to indicted that a critical voltage shutdown is looming so there's some warning your laptop is about to shutdown.
Walter continues to post summaries of Sugar development '''[http://walterbender.org/?cat=3 on his blog]'''.


== Press ==
6. Schedules: For the next few weeks we will be focused on stabilizing Update.1 (based on Joyride) through testing, documentation, and limited number of bug fixes. We recently found two more critical bugs that will need an unscheduled software release (USR): touchpad/mouse jumpiness and data loss if you fill up the memory. We have created a procedure for these USRs; we are using this process to get these fixes out sooner than the next scheduled release (See [[Operating system release procedures]]).
For an archive of OLPC media coverage, see the [[OLPC:Press/2005-2008|2005-2008 press archives]].


== Past announcements ==
7. Test: Chih-Yu Chao is helping out with both test and support this week. She has gotten through the 1-Hour Smoke Test on a recent Joyride build, which revealed a few regression bugs from the Ship.2 (650) release. Next we need to create and document some test cases for the new features in Update.1, and some testing with the school server.
Developed through 2011 by the Racepoint Group, OLPC's ''pro bono'' PR firm.


* 2008-08-06 : [[Media:OLPC-Asia.doc|One Laptop per Child expands its presence in Asia]] with project leads in India and China
8. Support: Adam Holt has been working days, nights, and weekends to grow the volunteer support group (now up to 40 people), who are answering emails, hanging out on forums and IRC to help people. A core crew of about 15 volunteers drives the process forward with increasingly sophisticated answers. Others contribute part-time working from the Support FAQ ([[Support FAQ]]) and “RTFM” template answers as they get up to speed. We have almost hit 1000 email help requests in the database! Katie Belisle and Casey Ratliff are working on a next-generation documentation ideas for our Support FAQ.
* 2008-05-20 : [[Media:XO-2-preview.doc|One Laptop per Child frames the next generation of the revolutionary XO laptop]], with a lighter dual-touchscreen design.
* 2008-05-15 : [[Media:XP-on-XO.doc|Microsoft Windows XP is now available on the XO laptop]]
* 2008-05-03 : [[Media:Kane-appointment.doc|One Laptop per Child appoints Charles Kane as President and Chief Operating Officer]]
* 2008-01-07 : [[Media:G1G1-results.doc|One Laptop per Child Giving Campaign Raises $35 Million]] in 2007
* 2007-12-12 : [http://www.smartbrief.com/news/aaaa/industryPR-detail.jsp?id=2FDAB6BE-AE3B-482F-A7B0-6570C75397E4 ''The Kite Runner'' Inspires Gift Through One Laptop]
* 2007-12-05 : [[Media:Peru-OLPC.doc|Peru launches OLPC with 40,000 laptops]], starting with one-classroom schools across the country.
* 2007-12-04 : [[Media:Birmingham-OLPC.doc|Birmingham, Alabama commits to One Laptop per Child]], with a pilot of 15,000 laptops across the city.
* 2007-11-24 : [http://www.50x15.com/en-us/sol_results_xo.aspx The Holiday Season Starts with Giving One Laptop]
* 2007-10-29 : [[Media:Uruguay-launch.doc|OLPC wins a bid to provide 100,000 laptops to children in Uruguay]], to be overseen by the Uruguayan CEIBAL project
* 2007-10-22 : [http://www.businesswire.com/news/google/20071022005302/en One Laptop per Child creates the world's "greenest" laptop computer]
* 2007-06-11 : [[Media:Mass-production.doc|Mass Production of XO's begins!]] at Quanta's Chinese facilities.
* 2007-01-03 : [http://www.businesswire.com/news/google/20070103005194/en OLPC Announces First-of-Its-Kind User Interface for XO Laptop Computer]


Adam is also coordinating “4PM Sunday” (Eastern Standard Time) conference calls for the entire support-volunteers team. Last week’s call was extremely successful due to the contributions of the OLPC developer community (special thanks to Bernie Innocenti and Arjun Sarwal) (See [[Support meetings]]). Anyone you wants to join, email me well in advance at “holt AT laptop DOT org” and be sure to include your phone number! All volunteers worldwide will be considered, after a very brief phone call. (See http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/support-gang if you are interested in volunteering.)


