Starting November 12th you can finally fork over some cash for an XO and get one shipped to your door -- as long as you're willing pay double for some kid in a developing nation to get one as well. It'll cost you $399, which is hardly a bargain given the other cheap-as-free laptops making the rounds these days, but the XO is undoubtedly novel, and we imagine not a few nerds will want to get their hands on one this holiday season, or at least bestow the little green machine upon one of their nerdling progeny. Apparently this offer, which has been
rumored for quite a
while now, will only last for a limited time -- OLPC News has it on good authority the promo will go for two weeks, and the machines will ship to your door in time for Christmas -- but it's never to early or late to donate toward the project in general. $200 will build and ship a laptop to one of those millions of kids who totally needed to be playing Doom yesterday.
[Via
OLPC News]
posted Sep 23rd 2007 8:47PM
It may not be all that cheap, but what other laptop has ears?
SCAM!!! RIPOFF!!! GIMMICK!!!
ANY PERSON/ORGANIZATION THAT DONATED TOWARD THIS OR INVESTED IN THIS SHOULD SUE. It was all just a gimmick for them to make sub-par laptops to sell to consumers.
I wonder how long before walmart has an exclusive contract to sell these...and I wonder how long before its the same poor kids these were meant for, that are working in sweatshops building them.
I know I want to buy every kid on my block a XO Xmas surprise: http://www.olpcnews.com/countries/usa/olpc_xo_sales_christmas_buy.html
Great idea, isn't going to work.
you are dumb... :)
LOL this has gone so horribly wrong.
Yes indeed. Probably a better idea to try and make some kind of deal with Asus and use the Asus Eee instead.
Why would you want one?
with a normal os isntalled onto it, it makes a great travel laptop.
think about it: camping:
run out of juice? no prob! wind it up!
over at a friends place and running low on juice? wind it up!
etc...
as a 2nd laptop for programming at the cottage, it's nice. would be nicer for 299 tho...
Er... didn't they drop the wind up feature?
ya. I just reread that, it's a pull string, and an external charger pull string thingy at that.
scratch that. screw the kids I don't want one. send them a colouring book instead.
if I had money I would buy it, merely for the nobleness in it, they don't even have to give me a second one for me... though I want one ;)
What a bunch of losers. I thought the whole idea was to get this $100 laptop to developing nations. Instead, they're selling for more than a $100 and are trying to get consumers to buy them? Meanwhile Nick Negroponte has gotten an unfathomable amount of press over this horribly conceived project - but you got your 15 minutes of fame eh Nicky? If anybody REALLY wants to help a third world child, I'd boycott this piece of shit contraption and donate $399 directly to some charity. This was a horrible project from the start IMHO. Give the kids food and water and the necessities, if they need to be educated there are things called books, hell of a lot cheaper and more effective.
amen.
people all of the world have said the same thing. the problem with ego-maniacs though is they just figure everyone else is wrong.
Amen,
Nick should have put all that money towards food and books if he really wanted to help the kids.
Most kids IN THE US don't even have a laptop.
I think the real loser is you. wtf? This guy did a noble thing by trying to make computers available to third world countries and to consumers here so that they can sponsor underprivileged children in those nations and stupid Engadget commentators who have contributed nothing to society try to tear him down... giving people food and water is great and all but ever hear of teaching a man to fish??
Last time I checked, I paid an average of $120 PER textbook.
the idea is to have a laptop so that children can use "up-to-date" e-books which cost a fraction of the price. Textbooks can easily be 50 dollars in the US; with a cheap laptop, they can have multiple books which are always up to date. Plus, they will likely use it through high school...
At everyone who says someone should donate food, i agree to a degree; however, history shows us that education is crucial to "civilized"/advanced civilization/society. To those who will argue that education can be achieved through books; what child in a developing country wants to go to school? This would be a major motivator... :D
@John
US schools already have textbooks. Anyways the US educational system is generally left behind (no pun intended). Look at Houston Texas!
I second you ryhan! teach the man how to fish...
even so, I doubt no one would be giving a laptop computer to a child that desperately needs food... this is obviously for people who ALREADY have food, but can't afford computers...
