Talk:Main Page
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Wikifying The Front Page
'A good place to start is the One Laptop per Child page, which gives an overview of the project. There is a detailed FAQ on the project; and there are numerous pages on Hardware, Software, and Content. There are also discussion pages on issues of deployment and country-specific discussions. An extended Table of Contents is also available. '
Recent Changes page
Could you consider changing the Recent Changes page please so that more than the last 50 changes are shown? Sometimes more than 50 changes are made in a day so it may be impossible for some of the people who like to follow changes to catch all of them. Could 50 be the default with the user able to select a greater number? Could a criterion of "latest 50 or all changes in the latest two days if greater than 50" be used; that would mean that usually 50 would be displayed, yet more if editing activity has increased.
William Overington 7 April 2006
- Hi William. Please consider getting an account at this wiki. Try this link for a longer list of recent changes. -- Mathias Schindler 07:44, 7 April 2006 (EDT)
The format for expressing dates
I notice that the Community News (not a wiki page) has the date as follows.
OLPC News (04/08/06)
In England, that would often be taken to mean 4 August 2006, on the basis of moving from smallest unit (day), to larger unit (month) to largest unit (year) whereas the intention from America is clearly 8 April 2006.
Interpretation as an August 2006 date for the news document would clearly be obviously wrong at this time, yet in the future, for a historian reading through the news items, ambiguity could occur.
I wonder if I could suggest please that there be specified a consistent and unambiguous way of expressing all dates in the documents of the project.
For example, 2006-04-08 would convey the date unambiguously.
However, month names like April can help, though the English way of writing day month year, leading for this example to 8 April 2006, does look more typographically balanced than would the American equivalent of April 8 2006. However, that could produce problems for someone whose first language is not English, or indeed for someone whose first language is English if the document and thus the month name is not in English. So maybe using the yyyy-mm-dd format might be the best for an international multilingual project.
William Overington
10 April 2006
- I Agree strongly See International standard date and time notation. (Doing this for the tilda tags would be good too) 82.133.105.218 08:34, 10 April 2006 (EDT)
- Thank you for the link. I have been using GMT for times for years: it appears that that went in 1972! The Z seems a poor choice, easily confusable with a 2. Maybe a U or a lowercase z would be better. So, this message is produced at 2006-04-10 1302Z. William
The Perfect choice: 2006-04-30, as it has the additional property of be ready to be sorted..., A series of fields of dates can be sorted properly without the strange results of sorting dates in other formats... Just a mess... ¿no?... Mexico / Ags./Dagoflores (also from larger to smaller)
OLPC Albania
Would it be possible to link OLPC Albania from [1]? I recently saw news that the Prime Minister of Albania had expressed interest in the project, so I wrote a small bit in Albanian. Thanks. Dori | Talk 09:03, 13 April 2006 (EDT)
Done. --Walter
Feedback on OLPC News (2006-05-06)
Item 3 is as follows.
3. Mark Foster hand-carried the first three pre-A-Test prototype OLPC electronics boards to Cambridge this week. Together with Michail Bletsas, Chris Blizzard and the Red Hat team, they brought up the mini-Fedora distribution. This means that we now have a stripped-down distribution that will boot and run off a USB key, somewhat similar to the actual requirements of the real hardware.
Feedback.
pre-A-Test prototype OLPC electronics boards
What does "pre-A-Test" mean please? I have heard of beta tests and I am not entirely sure what that means. Could you possibly explain the testing sequence please?
- pre-A-Test boards are essentially untested boards; A-Test boards are debugged manually; B-Test boards are tested automatically--the last step towards manufacturing. We are pulling a few pre-A-Test boards just to accelerate the software development process. The good news is that these boards are working with few if any modifications, a testiment to the skill of the Quanta Team and Mark Foster from OLPC. Walter 11:25, 7 May 2006 (EDT)
to Cambridge
Is that from Taiwan?
- yes Walter 11:29, 7 May 2006 (EDT)
Who are you guys? Is OLPC a community project?
I saw a pseudo-thread over on here, linked from 'myths':
http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php/Software_Ideas_-_System_Software#Operating_System_Selection and http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php/Education_Ideas_Esperanto
And it raised my eyebrow. Of COURSE this has to run a flavor of linux, perhaps a really lite flavor, relative to the latest kernel. Proposing otherwise (like using Syllable OS or PalmOS) "contributes" as much to the project as debating whether the native language should be Esperanto. Generous estimate of 2,000 "native speakers"? 100,000 skilled users? There was a lot of text devoted to debating Esperanto. I posit that various editors had to expend more than expedient effort to 'debate away' esperanto w.r.t OLPC.
