Other ideas
Other Ideas
Other ideas, not specifically for hardware or software of the laptop itself:
I think the function of OLPC and UMPC should be the same, right?
Wireless Networking
A book called Wireless Networking in the Developing World is now available on the net in pdf at http://wndw.net/. It has a lot of information that might be useful when deploying the OLPC program. In addition to covering WIFI theory and design, it covers practical, social, and economic problems that they encountered. One idea is to share the cost of the infrastructure with other local groups like businesses and local government. Another is to disperse the knowledge of how to operate the system so that if one person moves away, critical knowledge isn't lost.
Wireless Thin-Client as alternative?
The main counter argument for a thin-client approach is probably the need for maintenance/administration and general dependency on the central server, think e.g. particularly power in this context?
Still, maybe providing a (much) cheaper wireless portable thin client (think one-chip LCD+wireless controller; nothing else inside, particularly no memory and real CPU, which are probably the next most expensive part after the display?), for say $20 instead of $100, plus a commoditized say $1000 Dual-CPU with 2 GB RAM server, per school/entire village, could of interest in some situations? This is assuming that the configuration and loaded software etc. of all devices would be very homogenous, which is probably a fair assumption in this context? If the server could run say 100 clients (essentially running very similar software to what was built for the full $100 laptop of 128 MB RAM each, but with all of the OS and application code shared, thus only using about 16-32 MB for per-client data) then this seems at least imaginable, and would mean a total cost of just $3000 instead of $10'000 - for the 100 children.
That's a lot of ifs and assumptions of course, and only real pricing, scalability and the "market" can tell if there was an interest for (also) providing this - later. Just an idea, really.
- It's a good idea, Ndiyo is doing just that right NOW. Except, because you're tied to the server there's no need to use complex wireless network technology. Also as you say the server is tied to a reliable power source; e.g. at least diesel generator which means the machines are only of use in a classroom or office. The prices are high at the moment, compared to olpc targets, but the boxes aren't being mass produced yet. 62.252.0.11 01:55, 18 March 2006 (EST)
Development Process
How much coordination of the Software Development Process is useful? Just make an SDK available and hope for self-organization? Or maybe e.g. a registry of suggested/needed software, a forum to coordinate software development between parties using this. Or how about volunteer summer projects for CS university students, like Google's summer of code thing?
User interface
Get John Maeda involved with the UI and other design elements.
Ergonomics for the hand-crank handle is not there. I believe Oval is good, even better is a triangular shape with rounded edges. Rectangular shape fits the profile of the computer well, however, with hand crank being one of the most used and stressed portion of the laptop, minimizing unnatural gripping forces to be applied to the handle may increase the life of the handle and improve ergonomics at the same time. By M. Harada Buford, GA
Sell them! Make them a symbol of global activism
Sell in open market and use royalty to fund free laptops to poor children: I don't understand why OLPC doesn't want to sell in open markets, and why the manufacturing contract has to be exclusive to specific manufacturer(s). By doing this, OLPC is not unleashing the power of the markets. Such a sound concept as $100 laptop, when complemented by the market, will work exponentially well. I suggest a system where the design is made close to open source, and any manufacturer can use the design, and they can make improvements. However, the manufacturers should agree to submit any design or function improvements to the MediaLabs, in return for the original design. The MediaLabs should collect royalty as a percentage of sales, and use it to fund free or subsidized laptops for children of poor countries. [1]
-- Subhas Chilumula, Rutherford, NJ, USA.
I suggest that the decision not to sell these to the general public be reconsidered. Sales of these laptops could help fund their global (charitable) distribution. For a purchase price of $200, consumers would actually be buying two computers - one to own/use and one for a needy child somewhere in the world. Among first world consumers, these laptops could become quite popular as a meaningful symbol of global activism. Widespread usage of the devices would, in turn, fuel innovation, enhance infrastructure and make the devices that much more useful to the global community for which they were originally intended.
-- suggested by Don Ferris, San Diego, CA
Terrific idea! I'd buy one for $200 in a minute. If this idea could be more widely floated (Tim O'Reilly, you listening?), I'm sure the response would be very strong.
-- Tim Lynch, T-burg, NY
I had this same idea this morning while listening to the NPR story about the laptop program. I could easily see buying one at $200 with the knowledge that I was also buying another for a child elsewhere. The one hole that I see in the current plan is that marketing these commercially in the U.S. and other well developed countries wouldn't be enough. I think that to really give the program a chance a rollout within the poor in the U.S./Europe would give a big boost in cost reduction (more laptops less cost) and it would provide for greater addoption and awareness. There are plenty of places within the U.S. and Europe that could benefit from a program like this.
--Nick Acks, Baltimore, MD
Remember the Social Context of your Technical Solutions
I think that the ideas here need to be seen in the context of how networking and distribution of data is going to be performed. In the poorest countries, the ideas may need to be modified due to limited scope for immediate netwoking. Also the role of charity will be very improtant; remember that most of the african countries have not yet been involved in the project, so charity support will be a major driving force in distributing the hardware.
