The noble goal of a $100 laptop for developing nations has come to fruition -- but of course at a higher cost and later date than expected. One Laptop Per Child has succeeded in delivering 900,000
XO laptops into the hands of kids, but that's a far cry from the many millions expected and Chairman Nicholas Negroponte is pulling no punches in describing what went wrong. He's still
bitter at Intel, claiming it worked to "spoil the market," and angry about many nations cutting back on large deals. But, he isn't just lashing outwardly, calling the custom Linux-based operating system that runs the XO, a "mistake," saying "Sugar should have been an application" of the sort it has now morphed to be with
Sugar on a Stick. Too little too late? OLPC has already made
massive staff cuts and sales from the Give One, Get One program dropped 90 percent last year. With machines like the
EduBook selling for $160 to institutions and able to run common operating systems, we're not seeing the future get any more bright for this little green guy.
[Via
Slashdot]
posted Jul 21st 2009 7:14AM
sad
You spelled "predictable" wrong.
His goal was noble, and I would say delivering this miracle of technology into the hands of over 900,000 children was a resounding success and noteworthy thing, even if he had wanted higher. These devices have touched far more than the 900,000 people they were shipped to, there are sibling, families, friends, comminities. Negroponte needs to be applauded for his great work.
What nine HUNDRED THOUSAND???!?!?!
its over 9000
thats for sure
Exactly. His goal was very noble, and in fact he ended up helping to create the netbook market which will ultimately get a commercial $100 laptop for kids in developing countries. In just two years or so from now, they'll be a ton of used netbooks and smartbooks. And with 45nm ARM processors (or newer more power efficient Atom models), they can no doubt be powered by the Sun with cheap solar cells or even a hand crank.
Most people in western countries lament the fact that hardware has surpassed (basic average user) software and so even the cheapest PCs can easily run basic applications like word processing, photo editing, web browsing, etc. Not to mention the move to cloud services and web applications. But the great advantage to this is that you no longer need to spend $2000 on a computer to do basic tasks. Even notebooks have come WAY down in price in the last 5 years. Older used PCs, and smaller devices with cheap hardware are now capable of the same basic functions as a new PC. This is awesome for developing countries and the 4 Billion on earth that don't have a computer/netbook/smartphone etc.
Geeks loves new gadgets and smartphones and computers, and it is great fun to have new things. but far too many people fall in to the trap of modern mass culture and don't consider the plight of the BILLIONS of people who deal with starvation, lack of clean water, lack of shelter, and preventable illness on a daily basis. Please don't think you need to change the world to make a difference, every little bit helps. Please spend some of your disposable income, time, or effort to help those in need. If you want to do something geeky, a great way to spend one day a month is to help organizations that fixup old donated PCs and laptops and setup them up for people in developing countries, or places like local women's shelters, homeless shelters, unemployment offices, public libraries, where they can help people get on their feet.
ok so it didn't work out like they planned, but in the bigger picture, even the idea of a $100 laptop really pushed manufacturers to make computing more affordable for everyone. no surprise on the timing of the introduction of the first netbook. it was the OLPC that really pushed the envelope.
Any brighter, not any more bright.
THANK YOU! God reading that made my head explode.
I know, lets spend more money on weapons!
Idiot leaders.
Guns are an effective teaching tool, you get shot in the face with one, you're dead! Lesson learned.
My bachelor Thesis was about the XO and just at that time the first eeePC came (Christmas 2007). Already then I mentioned in my conclusion, that if the XO didn't adapt, it would fail. Now, I am not even interested in economy, (I theorized about possible learning software on Sugar) so I say if they failed, it was their arrogance and ignorance...cause... they can't honestly "just" have realized that they made a mistake ?! Too little, too late - definitely !
This is the fate I expected for XO. XO didn't think about what poor people wanted, they thought about what poor people *should* want, about how they thought computers should be, about what cool stuff they could invent. Poor people never needed anything other than the prices of conventional computing technology and internet access to go down enough for them to afford it. Which, given industry trends, was inevitable. Not sexy, but...?
