Working Model of MIT $100 Laptop a Hit 440
capt turnpike writes "The One Laptop per Child association and its chairman, MIT Media Labs's Nicholas Negroponte, unvelied a working model of their $100 laptop at the Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange (MITX) show, and the little laptop that might was a hit. It's got a version of Fedora Linux, is rugged, and each unit will work as part of a wireless mesh automatically. From the article: "However, as Negroponte put it in his address, One Laptop per Child isn't all about the laptops. The main goal is to tap into the ability of every child to toss away a manual and figure out how to make gadgets work on their own, thus helping children help themselves to learn." eWEEK.com also has photos."
It's not a toy / specs (Score:5, Informative)
The specs?
500 Mhz chip
128 MB RAM
512 MB Flash Memory
Want one? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:$130 (Score:5, Informative)
"According to Negroponte, the $100 laptop will initially cost around $135 and he expects the price to drop to $50 by 2010."
Re:$130 (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Where's the crank? (Score:3, Informative)
"This working model sported many differences from the early prototypes that were seen previously. The biggest change is that the laptop no long features a directly attached crank for powering the laptop in areas without electricity--the crank has now been moved to the power supply."
Re:OMG THE SICKENING COLOR! :) (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously, aren't bright reds and oranges supposed to make you a little nuts if you're surrounded by them too much?
Not really. Colors have different effects depending upon the culture. For example, Americans tend to associate orange with hunger, but in the far East it is considered soothing. Some colors do have cross-cultural implications, like splatters of red increasing blood pressure and stress, but those are usually less prominent. Offering a variety of colors provides options for different regions.
Re:Where's the crank? (Score:4, Informative)
I was at the keynote last night and he referenced (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Usability? (Score:3, Informative)
It uses NiMH. (Score:3, Informative)
Longer article on WorldChanging; hw-hackable! (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/004543.html [worldchanging.com]
I found this bit fascinating:
Me so hungry (Score:2, Informative)
As I have said before, improve the infrastructure of most third world countries so that every citizen has access to food, clothing, shelter, clean water and medicine, then I will support the idea that children in these countries need a computer.
Children need to eat before they need to learn! MIT doesn't seem to think this is necessary, they even developed a computer that will kill off a child starving of faminie more quickly by forcing them to have to use up what little energy they have to wind their computer up. I think this will be used as a form of genocide. Don't worry about sending in the Red Cross, just air drop cheap laptops, that will take care of all those poor starving children!
Sorry, this will be a gimmick product that will sell well in developed countries but I don't believe for a second they will improve the life of third world children.
Re:If you want to program for this thing do you ne (Score:1, Informative)
It offers 3 USB ports and there is an oversized mouse touchpad below the keyboard (a bit hard to see)
Re:They are thinking from a western POV.... (Score:4, Informative)
They are fairly clear that they are looking for national ministries of education to purchase them in bulk and distribute them nationally through schools on the basis of "one laptop per child", not only is this goal reflected in the name of the project (One Laptop Per Child), but detailed more specifically in the FAQ [laptop.org]:
How clear can they be?Re:Teach a kid to fish... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Teach a kid to fish... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:An idea (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Typing two words to get help (Score:2, Informative)
And when you do go that route, might I suggest "pinfo"?
Actually, I kinda like both. I like 'man' pages because often time I have no idea what section will answer a particular question I have. Since a man page is flat, I can just grep through it looking for phrases I think relate to the issue. With Info pages, everything's all subdivided and categorized, so if I miscategorize my question, I'm going to be there awhile.
That said, Info files tend to be more complete than their man-page counterparts.
--Joealso check my OLPC Nick Negroponte keynote video (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Teach a kid to fish... (Score:3, Informative)
A separate crank-powered charger is still a possibility. If cranked by a larger person, it could charge several of the laptops at once. So we'll see communities with a bunch of burly teenagers with Popeye arms.
Re:For the children (Score:2, Informative)
One they were demoing definetely has a screen you can rotate around and fold. http://www.eweek.com/slideshow_viewer/0,1205,l=&s