Other ideas

Other Ideas

Other ideas, not specifically for hardware or software of the laptop itself:

I think the function of OLPC and UMPC should be the same, right?

Wireless Networking

A book called Wireless Networking in the Developing World is now available on the net in pdf at http://wndw.net/. It has a lot of information that might be useful when deploying the OLPC program. In addition to covering WIFI theory and design, it covers practical, social, and economic problems that they encountered. One idea is to share the cost of the infrastructure with other local groups like businesses and local government. Another is to disperse the knowledge of how to operate the system so that if one person moves away, critical knowledge isn't lost.

Wireless Thin-Client as alternative?

The main counter argument for a thin-client approach is probably the need for maintenance/administration and general dependency on the central server, think e.g. particularly power in this context?

Still, maybe providing a (much) cheaper wireless portable thin client (think one-chip LCD+wireless controller; nothing else inside, particularly no memory and real CPU, which are probably the next most expensive part after the display?), for say $20 instead of $100, plus a commoditized say $1000 Dual-CPU with 2 GB RAM server, per school/entire village, could of interest in some situations? This is assuming that the configuration and loaded software etc. of all devices would be very homogenous, which is probably a fair assumption in this context? If the server could run say 100 clients (essentially running very similar software to what was built for the full $100 laptop of 128 MB RAM each, but with all of the OS and application code shared, thus only using about 16-32 MB for per-client data) then this seems at least imaginable, and would mean a total cost of just $3000 instead of $10'000 - for the 100 children.

That's a lot of ifs and assumptions of course, and only real pricing, scalability and the "market" can tell if there was an interest for (also) providing this - later. Just an idea, really.

It's a good idea, Ndiyo is doing just that right NOW. Except, because you're tied to the server there's no need to use complex wireless network technology. Also as you say the server is tied to a reliable power source; e.g. at least diesel generator which means the machines are only of use in a classroom or office. The prices are high at the moment, compared to olpc targets, but the boxes aren't being mass produced yet. 62.252.0.11 01:55, 18 March 2006 (EST)

Development Process

How much coordination of the Software Development Process is useful? Just make an SDK available and hope for self-organization? Or maybe e.g. a registry of suggested/needed software, a forum to coordinate software development between parties using this. Or how about volunteer summer projects for CS university students, like Google's summer of code thing?

User interface

Get John Maeda involved with the UI and other design elements.

Sell them! Make them a symbol of global activism

I suggest that the decision not to sell these to the general public be reconsidered. Sales of these laptops could help fund their global (charitable) distribution. For a purchase price of $200, consumers would actually be buying two computers - one to own/use and one for a needy child somewhere in the world. Among first world consumers, these laptops could become quite popular as a meaningful symbol of global activism. Widespread usage of the devices would, in turn, fuel innovation, enhance infrastructure and make the devices that much more useful to the global community for which they were originally intended.

-- suggested by Don Ferris, San Diego, CA

Terrific idea! I'd buy one for $200 in a minute. If this idea could be more widely floated (Tim O'Reilly, you listening?), I'm sure the response would be very strong.

-- Tim Lynch, T-burg, NY

Remember the Social Context of your Technical Solutions

I think that the ideas here need to be seen in the context of how networking and distribution of data is going to be performed. In the poorest countries, the ideas may need to be modified due to limited scope for immediate netwoking. Also the role of charity will be very improtant; remember that most of the african countries have not yet been involved in the project, so charity support will be a major driving force in distributing the hardware.

I suggest a charity funded system of data distribution, but flexible enough that it could be a commercial venture for a citydewller with transport. Western charity could provide data transfer credits to individuals in remote villages, to be spent on delivery of data serveices to and from the village. A courier would have a laptop with large storage expansion, and travel to villages to deliver data designated for them, and to recieve data for delivery from them. They would expend their credits in the process of givig their data transmission, and recieve a secure reciept for their last communications sent from the data courier. When the courier returned to the city, they would access the internet via a larger access point if available, or just by telephone if not, and would load the appropriate dvd into a usb drive to retrieve the appropriate requested data from several repositories of information - e.g. encyclopedia (possibly wikipedia), educational syllabus for the next month or year as developed by national education system, etc. The delivery of the data would be accompanied by a cashing in of the data-transfer-credits collected on their journy around the villages, and converted to cedits for cashing at a bank, or directly at the internet access point if appropriate. Email based securely encoded credits designated for the individuals in villages as charity gifts would then be recieved from the internet and delivered by the courier to the village on their next visit. To prevent ransom of the delivery of the credits, the entire collection of data intended for the village would be bound in to a 'delivery package' only decodable and seperatable by the intended recipient and then distributed to the individuals by a simple username and password (the username selected from a village specific list, to avoid confusion).

For adults, with limited postal service or reliability, A major application of importance would be political communications, and the option of communications by pgp communications is essential, but should be very user friendly. There must be a pgp-like delivery certification to ensure that deliveries of emails is made without being intercepted or held ransom by delivery people is also very important. - a user or regular email would confirm reciept by clicking a url on the delivered email to confirm reciept to an international reciept confirmation server. reciept confirmation of the village resident would be sent by pgp based confirmation.

access to personal data must be able to protected, by user/password encoded access only, also for deleting data - there should be a firmware controlled partition or directory on the flash which can only be accessed by users' passwords, or deleted in its entirety (not per user) - also there should be a limit on the space used by each user. There should be a hardware switch for deactivating wifi if installed, to prevent hackers and viruses in potentially unstable political climate - likely used to prevent political dissent.

I think that the social model of data repositeries on dvd, and internet access, in cities or perhaps towns is a realistic and efficient solution. With funding of data distribution by digitally secure credits or tokens delivered securely to villagers, access to data by the holders of the laptop can be guaranteed.

-- suggested by ma http://wiki.laptop.org/wiki/User:Ma

Rollout and Community Building

> Other topics where we could use some ideas is in regard to rollout and community building.

The eutotokens of learning

Some years ago I tried writing some science fiction, science fiction in the tradition of putting forward ideas for the future in a story setting which could potentially work.

Most of what I produced is on the web.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/euto0000.htm

The items on the web are from 1997 and 1998 and time has passed since then. Some of the basic ideas in the stories are quite possibly entirely different from what is intended for this laptop project: for example, learning packages funded by advertising revenue, though the problems that that mode of working produces in the story might be of interest. So, I am mentioning the story here not as the definitive way to produce community building yet in the hope that maybe some of the ideas might be helpful in devising an opportunity creating infrastructure.

William Overington

15 March 2006