Talk:One Laptop per Child

Comments from students in graduate education course

In EDUC5860 at York University in Toronto we discussed this initiative and would like to offer the following perspectives.

...Foot power...

Is it not logical that the machine can be charged by the simple process of walking by inserting power generation capacity in shoes.

Prof. Paradiso at the MIT Media Lab has studied such "parasidic power" systems extensively [1]. Unfortunately, there is not enough power generated by such mechanisms to meet the requirements for the Laptop. Walter 09:24, 6 May 2006 (EDT)

Hand Crank

I've heard that the hand-crank has been taken out of the design, is this true? And what is the reasoning behind the change?

To me, the hand-crank seemed like a wonderful addition. Making the laptop able to operate independently of power infrastructure seemed to me to be an integral feature, considering the intended recipients of the laptop.

6/2/2006 - khassounah - hand crank's new location: The hand crank is still there, just moved to the ac adapter. This question just earned itself a spot in the FAQ page.

You might like to check out the proposal $100 Laptop per Pixel

Top 10 Concerns about the design and implementation of OLPC.

Uses of the Green Laptops, beyond Youth Education....

...some uses will boost the economy, social & political welfare of the countries quite faster than expected, as they will be used for many purposes, or you think the youngsters will not lend the laptop to their own parents & grandparents?

ANOTHER USES FOR PC´S BOOST ECONOMY, WELFARE, HEALTH, AND FOOD.

The adoption of these Green PC´s at any country will permit:

1.- EDUCATION: A quantum jump in quality of education as it permits every child, youngster, and adult to have its own PC, with access to all free textbooks, encyclopedias, educational games, etc.

2,- REMOTE WORK: Will permit the development of policies of NOT EXPORTING WORKERS but IMPORTING JOBS, as India, China, and some other countries are doing by doing remote jobs over Internet, also rural population can stay at home to avoid urban saturation.:.

3..- MEDICAL & HEALTH SERVICES: In Australia where distances to neighbors is measured not in feet, but IN HOURS OF FLIGHT, medical doctors have developed systems to counsel with their clients through Internet; the application of such techniques might put the health services within reach of the rural and small communities population, without building expensive installations all over the Nation.

4.-JOBS FOR DISABLED & ELDERS: It might also bring counseling about Problems in: Homework & Study, Domestic & Familiar, Entrepreneur & Small Business Owner, Social, Tourist & Governmental activities, which might be given by disabled, elders, and parents of “special children”, using their Green PC´s or phones.

5.- INDUSTRIAL/TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT: It might also help to promote a national computers and software industry, by contracting such it´s manufacture & assembly at the nation.

6.- NEW "MOBILE" SOCIAL NETWORKING PARADIGM: It might also help to birth a new idea of networking without a WAN/Internet connection. With so many devices even today being WiFi enabled, few applications use point to point communication in networking technologies like Instant Messaging and Gaming. Instead they often rely on a central server that is running on the "Internet" at large. The idea of creating an adhoc internet that is not connected to the global internet per se, has profound implications and is more likely to take hold in 3rd world countries where Internet access has not infiltrated the majority of areas. On top of that, this on-the-run internet creation would be FREE! no charges for connections or data transfers, just power needed and provided by the handcranking. With money being a major issue for access in poorer countries, the idea of creating their own internet seems exciting. -.--.-.-.-.-. Now I see why the Government Electrical Utility of Mexico - C.F.E. (www.cfe.gob.mx is working in devices to permit "Data / Power" (data transmission over power cables) to build a new Net. --200.95.126.206 16:38, 31 March 2006 (EST)

Thanks for your attention. I will be grateful for a true, clear, brief, and practical answer to this message, with your opinion and suggestions, along with a fair opportunity to participate in the development & benefits of the exposed concepts.

Truly yours, Ing. Dagoberto G. Flores-Lozano Consultant in Industrial & Systems Engineering, jobless. Ex Research Fellow & University Professor. Ex- Ford Foundation Scholar. Aguascalientes, AGS, MEXICO

---

One of the reasons we are designing the project as a laptop rather than a desktop is so it will be in vivo--part of all aspects of life, not just life in school. We have been talking with numerous parties about using the laptop within the context of, for example, rural health, entrepreneurship , etc. While our (OLPC's) focus is on children learning, we hope and anticipate that third parties will help some of the types of intiatives your describe emerge.

