Fred H Olson email: fholson at cohousing.org Fred's Link Page This page evolved from Fred's 2/24/08 blog entry Handout for 11/13/08 talk (One page PDF handout with "highlights" info below) Online version of Help / documentation on OLPC with newer software versions. Give one Get program to donate an OLPC to third world child and get one for $399 starts again Nov. 17, 2008 *B Nov 17, 2008 New York Times article about OLPC media / G1G1 campaign 13 minute video of 2007 CBS TV "60 Minutes" segment on OLPC *B that milions of people saw XO-1 software update 11/08 is big improvement Future of OLPC / XO-2 Introduction Fred won a little One Laptop Per Child ( OLPC) laptop at the Penguins Unbound Linux Group meeting Feb. 23, 2008. It is an XO-1 model -- from Nov 2007 G1G1 program that looks like a toy but is a clever educational tool. The goal of the OLPC education program is to get one of these kid friendly devices to kids everywhere in the third world so they can have a powerful education tool that can access the Internet. VIDEO and AUDIO about OLPC -- Links used for Fred's May 32, 2008 presentation about XO Nicholas Negroponte talk on the OLPC vision (video) 8/06 laid out the details of his nonprofit One Laptop Per Child project. Speaking just days after relinquishing his post as director of the MIT Media Lab in 1986, he announced that he'd pursue this venture for the rest of his life. He described the strategy for building the "$100 laptop" and explained why and how the project planned to launch & at scale, & with millions of units to distribute in the first seven countries. {{which did not work out as planned}} "This is not a laptop project; it's an education project," he says. Note that talk was given at TED -- Technology, Entertainment, Design conference Note also that the video cannot be viewed on stock G1G1 XO-1 due to lack of Flash (copyright issues), similarly the MP3 version of audio offered at TED.com cannot be played (MP3 copyright issues). However this Ogg Vorbis version should be useable: NN at Ted Aug 2006 (Ogg Vorbis audio) To help follow the video presentation from audio: Some of the text exhibits shown in the video XO introduction by David Pogue of the New York Times (video) / Eric Pettifor review *B See also The Future of OLPC below Highlights of non-profit OLPC org & current XO-1 model: Picture of OLPC 'XO-1' laptop With features labeled o Goal is universal education of world's children via access to learning communities and to the Internet using purpose built laptops. Supports constructivist learning. OLPC org is huge world wide collaboration. o Hardware design goals: rugged, low cost, long battery life laptop. Modest performance accepted with rugged, downsized (about 9x9x1.25 inches) case. o Relatively environmentally friendly (fewer toxics). o 433 MHz AMD Geode LX700 CPU o Keyboard is 71% normal size, moisture resistant membrane but usable. o No hard drive - 1 Gigabyte Flash drive, 256 MB RAM (currently) 3 USB ports (for external USB flash drive etc) , camera, microphone and speakers built in. o Innovative dual mode (backlit-color/sunlit-monochrome) hi-res 7.5" LCD display. o Ebook ('tablet') mode. Display turns around and folds flat. CPU mostly sleeps in ebook mode to extend battery life considerably (12 hours?) o Built-in wifi with ability to access other OLPCs directly as well as Internet o Can be recharged from any source of 12 volt DC including solar & ext. hand crank charger tho the latter is still not too practical (Fred's estimate). Future lower power versions and better power options may improve this. Recharges quickly from 110/240 volt wall plug. Power is an ongoing challenge / problem. o Power saving suspend mode (10/08) About 15 (?) hour battery life in suspend (wifi on) o Special Linux based evolving, upgradeable open source software that uses collaborative learning environment metaphor GUI "Sugar", instead of usual desktop Sugar has a "journal" of activities used with links to files instead of usual access to filesystem. Can be frustrating to experienced computer users. o Numerous built-in applications - "activities" including Chat, wordprocessor, web browser, music programs, record (from mic and camera), Draw, Calculate, Memorize (game like 'concentration' - match arith. prob & answers), Measure, News Reader. Three simple programming programs: 1) Etoys (animated objects), 2) Turtle Art (Logo-like), 3) Pippy (simplified Python that Sugar is written in), Terminal (to access Linux for advanced users and development). o Goal of mass production at $100 per laptop in 2008 not yet met but cost expected to decline as production increases. Peripherals/Hand Crank - OLPC (Note takes 2 hours of cranking to recharge the battery and is probably marginally