Adam, Kim Quirk, and Greg Babbin are now able to provide RMAs, which will help off-load the donor support 800-number and email. Kudos to Greg’s genuine heroics. Our Asterisk-based VoIP virtual call center has been briefly delayed. Matthew O’Gorman and Joe Phigan continue to work hard on this, scripting prompts for rudimentary integration with http://rt.laptop.org, and we should have our volunteer-training shortly.


[[Category:OLPC]]
9. Localization: Sayamindu Dasgupta helped start Pashto and Bulgarian translation teams and resolve an issue with Pootle that caused it to reject new user registrations; it was being caused by a invalid username in the Pootle database.

A long-standing blocker bug (Ticket #1525) regarding the invalidation of the fontconfig cache was finally fixed. Font cache generation in the XO should be more robust now, even in the face of clock failures.

10. Software potpourri: Tomeu Vizoso proposed fixes for a number of bugs that have highest priority: previews are not deleted when their matching datastore objects are removed (Ticket #5707); deleting a large file from a USB stick copies it into NAND (often filling NAND) (Ticket #5719); Sugar shell consuming vast amounts of memory (Ticket #5532); “resuming” a large file from USB copies it into NAND (filling NAND) (Ticket #5744); and objects accumulate on the clipboard, impacting system performance (Ticket #5760).

Chris Ball fixed many power manager bugs. We now perform power management regardless of whether you're on an external power source, we remember the user's previous brightness setting when we dim the screen during suspend, and open hardware manager (OHM) no longer exits when X does.

Chris Ball wrote “slideshow” over Christmas, which is a Pippy example that queries the datastore for camera images and then shows them full-screen in a slideshow. He can't decide whether it should be a Pippy example (since it demonstrates performing datastore searches in Python) or a separate activity.

Dennis Gilmore spent most of the week troubleshooting issues, working around an issue today causing build failures and mostly trying to put the pieces together to make things better.

Michael Stone and Dennis spent some time working out why iputils fell out of our builds. Michael also worked with Bernie and Tomeu on address a problem with olpc-update in regards to persistent activity directories (Ticket #5033), with Ben Schwartz on problem with stream sockets (Ticket #5818), and with Eben Eliason on the beginnings of a security user interface.

Ivan Krstić is exploring a more secure way of isolating Browse for Update.1; it might be trivial.

11. Presence: Robert McQueen finished an out-of-band data (OOB) implementation (he added IP detection code) and wrote tests for it. That means OOB bytestream is now working with Gabble. The next step will be to define and implement bytestream renegotiation and fallback.

Dafydd Harries made updated packages for Presence Service and Avahi, although Koji cannot build the former for some reason. He also debugged problems registering laptops with school servers (Ticket #5834); it turns out that the ejabberd RPM doesn't generate an X.509 certificate. Dafydd also spent time trying to coax OpenFire into working. It works ok as long as your account is not in the shared roster group, but authenticating becomes unreliable as soon as you are a member. The web interface becomes unreliable from time to time too, necessitating restarting the server. It seems that, like with ejabberd, we are using it in a way it is not designed to handle. Our scalability improvements should solve this for Update.2, but it is not clear yet what the best approach is for the Update.1 time frame.

Morgan Collett fixed the scrolling bug (Ticket #2351) in Chat for Update.1 thanks to a patch from Marco Pesenti Gritti. (C. Scott Ananian’s view source changes for Chat are in Update.1, but will require a newer Pippy.) Morgan is testing a fix for Presence Service #5368 where the buddies in an activity weren't reliably clustering around the shared activity icon.

12. Activities: Muriel Godoi progressing on his port of Food Force for the XO (See [[Food Force 2]]). Progress includes artwork (builds and villagers); next, the game model need more work to get a playable game. The code is in his public_git folder (https://dev.laptop.org/git?p=users/murielgodoi/foodforce2;a=summary). Please contact Muriel if you’d like to help.

Arjun Sarwal reports progress on the Measure activity: he is rethinking certain aspects of the code design of the activity that would make it more easily expandable and scalable.