- The http://www.laptop.org/ webspace contains the official project pages. The project management has decided to provide the wiki facility at http://wiki.laptop.org and allow anyone who so chooses from anywhere in the world that the webspace can be accessed to join in discussions and put forward comments and ideas. Some ideas put forward may well not be accepted. People can put forward ideas which might be regarded as highly controversial, yet it is useful for such ideas to be put forward as they have been put forward in a spirit of goodwill for the project to succeed. A different approach could have been to say that an idea will not even be considered unless it is put forward by someone who is an employee of one of the sponsoring organizations. That way some good ideas could have been missed through an unwillingness to assess ideas on their merits rather than on from where they are suggested. It is good that they took the approach that they did. Also, it is a two-way street so to speak. I feel that I have learned a great amount myself by participating in reading from and writing in the wiki. Indeed, I am thinking that that very process may well be an example of the process of constructionist learning which is advocated as part of the project ideas for learning for the children, though it would need someone who knows more about constructionist learning than do I to say whether I am correct in that thinking.
From there, my question: Is OLPC a community project by the editors of this wiki? If not, what is the purpose of this 'pedia? Does Negroponte read these pages?
- Well, it is not a 'pedia, in the sense of an encyclopedia, it is a wiki for discussion and idea generation. Two items, discussions of whether to use an operating system other than linux and of the role of Esperanto in the project, were mentioned. Yet there are many ideas which have been put forward by many people in the ideas pages. If only one of them is used by the project then the wiki and the policy of allowing access to everyone will have been of value. If lots of them are used by the project then the wiki and the policy of allowing access to everyone will have been of great value. Once the project has developed, how many aspects of the system and infrastructure that then exist will be as a result of ideas put forward in this wiki?
- Yes, if this were truly community-focused, there shoul be Brazilians, Nigerians, Chinese, Thais here now. Let's face it - ones the machine is ready, how it is used shall be the least of Project's concerns. It's hardware-power is at least 10 years old, so the people in involved countries can help themselves with the software.
The orange machine
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A new picture has appeared on the Main Page. There appear to be two upward-pointing arms. It looks as if they may be moveable and would be folded down when the machine is being transported. Is that corect please?
Do the two upward-pointing arms contain aerials for the WiFi system?
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I am wondering as to the health and safety aspects of having these items sticking up in the air when the laptops are being used in a room full of children. However, maybe the arms are just up in the air for showing some aspect of the design in the photograph and would not be up in the air like that when the laptop was being used. What is the situation please?
- What is the health issue that is raised by having aerials that raise? Walter 10:44, 10 May 2006 (EDT)
- I am expressing concern at the possibility that a child (not necessarily the child sat using the machine, perhaps a child walking by in a crowded classroom) might slip and then fall onto a machine and receive an injury from the sticking up item, perhaps a serious eye injury. From the picture, it just seems to me to look dangerous.
Has a health and safety assessment been made of the design, made in the context of using the machine in a room full of children?
- We are working hard to make the laptop as safe as possible. Walter 10:44, 10 May 2006 (EDT)
I miss the crank or the replacement of the crank.
- It has moved to the power brick.Walter 21:45, 3 June 2006 (EDT)
The power brick.... Could you give a better description.. It just sounds like a removable battery. In that case i don't appeal to it.. The crank gave it a big thumbs up to the ecosystem :-) Yes, doesn't really sound like a battery would be the way to go, unless solar powered. What if the child were to accidentally leave it on? Perhaps you could incorporate an automatic shut down, but I am sure there are ramifications for doing that as well.
- There will be several options regarding power. Every machine will include a removeable 5-cell battery pack that is described on the Hardware specification Page. One idea we are pursuing is a "gang" charger at the school. Another, where applicable, would be a conventional AC adapter. Finally, there will be at least two different human-power options: a crank and a pulley system. We've designed the power system to be rubsut in light of third-party solutions as well, which expect will be numerous. Walter 09:18, 16 June 2006 (EDT)
Looking at the design with the two antennae on either side, would it be possible for these to flip open when transporting or is there some means of avoiding this problem? Perhaps having them shut the other direction would allow the bottom, keyboard side of things hold it shut when closed as a simple means of addressing the issue.
A good use for the 3rd laptop...
I mainly use my laptop at home as an X term to my main Linux box. The features of this laptop make it very suitable for this task. So, for $300 you get a nice X term (at least!) and donate 2 to a great cause. And letting my children use it may produce some good ideas for improvement from a child's point of view.
I hope this project takes off and flies high.
If only it were true!
This may well not be the best place to put this comment, but where is a better place?
