OLPC:News

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LAPTOP NEWS

1. Libya and OLPC signed an MOU in which they agreed to work together towards the deployment of one OLPC laptop for every school-age child in Libya and contributing laptops to poor African nations. OLPC will provide the support needed by Libya to plan and carry out such a deployment. The signing took place during a visit by Nicholas, Walter Bender, and Khaled Hassounah, where they met with members of the newly formed OLPC4Libya steering committee. The committee was presented with the outline of a comprehensive plan to distribute the laptops, create connectivity and server infrastructure, and prepare teachers and students. Libya will send a team to the OLPC office in Cambridge to focus on software (Linux), infrastructure, and education content.

2. Nicholas spoke to the International Federation of University Presidents in Seoul on Thursday. Most Asian and many other universities were present. The appeal of OLPC was obvious and the talk deeply appreciated.

3. Michail attended the WiMax World conference in Boston. Nortel made big news in the show announcing their strong commitment to WiMax.

4. Display: The new dual-mode panels—with double the reflectance—were hand-carried back by Mary Lou were installed successfully into the motherboard-daughter card test-sets at OLPC. With work by Jim Gettys and Walter Bender, preliminary optimal font size tests were started. A 9-point font (25 pixels) seems ideal for readability as a guideline for development.

5. Taipei: Mark Foster has been working with the teams at Quanta, Marvell, and the OLPC software team to bring up a new version of the CAFE chip on the first OLPC “pre-B Test” motherboards. The boards are up and running, so the teams are now concentrating on general debugging. The motherboards are all running Linux, and all three of the CAFE subsystems (camera interface, SD Card controller, and the NAND Flash controller), are available for further driver development.

6. Additionally, samples of the latest Alps touchpad are also on their way to the software team. These samples include a newer touchpad controller ASIC that is intended for final production, as well as containing the unique OLPC keyboard code functionality. This keyboard code, essentially a superset of that used by conventional PCs, provides direct support for the Sugar user interface, adds convenient shortcut keys, and enables OLPC's unique "analog slider" function keys.

7. The OLPC document format spec rev2 has support for block macros, granular tables of contents, and layout hinting. The format is named “Crossmark,” and is believed to be highly suitable for (collaborative) book writing and editing and use as an e-book format.

8. One month ago, without warning, Sun released Open Firmware under a BSD license. After much deliberation, we reached the decision that rather than continuing to use Linux itself as boot loader, we will transition to Open Firmware (OFW), while retaining LinuxBIOS. The date for a transition has not yet been set. Open Firmware has been in use on both Sun and PPC hardware (e.g. Apple) for approaching a decade, and has shipped in quantity millions. Mitch Bradley, currently working for OLPC is its original author.

9. Our firmware development process and strategy has crystallized, and is a major relief to us all. Chris Ball has worked on our internal BIOS build system and procedures, setting up a Xen virtual machine containing a stable system for building the OLPC BIOS. The build system has successfully built LinuxBIOS with both Linux and Open Firmware as bootloaders. A release process has been proposed and is being reviewed.

10. Chris has also established a tinderbox to enable continuous build testing and performance testing of the OLPC system, from installing firmware, booting, installation onto flash and ensuring the user interface has started. We intend to add performance tests in the future (See http://mailman.laptop.org/pipermail/devel/2006-October/002565.html).

11. Jon Corbet has RGB565 mode (or native mode) working in the camera driver now. Jon will submit a new patch to the OLPC tree today. The camera driver is getting close to completion. The remaining items are support for image sizes other than VGA (which should be easy) and wiring up more controls.


Laptop News is archived at Laptop News.

You can subscribe to the OLPC community-news mailing list by visiting the laptop.org mailman site.

Press requests: please send email to press at laptop dot org.

MILESTONES

Oct. 2006 B-test boards become available
Aug. 2006 Working prototype of the dual-mode display
06 Jun. 2006 First video with working prototype [1]
May 2006 A-test boards become available
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)
Webcast: (Arabic) (English) (French) (original)
Webcast provided by the ITU and UN Webcast Services with the support of RealNetworks Ltd. RealPlayer is required to view the webcast (available at no cost).

Jan. 2005 Laptop Intiative Officially Announced at World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland

