OLPC:News
LAPTOP NEWS
1. Jim Gettys reports that on Thursday we released our first integrated software build, bringing together the fruits of months of labor by contributors all over the world—individuals and the teams working at AMD, Marvell, Red Hat, and OLPC.
The release includes:
- LinuxBIOS;
- using Linux as a bootloader;
- the GX framebuffer console device driver;
- the “AMD” Enterprise X Architecture (EXA) X Window System driver with early
- support for alpha blending;
- native Linux support for updating the BIOS flash;
- JFFS2 file system support for the internal flash;
- the Marvell wireless driver; and
- a very early version of the Sugar user-interface framework.
As a result, the A-Test boards can now function as a complete computer system, without need of an external disk or flash key. Our particular thanks to Richard Smith and Ron Minnich of the Linux BIOS project, and Jordan Crouse of AMD for this work.
2. Another software milestone is also in sight: Mark and the team begin working with Marvel this week on the CAFE hardware/software debug. Rapid progress is being made: Mitch Bradley can perform DMA transfers to an SD memory card and Dave Woodhouse has use it to successfully mounted a JFFS file system.
3. As OLPC document format discussions proceed, Ivan Krstić spoke with Chuck Smith at Heilbronn University. Chuck lead a session at the recent WikiSym '06 conference that attempted to provide a standardized alternative document format that could be implemented in all major wiki software. The developers of eight popular wiki engines, among them the one that powers Wikipedia, have agreed to implement support for this new format—dubbed WikiCreole. This format overlaps significantly with the format Ivan is designing for OLPC, so we have decided to make WikiCreole a strict subset of the OLPC document format. Minor changes to both formats have already been incorporated as a result of the collaboration; work continues.
4. Clotilde Fonseca, the executive director of the Omar Dengo Foundation in Costa Rica, re-affirmed their interest and excitement to bring the 2B1 machine to the region. The Foundation in the past few years has begun providing support throughout the region in addition to their almost 20 years of work providing world-class support for computers in schools, as well as using computers for community development, micro-enterprise creation, and support for democracy. Clotilde also worked with us to plan for development of new content for schools in Spanish to take advantage of the immersive presence of laptops.
5. David Cavallo spoke to more than 60 people from the Omar Dengo Foundation staff and “assessores,” the people who go to schools to provide teachers professional development and help instantiate powerful learning environments. He presented the OLPC machine and vision and also discussed ideas around laptops and learning, and how a 1:1 approach with connected laptops brings new opportunities. Originally scheduled for two hours, the session was brought to a close after four hours only so that participants could catch their buses home.
6. Zephaniah Hull continues work on the touch pad drivers and should have samples in the next few days. He has the Linux evdev (event-based) kernel driver for the touch pad completed. The X Window System implementation to support the touch pad still has bugs he is currently tracking down and eliminating.
Laptop News is archived at Laptop News.
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MILESTONES
| Aug. 2006 | Working prototype of the dual-mode display |
| 06 Jun. 2006 | First video with working prototype [1] |
| 28 Jan. 2006 | World Economic Forum, Switzerland UNDP and OLPC Sign Partnership Agreement news release |
| 13 Dec. 2005 | Quanta Computer Inc. to Manufacture Laptop (html)(pdf) |
| 16 Nov. 2005 | WSIS, Tunisia Prototype Unveiled by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan Photos: (Image 1)
(Image 2) (Image 3) |
| Jan. 2005 | Laptop Intiative Officially Announced at World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland |
PRESS
Video
(Misc. videos of the laptop can be found here.)