The web page http://crank.laptop.org/gitbrowse.php has a footer saying the following.
We're putting a laptop in the hands of every child in the world. Learn more!
That is not, unfortunately, true. That is a pity, but nonetheless it is not true.
If, someday, it were to become true, then good, but at the moment it is not what is happening now and thus is potentially misleading to some people reading it.
Packet Forwarding in Reading Mode
I noticed under hardware specs that the wifi chip was chosen for its independent packet forwarding abilities. Does this mean that the laptop will consume power for the wifi chip in reader mode? Will users be instructed to keep the rabbit ears extended while reading for altruistic purposes?
- Whenever possible, the laptop will route packets. While it will be possible to turn packet forwarding off, the aggregate performance of the mesh network will be better served if everyone is cooperative. Meanwhile, we are working hard to minimize the power penalty of routing. Walter 18:16, 19 June 2006 (EDT)
Attrition
As someone who has been heavily involved in a one to one initiative, I am curios about your plans for attrition. As you or someone else here stated children are very curios. Some of them will break machines to see how they work or in some cases just break them for fun. There are many reasons the machines will break. I know the price makes them relatively easy to replace compared to other solutions available today. However, no other solution will be implemented on this scale. What is the expected rate of failure and damage per year per 1000 in use devices?
-DK USA
- We are assuming that there will be failures for any number of reasons and therefore some to-be-determined number of replacement machines will have to be on hand, however, since the laptop is being designed with harsh use-conditions in mind, e.g., no harddisk to break, minimal internal connectors to fail, sealing against dust and moisture, shock-resistant display, etc. (See the Hardware specification for details), we are confident that the failure rate will be much lower than in other one-to-one initiatives, where laptops designed for other purposes, e.g., office work, are used. The use scenario also comes into play: there is evidence that when children are given machines rather than just given access to them at school, the failure rate is also much lower. Walter 03:08, 20 June 2006 (EDT)
OLPC in India discussion
Might I suggest that this discussion be moved to the Talk:OLPC India page?
Is this the only thing that should be looked into???
Well i suppose that providing a laptop to every child in the world and more importantly to every child in the developing country is not the solution we are looking at.Well the development of any country nowadays depends a lot on the technological advancements and this is surely a way to achieve that.but i suppose giving a laptop to an ignorant and illiterate child is the same as giving him a toy to play and throw and nothing more. what i mean to say is that i think we should also teach them about the uses and general usage of the computers which they lack till now.for this providing the entire place with a learning setup where there would be an instructor to teach them and a couple of laptops for hands on experience for start would be helpful. i think simultaneously we should target making them technologically literate (as i would call them) would be nice idea.this would ensure tapping the talent of fast learners in a particular society as well as improving the sales of the laptop and simultaneously help in better usage as well. _____________________________________________________________________ Parampreet INDIA
- Someone has so rightly said that "If someday aliens arrive on this earth & if they are to be made aware of our civilisation, all that needs to be done is to provide them a link to the internet." The OLPC project might not be a one-stop solution but it certainly is a great technology enabler in provding children esp from the non-developed nations with a terminal to the world. It would greatly accelerate the technological growth in such areas.
- As for concerns regarding ignorance/illiteracy, I'm reminded of a project by NIIT by the name "Window in the Wall" conducted in few Indian villages where they embbedded a PC into a wall with only the monitor, keyboard & such stuff jutting out of it. It was found that the rural children out of curiousity, not only started fiddling with it but in a matter of months with NO external assistance, had actually developed mastery over computer usage & word processing tools such as MS Word.
- Coming back to my original point the OLPC project is an enabler using which future rural development schemes could be used to spread technology into remote areas & thus the development that comes along with it. It might not be everything, but its certainly an important step in the right direction. -- $ubodh Prabhu (NSIT, INDIA)
- Children in poor countries are not at all "ignorant", they like it to learn. If they are illiterate there is a reason - no books, no pen, no school, no literate adults,... --Bz 18:53, 17 June 2006 (EDT)
An Indian overview of Project
After going through the whole scenario about the OLPC, I personally feel that for India, this project could revolutionize the way of education, but I think this project is not as simple as it appears on surface. Following points should be made into consideration while implementing the project:
1) An attempt could be made to increase the flash memory from 500MB to around 1GB at the manufacturing time so that the child can store the important things like notes, lectures videos, and his projects. If this can't be done, at least a provision should be made that a user can increase flash memory according to its requirements later on.
- 512 megabytes already gives the children room for notes and projects. Lecture videos are something that is only known to work at the university level and really isn't appropriate in a constructionist project targetting elementary school children.
