Ask OLPC a Question/archive/Q1 2006

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Questions

eBook Specifications

When I am making eBooks for OLPC, what font size should they be in, and what should the page size be? Also, is there a place to upload them when they are finished? --Munchinguy 20:09, 27 June 2006 (EDT)

Can you refer me to pages in French on this project?

I am working in Mali and have worked in Haiti and Quebec, in the past. I would like to refer my contacts to this project, many of them are strong in English but if I could send them URL's for French documentation that would be great, thank you. Patrick Fitzgerald'

Try http://www.laptop.org/index.fr.html as a start. Also, OLPC France. My apologies in advance for the quality of the translation. Please feel free to make improvements at Fr PO. Walter 11:19, 24 June 2006 (EDT)

How serious are you about this project?

Yesterday I talked to the principal of a school in my neighborhood here in Accra, Ghana. He said, he wanted to have computers for his students. I referred him to wait for another year. After this, I assured him, he could buy a Laptop for around 150 $ from the OLPC. He was amazed and will now organize some funding, to have it ready by next year. He will not look into any other option; he will not buy a crappy desktop for the same price now. If the 100 laptop were to be ready in 2008, he probably would buy a crappy desktop. My point is: Please announce every setback as early as possible, please be very conservative in your estimation and planning, and please consider: every day you keep somebody waiting faithfully you keep him from taking action. A false promise is the worst thing to give to a developing country (and to anybody).Simon J Smend

How are the textbooks going to be authored?

I read somewhere that the DJVU file format was going to be used for this project. Since DJVU authoring programs are few and far between, I'm curious how the DJVU files will be created. Anyone know?

DJVU books are not authored with software. Any paper books or documents, including handwritten ones, can be scanned and compressed into DJVU format. DJVU is more efficient than other compression formats but it also allows multiple page scans to be stored in a single book file that makes it easier to read than a folder full of PNG images. Click on DJVU for more information.

In some of the countries where there is little to no computerisation, DJVU will be the major tool used to make existing paper books available. Even in an advanced country like the USA, there is value in using DJVU compressed maps, historical documents, etc. For example, once you have installed a DJVU plugin from here, go to the Illinois Geographical Survey and click on one of the chapter headings in the table of contents.

How rugged are these laptops going to be?

I read that these laptops are supposed to be "rugged" and (as much as possible) unlikely to break. How do they compare in the regard to conventional laptops, "semi-ruggedized" laptops, and "ruggedized" laptops? It would be quite a feat if they could perform as well as ruggedized laptops, since they typically cost hundreds more than their equivilent "normal" counterparts.

The OLPC is not ruggedized for the most part. Instead the approach taken has been to make a robust and rugged design that does not suffer from the weaknesses of existing laptops. One of the few features that could be considered ruggedization is the case. But, unlike normal laptops, the OLPC has no hard drives, no internal cables, no fans. By removing the weak points, we do not need to add additional costly ruggedization features.

Which countries are confirmed?

I remember reading something about Costa Rica, is this Central Anmerican country at the project? --Dagoflores 02:57, 19 March 2006 (EST)

If there is interest in Costa Rica, then you should ask the Costa Rican Ministry of Education to contact the OLPC team directly.

Individuals and OLPC

I've heard that individuals won't be allowed to buy OLPC laptops, or that it won't be available to the public. If so, why not? Wouldn't it be good for the project? You can sell them without having to provide a general-purpose OS preinstalled, after all. -Qwertie

I think it is important that the general public be able to purchase this especially professionals in the IT industry.

It's a bit like OPEN SOURCE. Access by the public is what has made it so great....and thus projects like the OLPC can benefit as a result. In my view it is absolutely consistent with the OLPC objectives of learning. - NWs

there is a pledge to buy 100,000 laptops here: www.pledgebank.com/100laptop will this purchase number be sufficient for a bulk order, and will it be allowed; i think it would be very sensible to allow access to these computers for richer individuals, if only to encourage development of literature and educational materials availability internationally.

