OLPC now called the 2B1, still The Children's Machine

There's great news afoot in the world of Nicholas Negroponte, and his favorite little toy-green (or yellow, or orange, etc.) laptop: it's now apparently called the 2B1. This comes after the named CM1, which was preceded by the One Laptop Per Child (now the name of the organization), which was preceded by the $100(ish) Laptop. Of course, given that news of this comes from the ultra-reliable technology known as a wiki, it's totally possible that this is just a prank, or yet another baby step on the road to production. Either way, Engadget is going to be drawing up some fake Ministry of Education stationary any day now so that we can get our hands on a million of these things.

[Via OLPC News]

[mike p @ Aug 28th 2006 11:33AM]

soon we will see cases of people trying to eat them becuase there country thought this was more important then food

[Jon Shipman @ Aug 28th 2006 11:48AM]

@ mike p

I don't think countries with starving children will be buying these. These are more for counties lacking First world tech. Countries like rural China, parts or India, and Greece.

[brandon_r87 @ Aug 28th 2006 12:13PM]

#1 These kids are smarter than that. Kids that get them will band together to use their new technology to sell them on ebay for inflated prices to curious Americans. Then they'll use that money to buy food. So you can forget about buying a million Engadget, just wait until you can get one on ebay.

[Scott @ Aug 28th 2006 12:20PM]

Sell them on Ebay? I wasn't award 3rd World Children were very savvy on Ebay Pirating. How are they going to get the money from these Ebay sales? Their Paypal Accounts?

[Tony Rayo @ Aug 28th 2006 12:21PM]

You know people can make all the jokes they want or critize this program, but it's ment to teach people (esp. children) how to use computers (and having a computer to use is the first big step to this). Depending on the power of the planned mesh networking, this might even become a hub for making phonecalls and other such activities that they otherwise would be restricted to.

The hope is that by exposing children to technology at a young age they will be able to get better jobs (or just jobs period) in the future, which will help everyone (well, possibly not the people that could be hurt by outsourcing) as well as a teaching tool for other educational topics. There are lots of brains out there ripe for technology, they just need a chance (*thinks of all the great computer-related minds to come out of the former-USSR*).

- Tony R.

[craig @ Aug 28th 2006 12:27PM]

This was posted a couple of days ago on this site: http://www.engadget.com/search/?q=olpc

[Raider @ Aug 28th 2006 12:37PM]

Like I said before. This thing looks like a tellytubby, now where is the gay purple one?

[Joe @ Aug 28th 2006 12:49PM]

Nice name. What happens when they come out with the next version? 2B2? I guess I'll just have to wait for the 3rd version: 3B1. Sounds a lot like that time I tried to talk my wife into that thing with her hot college friend.

[MichaelLC @ Aug 28th 2006 1:24PM]

@ Jon Shipman:

You're right, the US probably won't buy that many.

[JC @ Aug 28th 2006 2:36PM]

Posts #1 and #3 are just plain ignorant.

The entire point is that countries are neglecting the immediate need for human aid, but that in addition to providing food, these laptops will give the children an opportunity to learn at a more efficient and faster rate than conventional methods, empowering them in the long run to change their situation.

Nobody's denying that there are starving people out there, but let's give them a hand up instead of a hand down, shall we?

[JC @ Aug 28th 2006 2:46PM]

Oops, let's give them a hand up instead of a hand _our_, rather. Hee.

[Frihet @ Aug 28th 2006 2:47PM]

This is a very important machine. Not only from the point of view of its intended purpose. But also because it inserts a computer free of so-called "intellectual property" rights limitation hardware and software into the market, and because this very, very technologically advanced machine is really a much better portable computer than anything else presently available -- for doing what one really needs to do. Expect it to morph into countless variations with broad open-source community software support.

[deslock @ Aug 28th 2006 2:54PM]

> Posted at 11:32AM on Aug 28th 2006 by mike p
>
> soon we will see cases of people trying to eat them
> becuase there country thought this was more important
> then food

Maybe if you had one of these laptops when you were a kid, you'd understand the differences between there/their and then/than.

[Ed Gordo @ Aug 28th 2006 4:00PM]

I don't think that the ones talking about starving children understand that third world countries have millions of children that are not starving but can't afford to get in touch with technology - the great problem is digital ignorance and lack of good quality education. Education is the key to develop these countries, to their future. Those little notebooks could be the chance for many of them to escape from drug traffic and crime in general. But I can also see an evil application for these computers...they can be taken from the children by drug dealers in the slums (favelas) and used for communication during police intervention, gang wars or just for better logistics...

[Matt @ Aug 29th 2006 12:31AM]

its a very ugly machine.. and how would third world kids even plug them in if they cant afored food theres no point and look like shit

[ECM @ Aug 29th 2006 12:46PM]

Let's see: more teachers and books or a gadget. Yeah, real tough call...

I think some of you are failing to understand how much $100 is in exactly the places this thing would be used.

And whoever said rural China, India, etc.--these people don't have PLUMBING and you want to give them a notebook computer?!

[cracovie @ Sep 20th 2006 1:16PM]

I'm not sure how great it is as a teaching tool but I think that the design would definitely make even my two-year old love computers.