--Walter

We should really add a Myths section

Like the one I just put up. Because there is a lot of hate from ignorant people who seem to agree with everything Bill Gates says.--FazzMunkle

Like what? c´mon write up your piece --200.95.126.116 00:18, 17 March 2006 (EST)

I listed some that answer some myths recently in the news. How did I do? Are they too biased? I wanted to be as genial as possible. Please make helpful changes if any of what I said is inaccurate or inappropriate. --FazzMunkle 00:27, 17 March 2006 (EST)

While it would be fun to track all the myths, it would be more productive for the children we are trying to serve to focus our energy on positive ideas for the project. --Walter

Keep it or toss it? Because if someone wants to toss it I won't feel bad about it--FazzMunkle 04:59, 17 March 2006 (EST)

I moved it to its own page OLPC_myths, but in some regards, this is more the stuff of the blogsphere than the wiki. It would be appropriae to include links to the sources, in any case. --Walter

Right. Good idea. I've got the link to the article where Bill Gates says the laptop doesn't have internal storage. Most of the myths are common ones I've heard in general conversation. And I figured you guys have heard them too. If anybody can provide links to good examples of these that would be cool. I like the more consise explanations you guys put in. Lots better than my own which bothered me, yet I didn't know how to say them in another way. --FazzMunkle 13:40, 19 March 2006 (EST)

MUST haves

As software you MUST have: (in the local language AND in English both):

-A spelling program with savable levels.

-A program to learn to read, based in syllables. --200.95.126.206 17:25, 31 March 2006 (EST)

-An arithmics program with savable levels (like the old Davidson program "Mathblaster in search of the spot" for example.

-A speaking beginners language program with multiple savable levels and clear graphics like the old Scholastic program "Mi primer Diccionario de Ingles".

-A simple worded Encyclopedia like the old IBM's "Worldbook 1999" with more graphics added.

_A music program that can also play mp3. Or better a ogg. player.

-A simple drawing program with colors and effects.

-I remember a nice program called LOGO´s (Turtle), in which you programed a drawing turtle. --200.95.126.206 17:25, 31 March 2006 (EST)

• LOGO? Is that language still being used? When I was a young teenager, it was easier for me to learn BASIC. Also, I think a drawing program with lots of functions (for the older students: to draw charts, diagrams, presentations) is more important than including a full music program. 62.202.64.42 07:33, 6 April 2006 (EDT)

---given that Seymour Papert is involved as an advisor, I'd imagine LOGO would be available. one hurdle would be linguistic, many of the commands I'm familiar with make sense as English words. But I agree that LOGO or BASIC (I'm inclined to support logo over BASIC) would be a better use of space than an mp3 player. Music is nice, but if i have to hand crank it, id think twice about that.

-Some logical games like chess, mastermind, lights etc.

-Some educational competitive games to be played among 4-8 member teams, in the Boy Scout tradition, to promote human contact, teamwork, leadership, to earn points by answering questions with precision & speed. Truly yours: --200.95.126.206 17:25, 31 March 2006 (EST)

-A simple yet powerful programming language along with a beginners' development environment and a simple tutorial on the basics (Python fits the bill perfectly), and instructions on how to learn to modify the software on the computer. The kids should be able to hack their own devices; most will never go beyond little scripts (maybe making a program to calculate finances for their mother's store), but some might develop surprising new things. --mchua

How is a illiterate non-English speaking child of 6 years old going to be able to operate this new device? It can only start through simple, clear, cultural-neutral graphics combined with the local language, plus a lot of repetion I think. I also has be fun; please do not overshoot in on the otherside with too many cartoon characters etc!

one laptop/alphaSmart

I own an I book, but I love using the AlphaSmart to enter data and type articles. At a later date I connect a usb cable and download onto my computer to edit my work or insert it into a data base. using the one laptop per child in conjunction with a shared community computer would increase the possibilities of its use. it would be important to have a universal usb type connector. Thanks and good luck on this project. F toppa

Any lessons from that PC from India to teach to read & write?