Actually, a ton of kids in developed countries want to go to school. They don't take it for granted like we do.
Ryan: “the idea is to have a laptop so that children can use "up-to-date" e-books which cost a fraction of the price. Textbooks can easily be 50 dollars in the US; with a cheap laptop, they can have multiple books which are always up to date”
E-books don’t cost a fraction of the price and are in general only a few dollars cheaper than the printed version. The cost of printing a book is minimal and most of the fee for a book goes to is the author’s royalties and publisher’s profit hence the reason e-books are only marginally cheaper. A $50 book will still be very close to $50 in electrical form except they’ll also have the expense of the computer and be forced to read it off a poor quality screen. I just bought two hooks and there was the option to get them only in electrical form but I paid the extra few dollars for the printed version since reading a book is so much easier on the eye.
I really don’t see the benefit of a computer in education at all. Schools in the US who have issued laptops to students have found they offered no benefits. Giving a child a computer only distracts them from education and aids them in no way. This is simply money down the toilet.
@Jesse S
admittedly, there are the few; however, my experiences in Bangladesh convince me that pressure from the family to work at home and the general misconceptions about education convince most to stay home.
In a family where no one before you was educated, then would you understand what the benefit of attending school would be? in many third-world countries, children are not in the position to always go to school wither.
hmm... it WOULD be interesting if they could use downloadable lectures (video) so that children can study at any time at any pace, but again nothing substitutes a human being. or does it? :D
@Charles
I'm obviously bored, but if it was written by the government, then it would be a fraction of the price. We're not talking commercial e-books here. (At least thats my impression)
What are these "books" that you speak of?
The problem is that Nick is saying these laptops are for teh poorest of teh poor. Instead, it should be for those kids who have the bare essentials .. but now need laptops to move up to more skilled work such as designing the irrigation systems .. using the latest farming techniques etc. all of which possible by communication and access to the internet.
The OLPC project really should stop saying thislaptop is for the starving poorest kids it's better suited for the poor kids .. some of whom may even be right here in the US. They should sell the laptop for $200 at walmart. Why not?
>>> I personally believe that US Americans aren't able to do so, because... uh SOME people out there in our nation don't have laptops, and I believe that our education like such as in South Africa, and the eyeRaq, everywhere LIKE SUCH AS AND I believe that our education over here in the US should help South Africa and should help the eyeRaq and Asian countries so we'll be able to build up our future!
Is it tax deductible? If its posable to write off the entire/some of the cost, depending on the person's salary, it could be free/cheep for most Americans too.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm no CPA.
I believe so; however, I dont believe that the resulting savings would even barely cover the cost... :)
Darn, that puts "get free laptops, make a profit from tax-deductions, and sell the laptops on ebay for more" idea down the drain... :D
"it's never too early or late..."
There, fixed that for you.
Which were the specs of this stuff?
http://www.laptop.org/laptop/hardware/specs.shtml
Hey everyone, the $100 dollar laptop will not cost anywhere near $100. Can anyone else say boycott?
It's bad enough that hard drive manufacturers rape wallets daily with false advertisments of what's really in the box. If it's possible to make a drive with a capacity of 698 gigs, why the hell label it 750? I'm so tired of this shit. At least label it as a 700 gig drive. 50 gigs off? What kind of scam is that? How difficult is it to pop a drive in and see what's actually available? The OS used will most likely be Windows or OS X. I'll bet my rusted wheelchair that it's very similiar either way. So please boycott lying electronic device suppliers.
Wow... a couple on topic words followed by a rant about how you were duped because you don't understand binary and decimal numbers...
Great job dude.
That said, it doesn't look like all that much laptop for $400.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=30065
At least with the OLPC program, I wouldn't call it a lie. It was a goal they are currently unable to meet. However, it is still likely they may reach it in a few years when more people are buying these manufacturing costs will be driven down and newer technological advancements will make parts cheaper.
A 750 GB drive is 750,000,000,000 bytes.
You thought you were getting a 750GiB drive.
Ha ha.
Nearly all the major innovations of the OLPC revolve around power saving features. A reflective screen mode that consumes only 0.2 watts, power-saving modes and a very efficient processor, etc. All this is designed so that the laptop can be very effective in areas without electricity. The problem is, children living in areas without electricity have other things to worry about besides having a laptop.