I partially agree, but I don't think either you or I understand what "poor people want." Negroponte's goal was to provide usable technology to the poorest children, to be used in solely in education. If the families benefited, well that was just icing. The poorest of the poor usually don't have electricity, so that means using the hand crank and solar power. I don't see either of those power sources a whole lot in conventional computers or laptops. Alternate energy sources are still expensive, so I think OLPC had the right idea. It's a very sad day indeed when someone who puts their heart and soul into helping those less fortunate gets put under in part by those who are after profits alone.
"I partially agree, but I don't think either you or I understand what 'poor people want'"
I think you and I both can make a pretty good guess if we think about it for a minute. Poor people want what richer people already have. Keep in mind that there are really no special TVs, MP3 players, CD or DVD players, or cell-phones for poor people -- just low-end versions of the same technology we all use. And there's a good reason for that, because if poor people use standard technology they get the benefits of standardization (e.g. untold thousands of programs already written for standard machines and operating systems). They don't need custom, for poor-people-only technology that cuts them off from all those benefits -- just because a bunch of guys at MIT who think they're both more noble and smarter than everybody else has decided this is the perfect chance to start from scratch, indulge themselves, and show everybody how it's done. If it sounds like I'm not sorry they got schooled--I'm not. Poor people will get access to computing and the internet and it will be through for-profit companies who see opportunities -- and that's as it should be.
BRAVO !! Mr Negroponte.
The Sugar interface is not good, they made some OS design decisions that don't make sense and a lot of their key markings and on-screen icons are nearly as hard to decipher as hieroglyphs.
The machine is slow, the screen is not good, the keys are awful, the handle is uncomfortable, the trackpad sketchy and the battery appalling and its ability to connect to a protected wifi severely limited. Alone, it's a curiosity.
All that said, my son loves his. His classmates love his and want their own. And that's where this would shine. You can see the glimmer of a series of excellent ideas as you move about the XO and you can see how it would really rock in a class full of other XOs.
But as basic hardware/software? My circa 1996 eMate is superior (except for the built-in wifi) and my first gen eee701 kicks the XO's skinny green buttock.
Can't blame this just on Sugar, Negroponte.
it should run Android. or Google Chrome OS
Obviously, the OLPC is about as powerful as a iPhone right now (probably less so) so you could easily manufacture a version that costs $100 as long as it runs a license free OS and you get several manufactures to make it.
Initially was developer to run linux-gnome but Negroponte decided to reinvent the wheel. Since then, many linux developers decided to turn the back to OLPC. This was the first massive desertion of the project.
Later, OLPC was delayed for about 2 years and the initial price was increased by over 40%, causing the second massive desertion (including several key-customers).
And finally, OLPC tried to pact a alliance with... Microsoft (!?), pushing the third massive desertion.
I think Negroponte's comments are mostly on the mark. I did a very detailed assessment of the OLPC over a year ago, and came to very similar conclusions regarding Sugar.
Read about it here: http://villamil.org/?p=101
In a nutshell, by using Sugar the OLPC program cut itself off from the work of thousands of developers, and created a machine that does not interoperate well with existing network and computing infrastructure.
I recently installed an up-to-date version of Ubuntu on two OLPCs, and the difference is night & day. Finally the machine's owners, a 2 yr and a 6 yr old, enjoy using it!
Gian Pablo Villamil, I don't know what to say about your assessment! It's unfortunate. Is it a good or a bad thing?
....that, from what I can make of the article in your link, you seem to exhibit a greater real-world understanding of OLPC than John Negroponte himself. Are they really that removed from the people they are setting out to help?
Were you one of the guys that OLPC refused to or forgot to hire? Were you a part of the recent staff cuts? Or simply one of the thousands of potential volunteers that OLPC brushed aside?
"The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions"
Do you remember that OLPC wasn't a gift but a purchase?, hence Negroponte did the same as thousand of other salesmen for the third world: sell crap.
Thanks but no thank.
And no, it is not about the power of the machine or not. Practically all software developer started programming in a inexpensive 8 bits machine. For example the ZX Spectrum ran at 3.5mhz (46kbytes ram) while the OLPC is a 500mhz machine (128mbytes ram).
Incidentally, some EMTs carry "sugar on a stick" (or, perhaps, sugar in the form of a stick) to treat diabetics going into insulin shock. Apparently, it is inserted into the body where "it is most rapidly absorbed": yup, the pooper.