- The model we are espousing includes a "school server", where the children will backup their machines and retrieve additional materials. We are also utilizing the mesh to share files between machines. It would be helpful to know what specific use scenarios in India are incompatible with this model. Walter 10:10, 19 June 2006 (EDT)
2) As in rural India, people are very rigid and traditional about their lifestyles and hence do not accept any changes so easily. So there should be something which could help the parents also like providing them a way of communication which they could use to increase their income. This will make the project more popular and acceptable among villages.
- All of the laptops include extended-range wifi, capable of mesh networking, and a chat messaging application is included. If the local community adds a Motoman component then you have a general-purpose communications tool. It is expected that parents will ask their children to use the messaging capabilities to improve their economic situation and that is in tune with constructionist educational philosophy of learning by doing.
- One of the reasons it is a laptop rather than a desktop is so that it can go home with the children and become part of family and community life. Walter 10:10, 19 June 2006 (EDT)
3) Before starting the mass production, a pilot project should be tried and tested in any rural village of India to get the feedback of teachers, students and their parents. On the basis of response, the things can be improved accordingly.
- There have been numerous 1-to-1 pilot projects, in Maine in the USA, in Costa Rica, Cambodia, etc. But we are trying to achieve scale on the order of 100s of millions of children; therefore one-million machines is the pilot. Of course, OLPC will be conducting tests of the laptop in situ well before the major roll out of machines. As in any deployment, we expect to learn from the first adopter and adapt over time. OLPC is working closely with the pilot countries on deployment strategies and mechanism for sharing our collective experiences with the machines. Walter 10:10, 19 June 2006 (EDT)
4) Some educational software like e-books should be provided according to the need of country so that the use of laptop could be optimized.
- Please read the rest of this site. Clearly, delivery of e-books is a key goal of the OLPC. However, e-books cannot be delivered until they actually exist. This will be the major problem in India due to the large number of languages and scripts in use. You, and other Indian residents, could help by scanning paper books into DJVU format, resolving copyright licensing issues, and writing new e-books specifically for these kids.
The basic thing I want to say that if a country can spend buying a laptop of $100, it can also spend some more like $110-120 but features should be made flexible and useful because it is not easy for government to replace it in future spending again a whole lot of money. There may be some flaws and limitations in this project, but we have to choose diamonds from stones.
- Undoubtly there is a need for investment beyond the laptops themselves. We have been working with the pilot countries to help surface all of the needs and come up with strategies for addressing them. Walter 10:10, 19 June 2006 (EDT)
Thanks
Jitesh Sachdeva
INDIA
Laptop in the Indian Scenario
Laptop in the Indian Scenario
We must concentrate in the three major areas where these laptops can be a boon
A laptop would be exceedingly useful to an indian student because:
1. It would obviate the need for textbooks
2. This will help in reducing pressure on our depleting forests as textbooks consume a large amount of wood.
3. It will help in increasing flexibility and creativity which is often found wanting in our education system.
As India is an emerging business hub, It is important for our businessmen to keep up in pace with the latest trends and technology. It will help them in staying connected on the move.
Besides these two areas such a project can benefits the large rural community if the IT sector goes on to make good relevant software which may help them in obtaining news and agriculture related information.
Features in the Laptop
Now keeping in mind a larger picture with the Indian Community as a whole, I would like to suggest the following features :
1. Language Bridge If we have to really have the penetration in India we must concentrate on making Soft wares aiming at the regional languages. English is only limited to the elite group of people living in metropolitan cities. If it is to have larger impact such a software is a necessity.
2. An ebook reader. The pdf format is a good but I think we must have an ebook reader which can read Hindi as well as English books with the voices of Indian accent. This would require the development of a voice engine and also the production of voices. This software would require a lot of work but if made then it would be a lot of help to the Indian student.
3. A Free Open Source Accounting Software This will be for the business community to help them in keeping their accounts up to date.
4.Resources After the development of this project our next step must be to make available resources such as :
a) The NCERT textbooks to be made available in the Online form
b) Large amount of Hindi literature to be made available on
the Computer. Here I am talking about the non- copyrighted
work of distinguished writers of he past.Basically we must
have a parallel for Gutenberg.
c) Various Websites which would provide information regarding
agriculture and help farmers.
d) Production of courses and online tutorials which will
simulate the interest of students in science and maths.
The main impetus must be on the development of open source software if it has to emerge in a big way. The success of ubiquitous windows is often attributed the large amount of developmental tools and software. However the hardware cannot be neglected too On the hardware side, however, there must be a usb port for connection to usb drives, it may be wi-fi enabled so as to have easy connectivity to the Internet on the move.A bluetooth support would be highly beneficial too.