Patchoul here, my daughter is age 6 with Down Syndrome and ADHD and developmental delay, however she responds well at home when using our family PC and is learning language, reading and writing but she has limited use of the school PC and all of the professionals who see her suggest that more use on a PC in school would help her. Our local education authority will not fund another PC for her to use and as I a lone parent of three children and I am myself disabled, I do not have enough funds to purchase what could be an expensive piece of hardware, for her to use in school. Would there be any way of one of the robust laptops in your project, being made availablke for her to use please ? I would fund this myself if it is possible please. thank you, from Patchouli, Liverpool, UK.

Cambodia test?

The FAQ mentions Cambodia twice. Can you link to more information about the pilot in Cambodia? Or provide details about it in the FAQ? When? How many devices? What hardware? What ages? What type of network access? What software was used? What operating systems?

Also, what village in Cambodia?

*BSD operating systems

Has there been work with using any BSD operating systems on the hardware? journaling flash file system for any BSD?

How will these societies will be impacted

How will the poorest societies in the world will be impacted by a sudden injection of technology on this scale? This is a critical question that needs much deeper answers than this FAQ has given. I've added some necessary questions to dig deeper:

• How will the success of the project be gauged?
• How much research has been conducted on how the societies will be impacted?
• How will family, community, and religious structures that have existed for generations be impacted?
• How will the project affect relationships between generations or traditional social structures based on age?

Everythingisok 11:21, 25 May 2006 (EDT)

Are there efforts to make OLPC an international organisation?

At the moment olpc is an american based non profit organisation. The develpment of the $100 laptop hardware design was an excellent work! But isn't it time now to make this a more international movement?

• The open source community is called "External Developers".
• Some countries are not able to take part in olpc because they fear the american influence.
• The Boss of the United Nations traditionaly is from Africa and is black - couldn't olpc do the same?

"Not a laptop project, but an education project"

I'm a little confused. Sometimes olpc is called an education project. If it is an education project then the hardware and the operating system are only small parts of the project. The page Predecessors_of_OLPC has changing content because people don't know what olpc really is.

There is no problem if olpc "only" makes the hardware, system software and software development tools. This is good enough for a Nobel prize.

People should know what OLPC is working on and what other organizations should do. 99% of the information in this wiki is about technology. There are some really good contributions like Talk:Localization_Common_Room. To understand different cultures is very important for this project but I can't see any efforts in that direction.

If OLPC is an education project then use this education platform to learn something about other cultures. "Eat your own dogfood" [1] - that makes a project successful.

If this learning platform should support children in learning to write—test your platform and learn Thai, Chinese or a language from the Indian subcontinent. (grammar and spelling corrections are welcome) --Bz 12:55, 10 June 2006 (EDT)

Klik

In the Software Ideas - System Software page is the following.

Should there be an easy way to install and remove applications from the device without corrupting the system image? I am thinking of something like klik (http://klik.atekon.de/). -- DPalmerJr

-> An initial proposal and a proof-of-concept demo is here. -- Probono

There appears elsewhere in this wiki.laptop.org wiki discussion of which linux implementation is to be used on the OLPC laptop.

Is the decision of whether to use the klik system a decision which is independent of which linux implementation is used on the OLPC laptop?

Is the decision of whether to use the klik system a decision for the OLPC management or is klik in effect at an application program level such that any individual OLPC laptop could use or not use the klik system depending upon the choice of the owner of the particular laptop?

Boot language

Linux for normal starts with some text messages. These messages for normal are in english and even for power users not easy to understand. Are there plans to translate these messages to a language the children understand? The children for normal don't speak english and even if the children speak english - they will not understand it.

Khim: Linux boot messages are not for normal humans! Period. They only are ever needed if "something goes wrong"(tm). You can spot some simple problems right away, but if not - you'll be asking someone on mailing list, or in forum, etc. You google for it or send it back to the original developer (kind-of-last-resort) and then... it will be ignored if original developer can not undestand them. You'll do HUGE disservice if you'll translate them. But hiding them behing splash screen unless some key is pressed - this can actually be good idea...

SVG is not well supported in GECKO - is somebody working on improving that?