So, take from that little vignette what you wish.
I think turning their back on the market was their biggest mistake.
If they had actually been willing to sell them as a regular product to regular people, they would have moved a lot more units and made a lot more money. Back in 06, there were tons of people who would have preordered one at $199.
It would have given them a much bigger developer community, which in turn would have made it easier to sell to the countries they were actually targeting.
Maybe they would have had the cash to make an OLPC 2.0 then.
RIP OLPC you POS
"He's still bitter at Intel, claiming it worked to 'spoil the market,'" -- uh, yeah, that's called competing. OLPC thought they were bringing infrastructure to the Third World; but Intel saw them as introducing a low-end competitor that would convince people that high-end laptops with Intel chips were unnecessary. (Both were right.) Negroponte should have realized that Intel would see him as a competitor, and looked for a way to get them on his side. Maybe he could've convinced them to sell him trailing-edge CPUs and GPUs, so that they'd still be making money off XOs.
Basically, from the whole XO saga, it was not the technology that caused it's [cough] downfall. Basically, Negroponte got schooled in Free Markets 101.
Competition is good, but if you keep assuming that the world will play nice and let YOU be "king of a project" to *make money* (after all, the OLPC was supposed to "make money" to pay for it--it's still "making money") and ignore the fact there's an industry out there, well you deserve to be wacked by the competition even if they play dirty tricks... Theory is great for ideas, but execution is a completely different challenge.
My personal opinion is that there was a decided lack of good support to go with the machines. Also, there was never a killer app.
It really was a noble idea that got squashed by the 'big boys'. Makes me think that there's no room for nobility in the computer world.
Yeh, even someone as stubborn as him had his spirit crushed in the end.
I was really hoping this program would do well. If I wasn't so busy, I would've definitely tried to create or port over software to it.
I'm glad I bought one and gave one. The OLPC program will be mentioned when similiar programs will be created. It has it's place in history. I'm proud of the OLPC team for sending so many laptops out.
Some issues that I think killed OLPC:
1. A failure to properly market and demonstrate self-education through a laptop -- Where, for example, were the demonstrations to OLPC's potential? They could have advertised innumerable examples of children using laptops to learn which would have piqued the interests of parents alike. Why were more pragmatic examples excluded? Such as Children using Merriam-Webster's Talking Dictionary Software to learn and pronounce new words? Or a child using computer software to solve the Rubik's Cube? Or children learning how to type using a typing tutor? How about children learning to speak English through Rosetta Stone or Fluenz? Children attending class electronically through web conferencing? Etc. Or a team of students using a laptop to assist in measuring, designing, and building a mud hut? Where were the video DEMOs of children learning about computers, about new technologies, about how to use laptops, etc. -- through a laptop? And then using this same laptop to enjoy watching Sesame Street or to play videogames? Where were the demonstrations of children watching episodes of Bill Nye the Science Guy or equivalent? Or demonstrations of software encyclopedias such as DK Science Encyclopedia 2.0, Microsoft Encarta, or the HowStuffWorks CD? Or childing learning to cook through TV shows such as Alton Brown's Good Eats? Why weren't there examples of children reading the Bible in pdf or of parents reading it to them? It didn't make sense. It would have had a broader appeal! Why was it that the only real-world use of the XO that I remember reading about was that of kids watching porn? We all know that laptops can do much more than this! It was probably a massive failure for OLPC not to unequivocally demonstrate it. Why weren't we shown shining examples of education through a laptop? I think this was there biggest mistake! On another note, Pixel Qi is allowed to get away with demoing merely Slumdog Millionaire and ice-hockey -- but maybe this is because they're not purporting to be educational. OLPC shoud have done much better!
2. Making a serious educational investment out to be a toy. -- Very few kids want to use a tricycle, a plastic hammer, or an EasyBake Oven for long and most parents wouldn't want them using one for long either. The XO's design would probably only be attractive to children up to the age of 8. In this case, a middle-class family purchasing cute, expensive toys for their youngest children is one thing but in a much, much poorer developing country? It could only be considered an investment in that case, I think. OLPC should have foreseen this. It's not sensible to ask someone (or any government) to make a relatively hefty investment in a product that is much akin to a toy! So it's NO surprise that very few people made it!