Deepank Gupta(deepankgupta@gmail.com)
India
The Time for the OLPCWiki in Spanish has come...
Y aqui les dejo la primera... página...
Me permito someter a su consideración los siguientes artículos que describen un IMPORTANTE avance tecnológico, que ayudará a cerrar la brecha entre los países pobres y los desarrollados.
La adopción de estas computadoras y su distribución en México, permitirá:
1.- Un salto cuántico en la calidad de la educación al permitir que cada niño, jóven y adulto posea su propia PC con acceso a Internet.
2.- Permitirá desarrollar una política de NO EXPORTAR TRABAJADORES, sino IMPORTAR TRABAJOS, al facilitar la realización de trabajos virtuales desempeñados sobre la red.
3.- En Australia, donde las distancias entre los vecinos no se miden en metros, sino en HORAS DE VUELO, los médicos han desarrollado mecanismos para atender a sus pacientes a través de Internet, la aplicación de estas técnicas, podría poner a los médicos de México al alcance de toda la población rural y de pequeñas comunidades, sin necesidad de construir costosas clínicas y hospitales por todo el territorio nacional.
4.- Permitirá a los jubilados y discapacitados trabajar desde sus casas, brindando consejos y ayuda a los ciudadanos para sus problemas de...
a) Tareas y Estudio,
b) Domésticos y familiares,
c) Emprendedores y Pequeños empresarios,
d) Tramites y apoyos Gubernamentales,
e) Asesoría en Turismo. y haciendo traducciones, apuntes y otros trabajos.
Todo con cargo a las tarjetas de todito.com de los que requieren ayuda, de lo cual un 15% o 30% queda al organizador y el resto (85% a 70%) se entrega al asesor o tutor.
5.- Desarrollar una industria propia de computadoras, mediante la contratación del la fabricación y ensamble de sus partes en México.
Gracias por su atención; agradeceré una respuesta franca, breve, clara y práctica a este mensaje, con su opinión y aportaciones, así como la justa oportunidad de participar en el desarrollo de los conceptos expuestos.
Atentamente,
Ing. Dagoberto Gmo. Flores Lozano Consultor en Ing. Industrial y de Sistemas, desempleado. Ex-Investigador y Profesor Universitario, Ex-becario de la Fundación Ford, en Berkeley, Aguascalientes, AGS. MEXICO dagoflores@prodigy.net.mx
German version
Ich vermisse die deutsche Version dieser Seite Jakob Mitzlaff
I have focused this project since mid-2005,at first I don't believe that it can become true,but as many world lead level scientists and corportation joined in this project,new achievement in every course, I do believe it can make this dream true.
I have some ideas to improve the project in China if the product will be finished,and there are maybe many problems facing the fact because China has large area,different culture,how to manage transportation,how to repair,how to train them ,etc,it's real facts.It must be considered before the donation,otherwise it will bring some trouble,I think it is important to establish a small office or to find a cooperative enterprise first.
I heard that Mr.Negroponte will visit our country in couple weeks, it maybe take a blockbuster .I wish I have pleasure to meet him.I hope I can learn from core team ,I try to contribute something .
Interesting interview here (6th April 2006): http://www.zdnetindia.com/news/business/stories/140370.html
- Hi Jakob. I have just finished translating laptop.org into German. See the source file at OLPC Germany/translation. -- Mathias Schindler 07:46, 7 April 2006 (EDT)
boot and run off a USB key
I have found from wikipedia that one meaning of USB is "Universal Serial Bus".
What does "key" mean here please? I am thinking that the whole sentence is about that in the event of a laptop having a software crash that the whole operating system can be rebuilt by attaching something (the "key") to a USB port of the laptop and then proceeding in some way. Is that correct please?
- From Wikipedia[2]: USB flash drives are also known as "pen drives", "chip sticks" (though very uncommonly), "thumb drives", "flash drives", "USB keys", and a wide variety of other names. Walter 11:17, 7 May 2006 (EDT)
Could you possibly elaborate on what happens please and how, once the laptops are deployed, a child would proceed in order to rebuild the operating system in the event of a total software crash. I am thinking that it would need to be fairly straightforward yet something which could only happen with deliberate action, not by accidently pushing a large reset button or anything like that.
- We have a goal of easy restore and upgrade and are working on the scenarios. The goal is to distribute upgrades to school servers and then use the peer-to-peer network further distribution. We will have some sort of "trust" scheme--to be determined--for authentification. Walter 11:17, 7 May 2006 (EDT)
- Thank you for providing the further information.