• To replace Flash at least SMIL Animations should work [2]
• SVG is based on Cairo - is somebody developing a hardware accelerated Cairo version for the OLPC laptop?
• Wikimedia supports SVG - will SVG be enabled in the OLPC WIKI?
• What is the difference between GECKO and xulrunner? Is SVG better supported by xulrunner?

There is a javascript implementation of SMIL at [3]. To allow javascript for example in a wikipage is not a good idea - SMIL (without javascript) makes no problems for security.

Font type

Will the OLPC laptop use TrueType fonts and only TrueType fonts?

Answered Questions

These questions will under go revisions to improve quality and will then be added to the main FAQ. In addition the decision will have to be made whether it is better to include the response in the answer part of another question rather then adding an entire new question.

How can our organization/group/country/region etc. participate?

Why not have the product available to poverty level children in the USA?

We have an art project for low income kids that could use this. http://www.riversidenet.info/

Can tribal organizations within the US participate?

Within the US there are Native organizations and rural villages who could benefit from this as well. How can organizations which can find funding (1) work to make these available to the Tribal youth who could use them and (2)work toward customize Native content within the programming environment http://www.tananachiefs.org/

Can a legitimate NGO or foundation apply for your program?

In some countries there is a lot of corruption. Would OLPC partner with an NGO instead of the education ministry?

Campaigns for OLPC laptops for Laos and Ethiopia

There are people enthusiastically putting forward cases for Laos and Ethiopia. What information does the OLPC management need presented to it in order for a case to succeed? How will their cases be assessed please?

We are in the process of putting together an RFP as a mechanism for countries to get involved in the project. As the details as worked out, we'll post them on this page: How can my country get involved?. Walter 16:49, 13 June 2006 (EDT)

FUNDING IDEA!

As far as funding goes, considering how economy works in industrial countries, i would say once the project is ready for roll out, you should seriously consider to make the laptop open to everyone through a webshop:

Promote different customary designs (limited editions - for psychological reasons), promote it together by putting emphasis on how to improve the world by making a small contribution and actually getting a quite usable AND very sturdy as well as ingenious laptop not to be seen elsewhere. Sell them for around 499$, and especially by advertising that by making this small contribution 4 laptops in a dev-country (which is not to be decided by the buyer for ethical reasons) and a small amount goes in to the olpc foundation.

Why not a small hard drive?

Hello. Wouldn't it be better to have a small HD instead? As far as I know, Flash memory has a much higher Gb cost than that of a standard HD. I also know that there are ridiculously small HDs with really large storage capacity, at least in comparison to the meager 512Mb you currently propose. Wouldn't a larger capacity storage help to extend the life of such a machine?

The biggest single point of failure of laptops is the HD. We are opting for robustness over more on-board storage. Synchronization with the "school server" should help mitigate some of the capacity challenges raised. Walter 02:03, 5 May 2006 (EDT)

Actually, I have been told that HDs are only the 2nd biggest point of failure; internal connectors breaking is Number 1. We are trying to eliminate most of those as well.Walter 03:40, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

How will you make sure they are fairly distributed?

You plan to distribute the laptops through the government in such countries as China. How will you make sure that the laptops are distributed fairly, and not just to kids in communist party households?

Also, another concern I'm sure you've heard raised is that the hardware is not open source. Won't proprietary, closed-source software limit the spread of the laptops?

Lastly, concerns have been brought up about the economic effect of releasing the computers in a closed market. What is your response to critics who argue that computer companies in poor countries would be hit negatively by the wide availability of these laptops.

I just don't think leaving it up to the government is a good idea. And buying in bulk (thousands) isn't realistically in any sense.

What stops the thieves?

What will prevent gangs from targeting children who have these highly desirable laptops, and stealing them for resale? 62.6.139.14 11:03, 24 May 2006 (EDT)

The garish childlike colors and the toy appearance of the units will make them undesirable for adults to use or steal. But do not underestimate the child owners. They will know very well that this is a valuable object which they have been entrusted with. They will not want to lose them and will be careful about where they take them and when.