3. Forced Charity -- Negroponte had a lot of nerve! The best way to get a person to do something is to tell them not to do it. And the best way to get a person NOT to buy an XO Laptop was to TELL them to buy one for someone else. Whatever happened to 'donating a portion of the proceeds' ? The XO could easily have been sold for $239.99 but John Negroponte clearly did not want to do this! How suspicious? How ironic was it that, the only way you could purchase this supposed "One-hundred Dollar Laptop", was to pay $400 and give one away to an unknown stranger of an unspecified location? You could not, for example, choose to give the free laptop away to your neighbor's child, to a family member, to the local school, or any other various children of concern where you might actually see the gift arrive. Only "You have to Give One, to Get One", as if you were privileged just to be able to purchase. Then, of course, you would never even see where this 'given' laptop went! And what if you had six children? Should you have purchased six XO laptops for $2400.00 [before shipping and tax]? Or should you have purchased only one XO laptop for your entire family and have all of the children share a single OLPC? Why not just share a single desktop PC instead? That would make more sense! OLPC did not have reality in mind! Maybe it is just me but I would rather spend $299 at Best Buy and give a child a fully-fledged 15.6-inch laptop (DVD-burner, 2GB Ram, Vista, etc.) than to spend $400 on two toys that are woefully incapable. At least I could add whatever educational software, videos, etc. (such as all 100 episodes of Bill Nye) that I wanted the child to have! In fact, it's incredible that OLPC is still selling their laptop(s) for $400. It's an insult!
4. The focus on children and nothing but. -- Oh yeah, the children! What about the children? Shouldn't we help the kids above all? Don't the kids need so much help... We absolutely must help the children, right? ...not so fast. People are waking up! Have we not learned from Michael Jackson that you can't successfully feign concern for a child without first showing concern for it's mother (and, eventually, the father)? You can't educate a child without educating the parents! And to think otherwise is foolish. A disregard for a child's parents is, in and of itself, a disregard for the child. Most people know this! The XO laptop seemed to fall into this common political trap by directly catering to mostly very young children -- which was unfortunate considering how many adults wanted one! As was the case with suspicious Michael Jackson, adults seemed to have been all but shunned in OLPC's initiative! Was it not with exceptional reason, that an adult would have wanted a netbook as much as, if not, more than a child? Haven't netbooks sold millions at $400+ to a majority of professionals, college students, travelers, teachers, etc. (i.e. -- NOT children)? How did OLPC forget the people who were, at one time, children? Was it as if they were convinced that people with actual purchasing power would have no interest in an inexpensive laptop?
5. Bait-and-Switch -- the unexplained removal of the XO's most important feature -- hand-cranked power -- was precisely what prevented me from purchasing it! The manual electric-generating feature faded and morphed then eventually disappeared altogether from the list! What gave? The last I heard was that the hand-crank generator was to be replaced by a pull-cord and then released separately -- that was several years ago! Why on Earth they would pull out such an awesome feature with little explanation, is beyond me?
6. "Give One then Get One" -- how arrogant! I'll pass! I don't want one. ...any more! But we have to help the kids, right? Sure.
7. A failure to show that they were "listening" to those interested -- From I was able to follow on OLPC, it was apparent that reasonable requests were made all over the board. And that OLPC either ignored all of them and was deaf/blind or both! There was a resounding demand, for example, to open the laptop to the market which has been, to this day, baulked at by John Negroponte. Eventually the "Forced Charity" program was created (perhaps, in truth, out of necessity to the organization) as a way to show that they were listening to the group of followers whom likely would have given anyway!
i'm still not a fan of OLPC. i say give these poor people a television, a satellite, and a solar array. that'll spread the word.
tomo
ARAY- your point 5. That much hyped hand crank/pull cord energiserr was totally unsuited to XO battery charging. It was NOT able to deliver the power needed, and after ~10 minutes even the most energetic human became fatigued with it. Solar power in contrast is naer perfectly suited- BUT even modest 10W rated PVs ( at ~ US$50-$100) were beyond many schools budgets. Stan