PRESS

11 Oct. 2006 New York Times | U.S. Group Reaches Deal to Provide Laptops to All Libyan Schoolchildren
6 Oct. 2006 Washington Post | $100 Laptop May Be at Security Forefront
25 Sep. 2006 vnunet.com | OLPC offered free satellite connections
14 Sep. 2006 Vanguard | Keyboard In Three Nigerian Languages Ready-Obasanjo
08 Sep. 2006 Technology Review | Hack: The Hundred Dollar Laptop
06 Sep. 2006 nacion.com | Computadoras de $100 estarán listas en el 2007
 Aug. 2006 Wired | The Laptop Crusade
07 Jul. 2006 San Diego Union-Tribune | U.S. and international educators show great interest in prototype
Jul. 2006 SPIE Professional | $100 laptop nears launch
21 Jun. 2006 BusinessWeek online | For Brazil's Poor, a Digital Deliverance?
24 May 2006 CNET News.com | $100 laptop gets working prototype
07 Apr. 2006 rediff.com | Our $100 laptops will run on human power
02 Apr. 2006 O Estado de S.Paulo | Fazer a diferença
28 Mar. 2006 FT.com | Waking up to a laptop revolution
24 Mar. 2006 Diário do Comércio | Um Laptop por Crianca
22 Mar. 2006 Times Online | Getting the world's poor logged on
09 Mar. 2006 Correio Popular | País disputa fabricação de laptop de US$ 100
  Folha de S. Paulo | Governo quer comprar 1 milhão de laptops
  Info Exame On Line | Governo quer um milhão de laptops de US$ 100
08 Mar. 2006 IDG Now | Faculdade abre programa de inclusão digital para alunos
  Folha de S. Paulo | Governo negocia fabricação do laptop de US$ 100 no Brasil
  Agência Globo | Governo estuda possibilidade de produção de computador de US$ 100 no país
  Teletime News | DVB detalha contrapartidas oferecidas ao Brasil
05 Mar. 2006 ACM/CIE | Interview with Nicholas Negroponte on the $100 laptop
16 Feb. 2006 MITIR | Podcast of Walter Bender's MURJ lecture on One Laptop per Child
15 Feb. 2006 CNET | PCs for the poor: Which design will win?
10 Feb. 2006 CNET | Perspective: Will the $100 PC fly?
09 Feb. 2006 NYTimes | A Plug for the Unplugged $100 Laptop Computer for Developing Nations
  UPI | One Laptop Project reaches critical stages
31 Jan. 2006 Slashdot | Microsoft OS Smart Phone for Developing Nations
  USA Today | Gates sees cellphones as way to help Third World
  Macworld | Red Hat officially commits to MIT's $100 laptop
28 Jan. 2006 UNDP | $100 Laptop Project Moves Closer to Narrowing Digital Divide
20 Dec. 2005 BusinessWeek online | Quanta faces challenges in making "millions and millions" of $100 laptops.
19 Dec. 2005 Forbes.com | China to decide by March whether to join OneLaptopPerChild project.
14 Dec. 2005 UPI | Nortel to take part in OneLaptopPerChild endeavor.
13 Dec. 2005 Red Herring | Quanta to manufacture laptops; expects deliveries in 2006 4th quarter.
  OLPC | Quanta Computer Inc. to Manufacture $100 Laptop
11 Dec. 2005 NYTimes | NY Times: 5th Annual Year in Ideas $100 Laptop
04 Dec. 2005 Guardian Unlimited | The $100 laptop question
01 Dec. 2005 RFDESIGN | $100 Laptops Feature Novel Peer-to-Peer Wireless Connectivity
30 Nov. 2005 FT.com | Five companies in Asia making bids to manufacture $100 laptop.
28 Nov. 2005 Fortune Magazine | THE DIGITAL DIVIDE: I'd Like to Teach the World to Type
25 Nov. 2005 People's Daily Online | Nigerian president says government has budgeted for a million $100 laptops.
18 Nov. 2005 The Electric New Paper | Gramophone? No, Laptop
17 Nov. 2005 BBC News | UN Debut for $100 Laptop for Poor
  Seattle Times | $100 Laptops Aim to Bring Children the World
  TechWhack | MIT Unveils their USD 100 Laptop
  TeitB | 100 US Dollar Laptop Computer Launched
  ZDNet | '$100 Laptops' Here by Next Year
  ABC | $100 Laptop Bridges Digital Divide
  Financial Express | Laptop @$100!
16 Nov. 2005 MIT News Office | Annan to Present Prototype $100 Laptop at World Summit on Information Society
  Reuters | Researchers Unveil $100 Laptop for Schoolkids
  CNET | $100 Laptop Takes World Stage
  CNET | $100 Laptop Expected in Late 2006
  Christian Science Monitor | A Low-Cost Laptop for Every Child
  ADNKronos International | Internet: Wind-Up, Budget Laptop Unveiled
14 Nov. 2005 WSJ | The $100 Laptop Moves Closer to Reality
13 Nov. 2005 The Inquirer | Hubris over $100 Laptop idea
New York Times | Google Earmarks $265million for Charity and Social Causes
13 Oct. 2005 Technology Review | The Hundred Dollar Man: Technology Review's editor in chief, Jason Pontin, talk with Nicholas Negroponte about the Hundred Dollar Computer.
30 Sep. 2005 Times Online | A $100 clockwork computer to help the poor to learn
29 Sep. 2005 I4U News | Sub-$100 Laptop design unveiled
28 Sep. 2005 Boston Globe | Prototypes of $100 laptop with hand crank planned by early next year.
  MIT World | NN at Technology Review
27 Sep. 2005 Datamation | Low cost PCs for the Enterprise
06 Jun. 2005 estadao.com.br | Cada criança na escola com um laptop a tiracolo

Video

(Misc. videos of the laptop can be found here.)