You could consider having the laptop only work if the child enters a password of their own choosing. This (if well known) would deter theft to a degree - but there might also be a risk that the child would be threatened with some kind of violence if they didn't divulge their password - after all, in some parts of the world, $100 is a LOT of money. An alternative might be to have the laptop learn the IP addresses of the other laptops in the child's classroom - if it doesn't hear from at least (say) half of the other laptops on it's list at least (say) once a week - it goes to sleep until it does hear from them. No passwords - but no point in stealing a laptop unless you are taking it to school - which would be a bit obvious. Just a thought. SteveBaker.

The computer is a really good idea—MAKE US PAY

I wish, please do they sold in every high developed countrys - FOR 150.- Dollar! (To elemantary schools etc. its a perfect machine.) And then you can go down with the price for poor countrys about 50.-$, better!

I'd just like to add that, as a British university student, I would personally pay up to maybe £250 ($300 - $350 USD?) to have one of these for myself, and would be happy to spend a good £50-100 extra on top of this as long as I knew that ALL the money I spent was going to help lower the costs of distributing these in schools around the world. Portable, durable, reliable, small, Linux (I'm assuming this version is user-friendly?), lots of USB ports, no higher spec than is neccessary, the sort of thing I could take everywhere I go without worry, and it has a crank handle (absolute genius!!!) - it's perfect!

There's a hell of a lot of people who want nothing more than a simple, portable, reliable typing machine with USB and optional internet, and who'd be happy to pay extra for a good cause and a guarentee that they weren't being ripped off by something badly made. Unlike every other computer manufacturer in the world you satisfy all of these criteria. It'd be a very simple way to modestly boost fundraising and awareness. Plus it'd make people like me very happy!

Nice :-)

Make it with a different color case(grey) and stamp a logo and message into the cover (like Apple does in their laptops). The message would say "I donated to the OLPC project". This way you prevent the real units being diverted into the 1st world retail stream.

Totally agree. 4 good reasons to let everybody to buy it :

1. I'm a software developper and I'm very interrested to pay twice the price for a OLPC laptop. Then I could easily create and test software that works well on it.
2. The twice of the target price is not so high compared to many "test computers" and still can give financial support to the project.
3. Another interresting border effect is that a critical mass is reached faster. The scale that permit a production/shipping price under the target price.
4. I'm interrested to buy this kind of educationnal tool for my own children. This is more interresting than a game console but not more expensive. More, this is a good platform for educationnal games.

(KEF, Belgium)

Gooda agree with that - the thing is cute enough, light enough - eco-friendly enough, etc, etc - Americans will pay $300 or $400 for these things - so "Buy one - get two others for <country of your choice> free" would be a great way to get them 'out there'. Furthermore - you know that the more educated geeks have these things - the more clever software will be written for them - and the more you sell, the lower the price. Heck - put up a pre-order form and you'll get my $400 today. I'm off to read more technical specs. SteveBaker - Texas, USA

There is obviously a lot of interest in other countries. I think you should really try and get some serious publicity in the USA.

Frankly i disagree. First world countries have no direct need instead should be motivated to fund this milestone project. I could see however how certain small and special project in the US could also make use of this laptop however there should be a consistency in the target group that the cannot afford the laptop.

Added to the above: there is a pledge to buy 100,000 laptops here: http://www.pledgebank.com/100laptop will this purchase number be sufficient for a bulk order, and will it be allowed; i think it would be very sensible to allow access to these computers for richer individuals, if only to encourage development of literature and educational materials availability internationally.

Would optional sound capabilities lower the price?

I wonder if the sound capabilities are really necessary, an option would be to leave them out to lower the price of the basic PC, and produce an optional USB device for sound capabilities for those that need it (blind people, analphabets learning to read, etc.). --Dagoflores 01:04, 17 March 2006 (EST)

The sound card can also do modem. A modem can attach to radio and phone lines, that gives you the internet. 62.252.0.11 10:12, 18 March 2006 (EST)

Music is fundumental and will not be compromised. We will have sound. Also the microphone input can be used for sensor input. Finally, a modem is of little use without a phone. Walter 10:56, 26 May 2006 (EDT)

Is there any work has been done for the making of e-Textbook?

