Ah, the gift of giving. And getting. ‘Tis the season (for buying), and those savvy philanthropists at the One Laptop Per Child project have decided to extend the length of their one-for-me, one-for-you, tax-deductible computer sale. Still haven’t decided whether you want one of these sweet little gadgets? Well, now you’ve got a little more time to cogitate, ruminate, and eventually allocate the $399 you’ll need to send one to a needy kid and keep one for your needy self. As an added bonus, you also get a year’s worth of T-Mobile Hotspot access, so you can check CrunchGear while you’re at the airport Starbucks.
One Laptop per Child Extends Give One Get One Program Through December 31 [Business Wire]
Wait a minute, people. I know babies need their laptops, but the OLPC program is charging $24.95 for shipping. In fact, ZDNet blogger Larry Dignan got “hit” with the shipping charge, leading to mass hysteria over at the old Dignan house while daddy Dignan raged through the basement looking for his hidden whiskey and meth while Mrs. Dignan and the kids hid in a closet upstairs. The absolute nerve of some people, charging $24.95 for two $200 laptops, one of which goes to needy kids overseas. I’ll tell you what: let’s boycott those snakes and crooks over at OLPC and make our own Windows-based OLPC called the VUOLPCPCH2KBRATWGFS (Vista Ultimate One Laptop Per Child Provided that Child Has $2000 But Rest Assured They Will Get Free Shipping). That’ll stick it to those dirtbags.
Five years after it was announced, mass production of the One Laptop Per Child/XO laptop/thisweeksnewname laptop has finally started. The laptop, which was originally promoted as a $100 computer that would change education in the developing world, now costs around $188. Uruguay purchased 100,000 laptops last month, much to the chagrin of its mortal enemy Swaziland.
Would you Give 1 [to] Get 1 for a free year of hotspot access? I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t, mainly because I can’t be bothered with charity work. It’s thankless.
Those third world kids are in for a real treat if they think the Internet is educational. It has devolved into a collection of lolcatz, porn and lolcatz porn.
Feeling generous? T-Mobile will give anyone who participates in the OLPC “Give 1 Get 1 Program”—for $399 your child and a child in the developing world gets a OLPC laptop—a free year of hotspot access. From November 12 to November 26, should you choose to drop the $400 to give two kids the gift of lolcatz, you’ll get the T-Mobile HotSpot service. That way, you can hang out at the local Starbucks, pay hand-over-fist for a cup of coffee, and make clever posts to tech blogs. You’ll be living the dream!
Real life kids have been getting their hands on the highly anticipated (?) OLPC. And you know what? For all the nay-sayers out there, the kids like it. According to one twelve-year-old who writes better than pretty much all of us here
It was cleverly designed, imaginative, straightforward, easy to understand (I was given no instructions on how to use it. It was just, “Here. Figure it out yourself.”), useful and simple, entertaining, dependable, really a “stick to the basics” kind of computer.
It’s the perfect laptop for the job. Great for first time users, it sets the mood by offering a bunch of entertaining and easy games and a camera.
The OLPC is so kid-friendly that the youngsters in the above video were able to replace the motherboard in just a few minutes. I wish the PowerBook were as easy to repair as the OLPC, seeing as though I just destroyed my own workhorse trying to replace its hard drive.
And really, OLPC haters, what is so wrong with introducing kids to an affordable laptop in their formative years? They seem to like it, so that’s all that should matter.
You know those $100 laptops part of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program? You know, the ones that are supposed to generate clean water and optimal living conditions with the turn of a crank? In less that two years they’ll only cost $50, according to the initiative’s CTO. Good news, everyone.
I’m not even going to pretend to know anything about non-profits. So I will sit here, quietly, and applaud the OLPC group for at least trying to improve the lives of needy people around the world. Happy feel-good Friday!
The boys in Redmond got sent a few OLPC test models recently and are trying to get Windows up and running on them. Though the article points out that “the OLPC has 512MB of flash memory and Windows XP requires 1.5GB minimum”, Microsoft may not be trying to get Windows XP on the OLPC. Microsoft has multiple OS solutions for all sorts of devices on the market and I doubt they’ll limit themselves to just one particular version of their OS.
If anything, Microsoft would take Vista and strip it down or try a light version of Windows 2000. Perhaps Microsoft is even working on a unique, embedded solution that no one has a clue about. I also doubt that Microsoft would charge for the version of Windows for the OLPC given the considerable involvement Microsoft has in charities.
Either way, we’ll have to wait and see what happens with this one. Right now the OLPC runs on a custom version of Fedora Linux, which seems to be working just fine.
For the past year, we’re sure that the OLPC team has been hard at work designing the $100 laptop for poor kids in Africa. We’re proud that they’re so committed to the job, but everyone needs a break once in a while. In comes the classic FPS Doom to keep the team entertained. Seems Christopher Blizzard (total porn name) and his buddies over at the OLPC offices threw Doom on the OLPC and had a ball.
Doom looks, sounds, and plays great on the OLPC and the controls are sweet thanks to the d-pad on the side of the laptop. Peep the video above to see a bunch of dorks shooting up Imps whilst giggling like schoolgirls.
Quanta XO 2B1 laptops to roll off the assembly line in Shanghai as part of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative.
The first 1,000 machines are set for rigorous environmental testing to simulate the harsh conditions they’ll eventually be used in. Tests will include dropping the XOs from various heights, children pounding on the keyboards, and making sure the encasements are dirt-and-dust resistant. Debug kits are also going out to developers to test out the apps that make up the notebooks’ OS.
After this round of testing, the next units produced will go to school children in Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria and Thailand to get knocked around in real-life conditions as the final phase of testing before mass production begins in the summer of 2007.
2B1, so they don’t hit the open market full of security holes. Apparently the comments made by Ivan Krstic at the Toorcon computer security convention (and reported by TG Daily) were off the record, though. Still TG is standing behind the accuracy of what it heard.
The One Laptop Per Child initiative announced today that it had named its first “$100 laptop” the Children’s Machine, aka the CM1. Each unit will feature a 400Mhz AMD Geode processor, a 7.5″ LCD display and will be mesh network compliant. It will also include VoIP and an SD slot. The CM1 is physically for completely remote areas in that it is physically powered by a drawstring generator.
So there you have it, OLPC has now named their first $140 laptop, some more nonconsequential news from the company. I’d genuinely like to see this product come to fruition, but at times it seems pretty questionable. The information changes almost weekly and its often doubtful that it will ever make it to production–I really hope that’s not the case.
Ah, the gift of giving. And getting. ‘Tis the season (for buying), and those savvy philanthropists at the One Laptop Per Child project have decided to extend the length of their one-for-me, one-for-you, tax-deductible computer sale. Still haven’t decided whether you want one of these sweet little gadgets? Well, now you’ve got a little more time to cogitate, ruminate, and eventually allocate the $399 you’ll need to send one to a needy kid and keep one for your needy self. As an added bonus, you also get a year’s worth of T-Mobile Hotspot access, so you can check CrunchGear while you’re at the airport Starbucks.
Quanta XO 2B1 laptops to roll off the assembly line in Shanghai as part of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative.
U.S. Group Reaches Deal to Provide Laptops to All Libyan Schoolchildren [Seattle PI]
2B1, so they don’t hit the open market full of security holes. Apparently the comments made by Ivan Krstic at the Toorcon computer security convention (and reported by TG Daily) were 
2B1 [laptop.org via 
