OLPC:News
LAPTOP NEWS
1. The Argentine foreign ministry organized a seminar for government and business leaders focused on enhancing the high-technology sector in the country. David Cavallo was invited to speak to present OLPC as a critical element for improving education, social equity, and helping to create a larger core of technological fluency among the population.
2. A video featuring Nicholas, Seymour Papert, and Walter talking about the educational mission of the laptop is now on the TechnologyReview web site (See http://www.techreview.com/video/).
3. This week we focused on improving the anti-glare properties of the display. This is mainly a property of the surface treatment of the polarizer; we are making that surface more diffuse in both reflection and transmission.
4. Mary Lou keynoted the Asian Digital Libraries Conference in Kyoto this week. As usual there was tremendous interest in the laptop and a strong desire on the part of the libraries to contribute. The attendees expressed a need for a bug-tracker-like interface (See http://dev.laptop.org) for contributions from their side; evidence that the content community is beginning to think like the open-source community.
5. Software progress is noticeably faster now we have machines; we've spun 10 new build images in the past two weeks. Jim Gettys and the entire software team worked on an extensive set of release notes, which everyone receiving machines should read carefully (See BTest-1 Release Notes).
6. Mitch Bradley, Richard Smith, and Chris Ball worked on making it simpler to update machines to current firmware and software. With the completion of the BTest-1 build and shipment of the machines, we need to have an easy way to update all machines in the field—not only to enable keeping them up to date, but to fix key bugs that were not fixed by the time we had to commit to manufacturing. We now have a three-step update procedure that we believe anyone should easily be able to perform using a small USB key. (This new procedure will become available on Monday after final testing.) All the developer systems in Cambridge will be updated and sent out quickly this coming week, now that this is working (See: Autoreinstallation image).
7. Mitch released new firmware with look and feel improvements, wired- networking support, manufacturing-data support, and a few bug fixes. The firmware is now built from the public source tree; Mitch has started working on scheme for storing keymaps in ROM.
8. Chis Ball started on performance work this week; first up will be understanding the long activity-startup time, followed by establishing a benchmark for Cairo and X- Window System performance, so we can keep track of improvements. Performance will become an increasing focus of Chris' time.
9. Lilian Walter has a version of memtest86 running using the open firmware (OFW) memory property (instead of probing memory) and display driver. It is by no means complete. It is a good proof of concept that existing diagnostics can still run without EGA, UART, and BIOS, and with OFW at the helm.
Laptop News is archived at Laptop News.
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Press requests: please send email to press@laptop.org
MILESTONES
| Nov. 2006 | First B1 machines are built; IDB and OLPC formalize an agreement regarding Latin American and Caribbean education. |
| Oct. 2006 | B-test boards become available; Libya announces plans for one laptop for every child |
| Sep. 2006 | UI designs presented; integrated software build released; SES-Astra joins OLPC |
| Aug. 2006 | Working prototype of the dual-mode display |
| Jun. 2006 | 500 developer boards are shipped worldwide; WiFi operational; Csound demonstrated over the mesh network First video with working prototype [1] |
| May 2006 | eBay joins OLPC; display specs set; A-test boards become available; $100 Server is announced |
| Apr. 2006 | Pre-A test board boots; Squid and FreePlay present first human-power systems |
| Mar. 2006 | Yves Behar and FuseProject are selected as industry designers |
| Feb. 2006 | Marvell joins OLPC and continues to partner on network hardware |
| Jan. 2006 | World Economic Forum, Switzerland UNDP and OLPC Sign Partnership Agreement news release |
| Dec. 2005 | Quanta Computer Inc. to Manufacture Laptop (html)(pdf) |
| Nov. 2005 | WSIS, Tunisia Prototype Unveiled by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan; Nortel joins OLPC Photos: (Image 1)
(Image 2) (Image 3) |
| Aug. 2005 | Design Continuum starts design of first laptop |
| Jul. 2005 | Formal signing of original members of OLPC |
| Mar. 2005 | Brightstar and Red Hat come on board |
| Jan. 2005 | Laptop initiative officially announced at World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland; AMD, News Corp. and Google agree to join OLPC |
PRESS
Video
(Misc. videos of the laptop can be found.)
http://stanford-online.stanford.edu/courses/ee380/061004-ee380-300.asx | Mark Foster delivers presentation to Standford University