I suggest a charity funded system of data distribution, but flexible enough that it could be a commercial venture for a citydewller with transport. Western charity could provide data transfer credits to individuals in remote villages, to be spent on delivery of data serveices to and from the village. A courier would have a laptop with large storage expansion, and travel to villages to deliver data designated for them, and to recieve data for delivery from them. They would expend their credits in the process of givig their data transmission, and recieve a secure reciept for their last communications sent from the data courier. When the courier returned to the city, they would access the internet via a larger access point if available, or just by telephone if not, and would load the appropriate dvd into a usb drive to retrieve the appropriate requested data from several repositories of information - e.g. encyclopedia (possibly wikipedia), educational syllabus for the next month or year as developed by national education system, etc. The delivery of the data would be accompanied by a cashing in of the data-transfer-credits collected on their journy around the villages, and converted to cedits for cashing at a bank, or directly at the internet access point if appropriate. Email based securely encoded credits designated for the individuals in villages as charity gifts would then be recieved from the internet and delivered by the courier to the village on their next visit. To prevent ransom of the delivery of the credits, the entire collection of data intended for the village would be bound in to a 'delivery package' only decodable and seperatable by the intended recipient and then distributed to the individuals by a simple username and password (the username selected from a village specific list, to avoid confusion).
For adults, with limited postal service or reliability, A major application of importance would be political communications, and the option of communications by pgp communications is essential, but should be very user friendly. There must be a pgp-like delivery certification to ensure that deliveries of emails is made without being intercepted or held ransom by delivery people is also very important. - a user or regular email would confirm reciept by clicking a url on the delivered email to confirm reciept to an international reciept confirmation server. reciept confirmation of the village resident would be sent by pgp based confirmation.
access to personal data must be able to protected, by user/password encoded access only, also for deleting data - there should be a firmware controlled partition or directory on the flash which can only be accessed by users' passwords, or deleted in its entirety (not per user) - also there should be a limit on the space used by each user. There should be a hardware switch for deactivating wifi if installed, to prevent hackers and viruses in potentially unstable political climate - likely used to prevent political dissent.
I think that the social model of data repositeries on dvd, and internet access, in cities or perhaps towns is a realistic and efficient solution. With funding of data distribution by digitally secure credits or tokens delivered securely to villagers, access to data by the holders of the laptop can be guaranteed.
-- suggested by ma http://wiki.laptop.org/wiki/User:Ma
Rollout and Community Building
> Other topics where we could use some ideas is in regard to rollout and community building.
The eutotokens of learning
Some years ago I tried writing some science fiction, science fiction in the tradition of putting forward ideas for the future in a story setting which could potentially work.
Most of what I produced is on the web.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/euto0000.htm
The items on the web are from 1997 and 1998 and time has passed since then. Some of the basic ideas in the stories are quite possibly entirely different from what is intended for this laptop project: for example, learning packages funded by advertising revenue, though the problems that that mode of working produces in the story might be of interest. So, I am mentioning the story here not as the definitive way to produce community building yet in the hope that maybe some of the ideas might be helpful in devising an opportunity creating infrastructure.
William Overington
15 March 2006
Common Rooms idea
Note that there are several common mechanisms for "supporting" internationalization and localization; the most common being gettext, which makes use of template files. We are looking into the use of an emerging standard, xliff, that supports more than just translation of strings and is generally both more robust and extensible. Of course, all of this presumes that there is someone to do the trsanslation or localization of images, etc. --Walter
Localization Common Room idea
Suppose that someone, whose native language is English, is interested in producing learning material which could be used on the laptop in various countries once that learning material is localized into the local language, yet that person knows only a little of languages. There are many languages into which content would need to be localized.
In that one needs to start somewhere I have thought that an approach which might be worth trying, in the context of rollout and community building, would be to have such pages in this wiki as a "Common Room" type environment where people who can write in at least one of English, Spanish and Portuguese and people who can write in two or more of those languages, can interact and observe what happens.
For example, there are various language translation packages, both as programs for PCs and as web utilities. Yet what is the quality of translation? Can a system evolve whereby someone can, say, prepare something in English and then it be machine translated into, say, Spanish, then both the original and the clearly designated machine translated version placed in the Localization Common Room and then maybe someone who knows Spanish can read it through and correct it as necessary and comment?
This may or may not be workable in practice. If it is workable, then maybe it could be part of the community building infrastructure.
William Overington
24 March 2006
English, Portuguese and Spanish Localization Common Room
Here is a link to such a Localization Common Room and we can observe what, if anything, happens with it.
http://wiki.laptop.org/wiki/English_Portuguese_and_Spanish_Localization_Common_Room
Artwork Common Room idea
How about a place where a learning material author who needs an illustration file to include in a document which he or she is authoring can go and request that such an illustration be produced.
People interested in the laptop project who are not learning material authors yet who are interested in producing illustrations to support learning material authored by others could also go there and find a project.
Artwork Common Room
Here is a link to such an Artwork Common Room and we can observe what, if anything, happens with it.
