Fred's One Laptop Per Child page

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 2008

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