Maybe I am wrong, but I remember a small tablet type computer was developed & used at India, to TEACH TO READ & WRITE!!!...

Clearly, you don´t have to know how to read to operate it... Any LESSONS for our OLPC Lap Tops???? Any brief answer will be appreciated --Dagoflores 00:01, 1 May 2006 (EDT)

Are you talking about the Simputer? --mchua

Damn Small Linux?

I read comments by Nicholas Negroponte about how he was finding Linux too bloated for this project.

I just wanted to point out that Damn Small Linux is designed to work on hardware much like you are using for this initiative. The entire operating system is only 50MB, yet has a functional desktop with very good applications.

From our home page... Damn Small is small enough and smart enough to do the following things:

• Boot from a business card CD as a live Linux distribution (LiveCD)
• Boot from a USB pen drive
• Boot from within a host operating system (that's right, it can run inside Windows)
• Run very nicely from an IDE Compact Flash drive via a method we call "frugal install"
• Transform into a Debian OS with a traditional hard drive install
• Run light enough to power a 486DX with 16MB of Ram
• Run fully in RAM with as little as 128MB (you will be amazed at how fast your computer can be!)
• Modularly grow -- DSL is highly extendable without the need to customize

Also note, that DSL is not a rescue disk, or something designed for system administrators, but is made to be used for daily computing. It has a word processor, web browser, photo editor, media player and virtually everything else you would want in a desktop computer. Yet, it is definitely small enough to work with your specs. We have also done all the research to get DSL to run on compact flash without destroying the disk like a standard Linux installation would do. Please take advantage of our project, we have done much of the heavy lifting already.

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org

Regards, John Andrews

PuppyLinux Too

Thanks for posting here, John. So there you are, folks, PuppyLinux is not alone. You have at least two Linux distros ready to load into the OLPC machine. So please let us accept the fact that there are Linuxes ready for OLPC. - User:Raffy

Travelers

In the day before I heard about this project two people who do alot of traveling by foot and bike and hitchiking mentioned intrest in aquiring a laptop.

One person who is walking cross country jokingly said that he was going to stop answering his email untill he found an off the grid computer, And the other person asked if I had found any that people had tossed up at school. (everyone is moving out)

But I think it would be amazing to make these machines availiable to the wider public, at least on a small scale. The image that is coming to mind is very much out of the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.

I dont know if this was a good place to put this or not, but i think that it is really something to be taken into consideration.

Problems with $100 Laptop

The $100 Laptop has problems:

1. It is like creating a $100 motor-car for developing regions. A product from one context is transferred to a very different one without re-conceptualizing in any significant way. What would be interesting is a relevant learning eco-system, with a computing unit as a part of it in some way - perhaps as a laptop. Imagine how much more a child would learn if she or he were given an "intelligent baseball", that would give information about its trajectory (spoken or otherwise) everytime it was thrown. It is not a wholly trivial concept, since a communications satellite, for example, is quite like an "intelligent baseball".

2. The failure of Media Lab Asia should have convinced us that seeking social change via technological breakthroughs is best pursued without the patronage of big government. If the laptop is going to distributed by governments through some sort of "extra-market" mechanism, an economist might find it interesting to build a model of the dynamics via which actual distribution will occur, which, to put it euphemestically, will in the end generate an unofficial purchase price for the laptops, if the governments are indeed going to be subsidizing them.

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IBM PC As Model

Any mass-distribution model needs big players to achieve economies of scale. For example, the machine was "bidded out" to Quanta, a big laptop maker. Other components of the project can be "bidded out" similarly. In this regard, OLPC can perhaps learn from what IBM did in propagating the PC. (Raffy 5-24-2006)

small pic

put better pictures in here!

dont know, but do you think that every1 has a 7" monitor? do i expect too much when i expect at least that i am able to enlarge the pictures to a proper size? go for it!