13. OLPC Pakistan: Dr. Habib Khan reports progress amidst chaos. Urdu localization is 100% complete. They have had a useful discussion with an Afghan graduate student of International Islamic University (IIU) who is keenly interested in translating OLPC bundles into Dari and Pashto. They are also mobilizing volunteers from the Pakistan Institute of Engineering & Applied Sciences, (PIEAS). A training package for Afghan teachers is nearing completion, including software, hardware, and activities tutorials. They’ve also launched an effort to convert into e-books all the text books written on curriculum of the Federal Ministry of Education, Islamabad. Beta versions for Grades one through four are ready. The subjects are English, Social Studies, Science, and Urdu.

14. Cow power: Arjun have completed documentation of the project (See [[Cow Power]]). The page details the current design and the proposed mechanical design. He is hoping to get feedback from the community on the proposed mechanical design before moving forward in the implementation of the changes.

15. Community: The OLPC Austria team reports progress on OpenWRT. It boots an XO (currently with minimal driver support) in 15–20 seconds. John Crispin and others want to look into porting Sugar to OpenWRT if there is community interest.

Pascal Martin of Linterweb, an open source software company based in France that has worked on desktop and wiki search tools, has offered
their support and development time to help with the search component for the Journal. Tomeu Vizoso spent some time explaining to Fabien
Coulon from their team what has been done to date in the datastore.

Jesper Taxbøl is helping organize this year's Nordic Game Jam; he is angling to run it on XOs and lead off with an introduction to PyGame.
They are looking for 10 laptops for their 100 participants to use February 1–3. This is quite a popular jam and produces some pretty polished games each year.

Many people are asking for ways to contact the creators of bundles and activities. Please add your name and some sort of contact info to
projects you have worked on, on their own wiki pages, and on the [[Activities]] page.

=More News=
Laptop News is archived [http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/community-news/ here].

You can subscribe to the OLPC community-news mailing list by visiting the [http://mailman.laptop.org/mailman/listinfo/community-news laptop.org mailman site].

Press requests: please send email to press@racepointgroup.com

==[[Milestones]]==
Latest milestones:
{{:Milestones}} <!-- Translators, you can either include the english version or the translated version -- it does NOT work with redirects -->
All milestones can be found [[Milestones|here]].


{{anchor|PRESS}}

==[[PRESS|Press]]==
You can subscribe to the OLPC community-news mailing list by visiting the [http://mailman.laptop.org/mailman/listinfo/community-news laptop.org mailman site].
{{:Press}}
More articles can be found [[Press|here]].

==[[Video of the OLPC | Video]]==
Miscellaneous videos of the laptop can be found [[Video of the OLPC|here]].

* A Frappr Map of G1G1 recipients can be found at [http://www.frappr.com/?a=constellation_map&mapid=137440255169&src=flash_map&sig=visitor_map&src_mvid=137440332484&origin=unknown&ct=seemore]
* A collection of several videos can found at [http://www.olpc.tv OLPC.TV]
* IBM Podcast, Walter Bender on One Laptop per Child [http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/podcast/dwi/cm-int042407.html]
* Ivan Krstić delivers a [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4285568518538296189 technical presentation of OLPC] at the Google TechTalk series
*60 Minutes, What if Every Child had a Laptop [http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/20/60minutes/main2830058.shtml]
*CNN, Should Intel Fear $100 Laptop? [http://money.cnn.com/services/video/]
*Red Hat Magazine: Inside One Laptop per Child, [http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/07/25/inside-one-laptop-per-child-episode-04/ Episode Four]
*Red Hat Magazine: Inside One Laptop per Child, [http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/06/08/inside-one-laptop-per-child-episode-03/ Episode Three]
*Red Hat Magazine: Ins/ide One Laptop per Child, [http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/04/25/inside-one-laptop-per-child-episode-02/ Episode Two]
*Red Hat Magazine: Inside One Laptop per Child, [http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/03/23/inside-one-laptop-per-child-episode-one/ Episode One]
*Portuguese lecture "Perspectivas do uso de laptops pelas crianças (e nas escolas)". Video in [http://www.cameraweb.unicamp.br/acervo/acervo.html Cameraweb Unicamp]
* OLPC [http://www.sf.tv/var/videoplayer.php?videourl=http%3A%2F%2Freal.xobix.ch%2Framgen%2Fsfdrs%2F10vor10%2F2007%2F10vor10_26012007.rm%3Fstart%3D0%3A05%3A20.498%26amp%3Bend%3D0%3A09%3A50.738 Video from Switzerland], 26.01.2007
*Interview with Nicholas Negroponte [http://www.acm.org/pubs/cie/jan2006/clips/nicholas_negroponte.mov on the &100 Laptop]
*Presentation by Jim Gettys at [http://www.techpresentations.com/2007/03/07/one-laptop-per-child/ FOSDEM 2007]
*GLOBO- BRASIL: Crianças testam computador portátil/ [http://video.globo.com/Videos/Player/Noticias/0,,GIM607884-7823-CRIANCAS+TESTAM+COMPUTADOR+PORTATIL,00.html Students test the laptop]
*Mark Foster delivers presentation to [http://stanford-online.stanford.edu/courses/ee380/061004-ee380-300.asx Stanford University]
* Technology Review [http://www.technologyreview.com/video/laptop Mini-Documentary]
* A Brief [http://www.radiofarda.com/Article/2007/01/04/f2_Interview-laptop.html Demo]