Screw the kids, let them go play in nature.
$399 for this "price inflated" P.O.S or should I get a ps3 this Xmas? Hrmm... I think I'll blow my 399 on a PS3 :)
I don't think they opened up the PS3 GPU yet-- so you'd get a cell processor, but the graphics wouldn't be that great... I mean, if you use it as a PC. I don't see the point of a game console. Mutant business model that needs to die, imo.
My prediction: y'all naysaying OLPC sales will be over at my house on Dec 26 begging to be playing DOOM on the XO: http://www.olpcnews.com/software/third_party/doom_on_the_olpc_xo.html
The vitriol against the OLPC is just crazy. At the very least, we should exalt it as an excellent piece of kit, and I expect Engadget to get one and review it as soon as possible!!
Check out laptop magazine's hands-on. Best look at the actual machine out there:
http://www.laptopmag.com/Features/Hands-On-with-One-Laptop-Per-Child-XO-Laptop.htm
$399 can buy a fully functional desktop than can be shared by an entire classroom. Multiply $399 by 30 (students per class) and there's enough money to wire the entire school with electricity. This idea is cute but not very practical.
well when I read the article, it was $200 per laptop. one for you, and one for a child in a TWC. so, yes, it costs YOU $400 for one, but it also costs ZERO for them. hence the "Give on Get one" slogan.
how can people come to comment on a story and be completely wrong when that story has the description in big bold letters in both the title AND story?!?
you NEED one of these, maybe YOU can learn a little too, and while your out $400, some kid in a third world country will get to learn too.
"Starting November 12th you can finally fork over some cash for an XO and get one shipped to your door -- as long as you're willing pay double for some kid in a developing nation to get one as well."
its all in the article.....
Colababy, RTFA.
"Wire the school for electricity."
Since you don't have the first clue about what you're trying to comment on, it might be best if you, and anyone else who has zero understanding of the infrastructure problems in the developing world, could just kind of refrain from commenting.
There are plenty of people in the developing world who have yet to see stairs, let alone electricity service.
Merry Christmas! XO XO XO
Does it come with a crank or can I plug it into a power outlet?
My initial response was going to be "Well, just send them second hand laptops". But after reading that, the XO does sound like it's got some good ideas in it. Ruggedness, simplicity, peer to peer networking, handwriting and tablet abilities, keyboards for different alphabets.
There's been some good thought put into it.
I still have to wonder if a Laptop is more important than more basic things. It seems a bit like "Tennis for the Underprivileged".
This project isn't intended for places without basic life needs. The concept is not to drop a hundred thousand of these in darfur and hope for the best. Rather, it is aimed at developing nations where life needs are taken care of but access to technology is currently very limited. This will bring modern networking and web capabilities to these important regions and help bring them into the future.
$399 for that thing? No Thanks! Not when you can get a new laptop for $299 after instant/mail-in rebates from several different stores.
Good luck getting hardware drivers for that thing with an OS that doesn't phone home.
"Good luck getting hardware drivers for that thing with an OS that doesn't phone home."
A Compaq or Toshiba preloaded with XP Home? A few brick and motor stores had them for $299 after rebates. Office Max had the same deal if I recall correctly.
It's amazing the number of ignorant, self-righteous, short-sighted and materialistic people with little or no idea of world economics that comment here.
It was nicknamed the $100 laptop because that's the TARGET. They are hoping that the volume will increase to eventually bring down the cost to that level.
To all those ignorant idi*ts saying how much better the kids will be if we just give them food and so on, guess what, we've been doing this for decades and it hasn't improved. This is a chance to really fix the problem, i.e. educate the people so that they have a chance to understand that the lack of food/water/money are symptoms of a deeper problem. Fixing the symptoms has always been just a temporary measure, this is a chance at striking at the root of the problems, e.g. the corruption at the government levels.
To the poster that said (s)he'd rather give $400 to a charity, I say, yeah right, I doubt you've ever donated $10.
Most of you imbeciles can do is bitch about how it's going to cost YOU so much, and so Negroponte must be some scheming trickster who's trying to con your money.