One original goal of the OLPC is to use laptop to replace conventional textbooks. There is no much time left before the first release of OLPC laptops to these 7 developing countries in early 2007. The content of textbook is a very political thing and the making of the e-Textbooks could also not be a simple work. So it could be a very urgent and serious problem for the OLPC task.

There is work going on in the various launch countries (and elsewhere) on electronic text books. There are also several efforts to build textbooks as resources under a Creative Commons license. However, OLPC itself will not be creating any text books. Walter 09:52, 12 June 2006 (EDT)

We should have a page for Electronic Textbook Projects.

Wording

Are "OLPC" and the "$100 Computer" the same?

No. One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is the name of a non-profit association whose mission is to provide a laptop computer for every child as "both a window and a tool: a window into the world and a tool with which to think." The $100 Computer (or Laptop) is the machine we are developing towards the realization of this mission. Walter 15:35, 4 June 2006 (EDT)

Improving scale of products sold and commercial partners

OLPC relies on economy of scale to reach low prices. To improve scale, why not sell important parts separately from the laptop? For example, the screen technology could be sold for use in home theatre remotes and in-car computers at higher prices to subsidize OLPC somewhat. Assuming there is some central OLPC organization with employees, I would suggest creating a few non-laptop departments focused on other mass-market uses of the technology--then again, attempting to find companies that would be interesting in buying a million or two units might be a better strategy.

I feel like restricting the laptop and its components to one purpose is unnecessary--then again, I haven't studied the problem. Maybe someone can explain why it's necessary, but I wonder if it's just a lack of managerial resources.-Qwertie

The bottom line is that our mission is learning, not laptops. While we will be working with a commercial partner at some point for both machines and interesting parts--we've been looking at models where by the commercial side can help drive down the cost for the kids--our immediate priority is the non-commercial machine. --Walter

Inclusion of BASIC: an easy-to-learn programming language?

The inclusion of BASIC in the early home computers in the west created a generation of children who could program, many of whom turned into professional programmers. The UK IT industry for one owes a lot to these early home computers. Will a language, such as BASIC, be included with these laptops? - Dan Huby, dan at huby dot me dot uk.

We will ship with at least four "Turing machines": Python, Javascript, CSound, and Logo. Walter 01:47, 17 June 2006 (EDT)

Is it possible to add a pen input interface (e.g. touchscreen) for OLPC Laptop?

If OLPC Laptop has the pen input interface, it will be a good start point for the R&D of the handwirting recognition in the open source community and good for children in the furture.

We are working on two tracks: a touch interface for the screen and dual-mode trackpad that is capacitive (finger) in the center and resistive (stylus) across the length of the keyboard. Not sure which will work, but we will make every effort. Walter 23:39, 8 June 2006 (EDT)

Could you get the next generation off of staggered QWERTY keyboards?

First, congratulations! This is a wonderful project that plenty of folks said couldn't be done. Since your targetted users have no investment in the legacy typewriter keyboard, I really wish you could take this opportunity to move the world off of the darned things.

QWERTY keyboards are only used in countries with a Latin-based alphabet. Many of the target countries will not use QWERTY because they have a totally different writing system.

The keyboard layouts for Korean and the languages of India have the vowels under one hand and consonants under the other. The arrangement of consonant keys is somewhat systematic and therefore mnemonic. I learned Hangeul layout much faster than Dvorak. But that is not an issue that OLPC has anything to say about.

Many of the target countries DO have a substantial investment in their existing typewriter keyboard layouts.

Could you provide a keyboard with the keys arranged in columns, with a more sensible layout as the default?

Can you cite any studies that demonstrate columnar arrngements to be superior to staggered arrangements. I suspect that staggered arrangements are better for fast typists.

The only historical reason for staggered column keyboards is that it allowed the typebars to be equally spaced on manual typewriters. This writer has lost hours (over 25 years of professional writing) to the staggered positions of B, 6, and ` on staggered QWERTY layouts, and even some time to X in Dvorak. That includes time taken to look for a key, and time to correct errors. The problem is greatest in the early stages of learning.