Latest revision as of 23:06, 5 August 2013

The contents of this page are considered outdated and some of the information may be stale. Please use information here with caution, or update it.
  This page is monitored by the OLPC team.

To contribute a story or news idea, see the OLPC newsroom.

For coverage of recent OLPC updates, see our twitter feed and OLPC blog.

This page historically hosted announcements and news about OLPC, along with the Sugar Labs current events page.

Upcoming pieces

Claudia
Learning Chat piece: 278 words, ready now. File:Learning Chat.docx
Making Learning Visible: Claudia's (& Walter) original is 25 pages. Submitted to a journal. w/o OLPC Background it is down to 12-15 pages w/ screenshots.
This can become a 4-part series.
Antonio
Homo docens: 500+ words, Antonio approved my edits. File:Homo docens JLedits.docx
Further work: we can definitely ask him to contribute on a quarterly basis but I've found that I have to be very specific as to what I am asking to do and he has to be comfortable that it is consistent with his academic work.
Ask for a new piece on the epidemiology of learning
Rodrigo
Ometepe - A beautiful piece with wonderful images. RAH posted a personal and lengthy version (1500+ words) that he shared with his private distribution list. I made an edited version (1200 words) that could be shared publicly. Must check with RAH on this. File:Ometepe articulo por Rodrigo Arboleda.pdf File:Ometepe by Rodrigo Arboleda (3).pdf
I had hoped that we could do a video series with Rodrigo but the budget hasn't been approved. Giulia - can we get an answer on this?
Rwanda
Rwanda case studies
Ceri Whatley - summary of importance of headmasters - confirm subset to reuse
Social mapping project - 1- or 2-part piece - check w/ Julia
Grandmother project - 2- or 3-part piece - check w/ Julia (and is there more to that awesome series?)
Other Africa
So. Africa case studies
Peru and Uruguay
Oscar B's piece on the IADB study?
You said that Uruguay and Peru produce a ton of content on a continuous basis. I'm struggling a bit with how we can easily get the content and translate it into English. Giulia - could Olga help? I don't want to burden her with more work. Maybe we do this every 2-3 months.
Other LatAm
Colombia: Sandra's quarterly? newsletter and website could feed into this. Plus english translations.
Nicaragua: Regular update, beyond Ometepe?
Paraguay: Contact ParaguayEduca
Mexico: Ask Mariana @ OLPCMexico
OLPC Australia
Great text and videos.
OLPC Europe
Quarterly update from them?
OLPC Oceania
Quarterly updates from Mike Hutak
OLPC Jamaica
Quarterly update from Sameer, good videos.
North America
Miami - David! and a story from Chester
Canada - Jennifer Martino, Q

News archives

Weekly OLPC News postings to the community-news mailing list give updates on recent work. Weekly summaries were also posted on-wiki during 2008. Weekly postings to the list were put on hold at the start of 2009, and started again in 2010.

Archives: 2005-2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009-10

Translations

Sporadic translations of news archives from 2008 and earlier can be found here:

German | Spanish | Japanese | Korean

OLPC videos

For a history of videos about OLPC and the XO, see olpc.tv and OLPC:Videos.

Sugar news

Walter continues to post summaries of Sugar development on his blog.

Press

For an archive of OLPC media coverage, see the 2005-2008 press archives.

Past announcements

Developed through 2011 by the Racepoint Group, OLPC's pro bono PR firm.

Retrieved from "http://wiki.laptop.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=OLPC:News&oldid=290742"