Whether or not this project will work out in the long run is yet to be seen, but at least he has a vision to help change the world for the better. While most of you nay-sayers, living comfortably in housings most likely provided by your parents, spend most of your thinking how you can score freebies, whether it is food or gadgets or other things. Sure, we all like a slice of free pizza or a movie ticket every now and then, but do you ever even do something about the billion other people who are much much worse off than you?
You people make me sick.
If you think you can do it better, then go and do it. Otherwise, STFU.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who was disillusioned by most of the comments on this post.
I'm buying one the day it comes out because I truely believe in the abilities of education and technology to improve the world, because it means a kid somewhere in the world has a chance to break out of the poverty cycle, and because its a really damn cool toy for me to play with.
Agreed.
You're laughable dude. Put down the blunt and the bag of cheetoz and your IPOD and listen for a second.
When was the last time you did well in class when you were hungry? Poverty and hunger isn't an overnight fixable problem. Yes getting them educated is important, but first things first. Lets get them disease free potable water, a reliable roof over their heads, proper clothing, and a regular meal. Once they have those four things then you can start to worry about an education.
But you argue that all the money we've given has been in vain prior to this project? You are a bigger dork than I thought. Ummm yes poverty affects most of the world's population. I doubt it will ever completely go away. To think that all that money hasn't helped people is completely ludicrous.
Now onto the education. You really think a laptop even a $100 is going to end this cycle of poverty. If it comes down to the quality of an education, look at recent articles about laptops in the schools here. http://www.pbs.org/teachers/learning.now/2007/05/schools_drop_laptop_programs_b.html
Were talking first world countries here and guess what NO improvement. Now were talking about third world countries here, were talking about the basics of an education which can be obtained from 10-20yo textbooks that are likely to cost more to ship than to obtain (No not your brand new $120 collegate chemistry book Ping Wang). Your basically talking about swatting a fly with a .357. Plus to magically get this content to the laptop (because its not going to teach itself right out of the box), you need more infrastructure the most important being a teacher.
Add this all up, with the cost increases and the commercialization and I think Negroponte's vision is a flop. Even if they get them down to a few bucks to manufacture, while the delivery system is nice but you'll still need content and teachers. Regardless of what happens, one thing you have to admit is that Negroponte has gotten a lot of world wide attention over this. I doubt he'll call a world wide press conference announcing the 2 for 1 OLPC deal.
As far as myself I've done more to help humanity than you ever have. I'm not going to go into the details but I love what I do, am currently doing a postdoc, and I'm making about as much as your average Walmart employee. So before you go and judge me, to put it nicely, fuck off asswipe.
So many people are ignorant about the developing world. It's not a bunch of starving people living in mud huts covered with flies. Most of them have enough to eat. There is enough food being grown and imported to feed people everywhere in the world EXCEPT where there are wars (like in Darfur, where Arabs are deliberately massacring and starving blacks--if they would stop, we could easily get the food aid to the hungry people).
It's not like kids who get these are going to put the OLPC in their mouth and gnaw on it from the hunger pangs (if that was going to happen, they would have made a leather case for it).
1) I don't use iPod, don't like Cheetoz, no idea what I am holding that is blunt (possibly the mouse?)
2) I did quite well in university when I was starving quite a lot of time. Hunger sharpens the mind, haven't you heard that? Perhaps you've never experienced hunger. Give it a try sometime.
The point it, more advanced nations have been providing water and food to these countries for a long time, but only to very little improvement, basically due to corrupt governments. You simply don't seem to grasp this point. It's been done for decades, and NOTHING HAS IMPROVED. Time for something different. You are like those ignorant parents who douse their kids with cold water when they have a fever, thinking to bring down the temperature. Stupid ass.
3) Not in vain, but most of it went to the governments, not the people. Read some news, for Christ's sake, stop thinking that basement you live in is the entire world.
4) The laptop isn't, the opportunity it brings may. It will hopefully bring:
- higher literacy and communication skills. If fact, the mesh-network will mean it's an alternate, non-government controlled means of wide-area communication method.
- knowledge, about more than just subjects you learn in school, but also about what their leaders are doing, how their neighbours are dealing with drought ...etc.