practical with the XO-1. The lower power XO-2 may be more reasonable for human power. XO-1 software update 11/08 is big improvement In preparation for the our 11/13/08 talk, I installed upgraded the software on our XO on our OLPC XO-1 and on a another 2007 G1G1 we had borrowed from a neighbor (to build 767 / version 8.2.0 which will be on the 2008 G1G1 XO's ). The upgrade again went well on ours - a few problems on the borrowed one which had nver been upgraded before. Lots of improvements many of which I have yet to explore as of 11/28/08. The biggest single improvement is suspend mode. The Future of OLPC / XO-2 May 2008 Country Workshop Discusses many problems and future software developments for XO-1 as well as the next version XO-2 (aka XOXO) which may have two touch displays and now conventional keypad; one of the displays could be used as a keyboard. "Gen-2 Touch" The XO-2 is in very early stages of development in 2008 and won't be available till 2010 or later. Blog about 5/08 XO-2 announcement wiki.laptop.org on XO-2 Related work on multi-pointer X, by Peter Hutterer, video demonstrations on YouTube YT-ol "Touch support" Related video: YT-Ar *B Multi Pointer X server (MPX) (end of 5/31/08 notes) Wikipedia:Olpc OLPC related links I bookmarked in the first 6 weeks owning an OLPC. March - April 2008Support - OLPC One Laptop per Child -- abt org OLPC XO-1 abt the hardware Sugar (GUI) - GUI of XO OLPC Wiki Simplified user guide - OLPC Ask OLPC a Question - OLPC One Laptop per Child (OLPC laptop.org ) One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is a new, non-profit association dedicated to research to develop a low-cost, connected laptop, a technology that could revolutionize how we educate the world's children. OLPC NEWS and objective / critical views One Laptop Per Child News is an independent source for news, information, commentary, and discussion of the One Laptop Per Child $100 dollar laptop: Children's Machine XO, developed by MIT Media Lab co-founder Nicholas Negroponte. IN America - OLPC Education Futures Ā» OLPC Doug Johnson's Blog - OLPC Dave Shields XO blog OLPC key to node symbols in nbhd an introduction to the XO laptop OLPC bug tracker TeleRead: E-Books (OLPC comments1/08) News on e-books, digital libraries, publishing and related topics such as copyright. Podcasts available. Teleread on OLPC American schoolchildren from low-income families will soon be able to learn on the same kind of spiffy green laptopĀ that students in Peru, Nigeria and Blog of Peacecorp vol. who tryed XO and rejected it Cursor jumps advice USB ethernet adaptors - OLPC Forth Lessons - OLPC January 2007 | Shuttleworth Foundation *B If we are to lift Africa from her current circumstances, we will need a generation of learners that are gifted with curiousity about the world in which they live, and the tools to understand and shape that world. olpc Freeplay Clamp Charger Studio Fibonacci, LLC, XO Laptop Add-ons and Accessories Studio Fibonacci, LLC : - XO Accessories XO Power XO Hacks XO Swag XO Books OLPC, open source, XO, $100 laptop, linux laptop
A few more recent sites I've bookmarked Olpc-update - OLPC *B Stable Upgrade - OLPC Activation and developer keys - OLPC OLPC Conf 2008 Scratch programming - imagine, program, share See 2008 OLPC conf. presentation by Alan Kay Owlproject at MIT media lab *B See 2008 OLPC conf "Activities Presentation" by Joackim (Fri) Sparky's Blog Stuck OLCP keys 8/23/08 XO manual FLOSS Manuals (en) OLPC.COM
Text Exhibits shown in the Nicholas Negroponte video of the OLPC vision (video) 8/06 [Times in video in square brackets] [1:34] The basic principles Children are our most precious natual resource Solution to poverty,peace, environment is education Teaching is one but not the only way to achieve learning [6:00] One Laptop Per Child o Non-Profit Association with $20 million funding thru NRE o Scale, scale, scale Launch 7-10 million in 2007 100-200 million in 2008 7 large diverse countries o provided free to kids [8:44] Getting to the $100 Laptop Gross Breakdown of Laptop Costs 2005 [Pie chart] 50% Sales, Marketing, Distribution 25% Other 25% Hdwe to Support itself Display: $6-10 per diagonal inch [12:54] Seven countries + Massachusetts (maybe) problem with bidding China India Thailand Egypt Nigeria Brazil Argentian [14:06] Timeline Nov 17 announced WSIS Dec 12 Quanta agreed to build May 24 Learning Learning @ MIT July '06 final country commitment Q3 '06 developer prototypes Q4 '06 education prototypes Q1 '07 rollouts Maybe free laptops at Ted 2008 [15:45] Economics Initial and launch Central government funded Single Order Subsequent Philanthropic Organizations Child-to-child funding Commercial subsidy Adopt-a-village Etc. olpcfred fredolpc