OLPC:News
LAPTOP NEWS
1. Ivan Krstić released the OLPC security specification this week. (Please see Bitfrost for an overview.) The specification will go through a rigorous review process in parallel with coding and testing, which has already begun.
2. Firmware: Mitch Bradley is making progress on the fastboot/resume infrastructure, with a power-up-to-running-Linux-kernel time of three seconds. He is also tracking down a problem with the USB2 driver in the kernel; it behaves strangely with the fastboot underpinnings.
3. Kernel: Linus Torvalds released 2.6.20 on Sunday. Andres Salomon merged it into an experimental build.
4. Performance: Chris Ball isolated a long-standing Python performance problem to our use of the -fPIC compiler flag. When we switch to the next release of Python, Version 2.5, which we have scheduled for later in the month, we should see a speedup of up to 40% under high load, plus an improvement to Python's startup time.
5. Chris also added automated graphing support to the Tinderbox, which now displays graphs of boot time and X11 performance on the main Tinderbox page. This will make regressions stick out, and is already displaying a recent slowdown in boot time. The next steps for the tinderbox are automated power-rail measurements in the Tinderbox.
6. The PepperPad team compared our performance to theirs, and found that our GX-500/366MHz is being outperformed by a reference board running a GX-466/333MHz. The benchmarks make it look like memory bandwidth is involved—perhaps we are setting our memory timings too conservatively? Chis and Richard Smith will investigate.
7. Jeremy Lueck has built the “$10 Laptop” by putting a Linux OS image running Sugar on a USB stick. Porting to a virtual machine allows the Sugar OS software to be run on any hardware that supports the virtual machine: Moka5's LivePC engine. (See Virtualized_Sugar for details).
Laptop News is archived at Laptop News.
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Press requests: please send email to press@laptop.org
MILESTONES
| Jan. 2007 | Rwanda announced its participation in the project. |
| Dec. 2006 | Uruguay announced its participation in the project. |
| 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
PRESS RELEASES
| Jan. 2007 | OLPC has No Plans to Commercialize XO Computer. |
| Jan. 2007 | OLPC Announces First-of-Its-Kind User Interface for XO Laptop Computer. |
| Jan. 2007 | Rwanda Commits to One Laptop per Child Initiative. |
| Dec. 2006 | Low Cost Laptop Could Tranform Learning. |
Video
(Misc. videos of the laptop can be found.)
http://video.globo.com/Videos/Player/Noticias/0,,GIM607884-7823-CRIANCAS+TESTAM+COMPUTADOR+PORTATIL,00.html | Crianças testam computador portátil/ Students test the laptop, GLOBO- BRASIL
http://stanford-online.stanford.edu/courses/ee380/061004-ee380-300.asx | Mark Foster delivers presentation to Standford University
http://www.technologyreview.com/ | Technology Review Mini-Documentary
http://www.radiofarda.com/Article/2007/01/04/f2_Interview-laptop.html | A Brief Demo