5) computers in schools in first world countries haven't succeeded because they tend to give students machines which are inferior to what students have at home anyway. Whereas the intended targets of these OLPC machines mostly have no access to computers.
You can easily squeeze a few hundred textbooks into a machine, but bringing a couple hundred textbooks to each student? you are not using that brain that you don't have. The computer is a tool, you tool.
6) It's still to be seen how Negroponte's vision works out, but so far, it's a better vision than yours, which consists of mainly the wad of used tissue in your hands. (Man, stop licking it, it's disgusting).
7) "As far as myself I've done more to help humanity than you ever have."
Hah, extremely improbable. You are either a very bad researcher or have no sense of economics at all. Average Walmart employee makes $10 and hour, which is around 20K. My first year as Postdoc was 37K, based on NIH pay scale. If you are a postdoc as you say and earning Walmart pay, you are either a very bad researcher or you can't write a decent grant proposal.
BTW, this idea of "Give 1 Get 1" is not OLPC's idea. It's sort of a popular request. It's been floating around for quite a while, there are several site that talked about this idea when the project became real enough.
Give it some consideration first...
Some of the many advantages of this machine:
-Rugged enough to be dropped work outside and be bashed around.
-Manually powered, so it can be used in places without electrical infrastructure.
-Mesh networking, which allows each one to daisy-chain network signals along from laptop to laptop even if the unit is off.
Best of all, it will provide knowledge, education and opportunities to people like never before.
Considering many poorer countries provide less than $20 a year per student ($7500 per US pupil) there is little money for books, stationary, maps, texts or .
This machine will be able to provide all of those things and more in one package.
The cost/price will go down soon and significantly, just look at how much laptops in general have fallen in three years.
The success of Trevor Baylis's invention (the wind-up radio) in providing information to people in Africa where the vast majority are rural, poor, and do not have access to electricity; should be considered before ignorantly dismissing this project.
"The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it."
I'm going to paint mine black! Seriously though, compare this to the $400 sony e-reader. The OLPC has a 200dpi dual mode screen, readable in sunlight, you get great wifi range, linux support, a full keyboard, ability to power it with a hand crank, ultralight form factor, games, and a 1GB SSD. PLUS you get a $200 tax credit for the one you donated. How can you go wrong (especially if you paint it black!)?
Regardless of your opinions on the merits of the program, this is still a pretty sweet piece of kit for $400, and you get to help some kid out, too.
Tempting...so Tempting....but I don't even have a 100 around....how am i suppose to get 300 more!?
prostitution.
I think some of the posters should not have a laptop at all .
The idea of this laptop is to have a computer that will work with no electricity and be rugged which you can't find for 200$ or even 400$ , with all the press you should have got it by now and quit with the "get a desktop/walmart laptop etc." remarks .
The main problem I hope they dealt with would be the possible usage of this laptop for internet scams if it falls in the wrong hands .
I really didn't want to comment on this topic as there's litle point trying to change people's opinions on this project, for or against, and also this topic is unrelated to gadgets. However, I think we should get to the basics of this project... what are the objectives?
Well imo there is only one objective, and that's to educate the people who really need education to break this cycle of poverty. I started out thinking that this initiative was a fruitless tree, great idea, however there are many other better ways to get a child educated in countries where finding a book is difficult let alone finding a PC.
But, I've come full cirlce on this project, what other third world inititive has brought about it so much press coverage for such a worthy cause for so long?
Even if it fails it will still have moved the cause that bit closer to finding a solution to poverty in these developing countries.
Perhaps the real objective of this project is education on a global scale, not just in developing countries. It has opened our eyes onto something other than the need for more food or vacines and hopefully made us aware of the greater need for education in the system so that the kids it is aimed at will be the catalysts to other initiatives based within there own countries.
"$200 will build and ship a laptop to one of those millions of kids who totally needed to be playing Doom yesterday."
Seriously Engadget, why would you write that? Could the bunch of smart tech guys & gals at Engadget be so naive, rude, offensive, insensitive? Obviously, yes.
Won't be visiting engadget.com again any time soon.
I want one. Definitely... Just to say I do.