SHIFT and BACKSPACE under the thumbs somehow instead of the pinkies? Seems like this is the *ideal* opportunity to get a new generation of users onto a better typing foundation -- faster learning, faster typing, fewer errors, less stress on the tendons, etc. Your volumes are such that the development of inexpensive keyboards that match your design would be inevitable.

Getting the next generation of users on a decent keyboard would do the world a big favor (to add to the HUGE favor you are already doing it!).

You misunderstand the goals of the OLPC and the customers. The goal is to educate children but the customers are national Ministries of Education. It is up to them to choose the keyboard layout.

-perhaps there could be a site for sugestions of keyboard layouts to be chosen between for the ministries.of.educations to choose between - a presentation of different options/suggestions may make their decisions easier, otherwise they may not consider an alternative to 'convention'. a new generation of keyboard layout culd be a very progressive move in computing.

Where is the website that's already selling the 1st Gen OLPC?

'Others have already started a website that sells our laptop for $300, so the balance of money can be used to support the poorest children.'

Where is this website? It might be good to have a link so interested parties can sign up. -206.58.200.30 19:35, 12 February 2006 (EST)

http://www.pledgebank.com/100laptop Foneros 11:33, 25 May 2006 (EDT)

can OLPC confirm that this will definately be allowed to buy the 100,000 laptops for this aggreement?

What happens when a kid nukes the software on his/her computer?

Is there a way to wipe everything and start again, if a kid accidently screws up a config file or what not? --Stranger 00:57, 14 June 2006 (EDT)

In addition to booting from the flash disk in the laptop, you can also boot from a flash disk attached to one of the USB ports on the laptop. This flash disk can have a program that repairs any damaged files on the internal flash disk. It can also nuke the disk and re-install from scratch. Eventually it may be possible to do this over the Wi-Fi network too, but that is more of a wish than a plan. Tef

Does anyone remember the Cybiko?

Yes, see this page: Cybiko.

Font rendering on the OLPC laptop

On a Microsoft Windows platform, point size translates to pixels as 1 point is 4/3 pixels, though rounded to a whole number of pixels. For example, 12 point is 16 pixels above the base line of the font plus extra for any descenders, at the same scaling.

On an Apple Mac, (I think) it is one point is one pixel. So 12 point is 12 pixels. How descenders work I do not know.

Could you say how 24 point renders on the OLPC laptop please? This information is important as it is possible to some extent to help a font render well by careful design of the positioning of contours in relation to grid lines within the font unit space of a TrueType font even though hinting is not used.

Traditionally, as indicated in the table you have provided below, one point is 1/72th of an inch, so the relationship between point and pixel would be dictated by the resolution of the display. I recall that the original Macintosh was 72DPI, hence the 1-to-1 correspondence between pixels and point. Since we will have a fixed-resolution display, we should be able to map directly to the traditional measure as well. At 1200×900 pixels on a 4:3 aspect ratio, 7.5" diagonal display (6"×4.5"), the pixel resolution is 200DPI. Therefore, 1 point is 2.8 (200/72) pixels; 24 point is 66.7 pixels. Walter 13:30, 20 June 2006 (EDT)

   * in: inches -- 1 inch is equal to 2.54 centimeters.
   * cm: centimeters
   * mm: millimeters
   * pt: points -- the points used by CSS2 are equal to 1/72th of an inch.
   * pc: picas -- 1 pica is equal to 12 points. 
   W3C CSS2

   1pt = (25.4 millimeters) / 72 = 0.352777778 millimeters
   1px = (113.4 millimeters) / 900 = 0.126 millimeters

---

1. How are the OS and applications going to be updated?
2. Will the teacher push updates?
3. Will some other authority push updates?
4. How will systems be protected from viruses/worms?
5. Does the OS/apps need a deeper level of protection than local user data?
6. Do you need one server system per school/village/district to handle updates?
7. How are updates authenticated?
8. How will rollbacks be handled?
9. Will encryption be allowed/disallowed?
10. Since some authority is furnishing the laptops, is the assumed privacy level zero?
11. Can Village A spy on Village B via the mesh network?

15:00, 3 April 2006 User:BobBagwill