Thank god its finally completed. The African servers for my favorite First Person Shooters can finally be filled.
What the hell is that thing. I must have missed somthing here. Please tell me that mess is for children. If it is for children I take it back and kids will love it.
This is for kids for crying out loud, not for the lazy average Joe in the US.
These are no Dell-IBM-HP competitive hardware devices.
Just pathetic how the purpose of one thing turns to be the highlight of another.
Why would a kid in a third world country who is living at the poverty, or just above poverty level, need the kind of education offered by this device? Seems to me that learning trade skills--plumbing, electrical, carpentry, etc.--is far more important.
Reading and trade skills are not mutually exclusive... you can obtain an education AND learn how these important skills. Infact, in all the trades you mentioned, the worker's abilities could be enhanced by an education and understanding of the mechanics that they are working with.
Further more, the world needs workers and leaders. If you simply train everybody to simply be a worker, where do you expect progress to be made? We have plenty of carpenters, electricians, factory workers and plumbers in America with our education system. Not everybody who obtains an education is a rocket science, but they are all enhanced by it.
First, if the goal is to teach reading, there are much cheaper ways to do it. (For example, you don't have to publish a text book in hardback with glossy pages and overcharge your captive audience for it.)
Second, the notion that a liberal education creates leaders is absurd. The best bosses I've have came up through "the trenches." The worse were Ivy League MBA grads.
Help kids... ...nogt hel kids http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Compaq-Presario-15-4-Widescreen-Notebook-PC-F558US/sem/rpsm/oid/179768/catOid/-12963/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do
hmm
This thing will be a bigger flop than the Segway.
I currently live in a so called "developing nations" and OLPC are.... not working. Those are more a luxury tools rather a laptop for poor kids. You can buy a inexpensive second handed pentium-3 with a "new-and-shinning" 14" crt monitor for less that $70, Windows came for free ;-)
Max, you get a $200 tax deduction, not a tax credit. A tax credit means you have reduced your tax liability by $200, while a deduction means you have reduced your tax liability by maybe 25%-35% of $200 (depending on your bracket).
It's most interesting to me that so many posters think poverty and education should only be tackled with a single approach. Bringing poor nations out of poverty and into a modern economy requires education and access to information. In most poor countries young children have very little access to either even though they have a desire to learn. The current systems in place in most poor nations isn't working at bringing the nation and the people out of poverty, if it were the laptop would have never been created. The simple fact is we need new approaches to the problem.
For example in a nation like Uruguay it's not the kids in the city who have the problem of access to books and education, it's the people living in remote farming villages where the kids have almost no opportunity for education. This laptop brings not only the possibility of ebooks (for which publishing dead trees in these countries far exceeds the $$ available and allows the government to provide up to date electronic learning tools), not only that but the mess-network provides the ability for a single central computer with a network connection and allows every child in the village to access not only distance learning but potentially Internet access as well.
The problem most countries face is lack of opportunity, this exists because the political elite in most locations control access to information. A generation of youth with access to the vast stores of information available in the network would grow up with access to the ideas that could inspire real political change in countries where opportunity is prevented in the name of maintaining the elites position of power.
But the whole point of the laptop is that the current systems don't work, and those that suggest that throwing more money at the same system will make it work is the real solution are deluded. New tools and more access to information is the key to real change, these laptops provide a hope for that and I believe it's a good charitable cause. Should it be the only charity? Certainly not, but providing another channel of access to learning should never be ridiculed the way some self-righteous posters are. The simplest fact anyone should understand is that the current system isn't achieving it's objectives, changing the approach is needed.
There is a lot of hate in here about the OLPC. I just want to let you know that humanitarian work in education has tried many things to get kids in schools. What Negroponte has found and many others is that you get the computers in those poor schools and all of a sudden, school becomes fun and popular for the kids. Where laptops have been tried in poor schools of Cambodia for example, attendance to school soared passed 50%. Its just not the hardware, its what it can represent to the kids. The solution to education in developing countries is going to be very complex but the OLPC can be a part of it.
It is based on field work and field experience that the idea of the OLPC was founded. Will it work? I don't know but so far it is a powerful incentive to help get these kids to school. Please try to use more brain than what I have read in the comments.