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Sugar Labs' "Sugar on a Stick" OS available for any and all

by Joshua Topolsky, posted Jun 26th 2009 at 6:17PM

The last time we heard from Sugar Labs, its "Sugar on a Stick" project (a tidied-up build of Sugar OS which can be run live from a CD or USB drive) was just entering beta. Apparently all the company needed to take that version to a release-ready state was a month (give or take). A full, free version of Sugar is now available in a 383MB ISO file for anyone to take advantage of -- though the company is obviously setting its sights firmly in the direction of the education market as usual. The OS -- previously designed for the OLPC XO, but now targeted to any PC or Mac schools have lying around -- is based on the newly released Fedora 11, and is in a "Strawberry" release meant for real world classroom testing. The feedback the company receives on this edition will apparently be incorporated into a future version destined for your hands and eyes at the end of the year. In the meantime, you can take SoaS for a spin... ASAP.

[Via Ars Technica]

Sugar Labs debuts "Sugar on a Stick" beta, for LiveUSB-derived diabetes

by Paul Miller, posted Apr 28th 2009 at 3:26PM

After offering Sugar for the past while as an interface to run on top of your Linux distro of choice, Sugar Labs is prepping "Sugar on a Stick," a Fedora 11-based LiveUSB distro that boots most any PC from a 1GB+ USB stick and lets a user carry their Sugar environment, files and settings wherever they roam. While the beta is currently up for download, there seem to be plenty of kinks to work out, but as the team expands and refines hardware support, we could see this potentially being more of a boon for education than the XO-1 itself; turning any PC into a Sugar PC, not just the dramatically green ones. It's also nice to see how speedy Sugar can be free from the bonds of AMD Geode -- even Atom provides quite a bit of relative pep. Check out a quick (and slightly hyperactive) hands-on video from OLPC News after the break.

Continue reading Sugar Labs debuts "Sugar on a Stick" beta, for LiveUSB-derived diabetes

D+caf caffeine test strips makes sure your decaf is decaf

by Darren Murph, posted Dec 31st 2008 at 10:02AM

Ever wondered if that 93 octane you're paying two arms and a leg for is really 93 octane? Pondered the legitimacy of that "homogenized and pasteurized" claim on your most recent milk purchase? If so, congratulations. You're the target market for the D+caf caffeine test strip. Reportedly, these strips keep the paranoid abreast of the truth whenever they venture out for a decaf drink; java sippers simply insert a tester into their beverage, wait for it to grow intolerably cold (or 30 seconds, whichever comes first) and then view the findings. The creator proclaims that they're 98% accurate for detecting greater than 20-milligrams of caffeine per 6-ounce serving, but we're not willing to pay $9.95 for a 20-pack in order to find out.

[Via medGadget]

Europe also getting a taste of OLPC sugar on Monday

by Thomas Ricker, posted Nov 14th 2008 at 7:04AM

The OLPC, Give One Get One program is heading to Europe on November 17th -- the same day the deal kicks off in the US. Thanks to the Amazon hook-up, 27 EU nations as well as Switzerland, Russia, and Turkey can grab an XO laptop at a cost of about £268 / €313. That's one XO running Sugar (not XP) for you and one for a child in a developing nation... other than your own.

Confirmed: Kids like Sugar better than XP

by Thomas Ricker, posted Oct 24th 2008 at 8:02AM

It's hardly a scientific test, but when a Cnet editor's 8 year old daughter was given the choice between an OLPC XO laptop running Windows XP or the Linux-based Sugar UI, Sugar was the winner. As Cnet points out, either OS when properly incorporated into the teaching curriculum should serve the children of developing nations equally well. Only one, however, promises to prepare our youth for middle management.

P.S. Amazon's Give One, Get One program will be limited to Linux according to Cnet and confirmed in the OLPC Wiki -- no dual-boot for you Santa.

[Thanks, Justin G.]

Amazon to offer OLPC's Give One, Get One Program later this year (update: possibly dual-boot)

by Thomas Ricker, posted Sep 4th 2008 at 3:58AM

Now that OLPC has met its One Laptop Per Child goal (in uh, Niue) it's time to go whole-hog retail. According to Matt Keller, OLPC chief in EMEA, OLPC will resurrect its Give One, Get One XO program in late November with the help of Amazon's big retail guns. Prices haven't been disclosed nor has the nimble Sugar or poky XP OS selection. But if history serves, we'll be looking at $399 for the Sugary pair just like last year.

Update: As it turns out, OLPC says that a dual-boot XP and Sugar OS XO will be shipping in the "next month of so." Happy pappie?

Bender goes bipolar: OLPC's Sugar UI tweaked for Intel's Classmate PC

by Thomas Ricker, posted Jun 19th 2008 at 6:40AM

We know he's just thinking about the children but damn, if Walter Bender's latest move doesn't smack of retribution for Negroponte's XP-lust. Having successfully spun himself out from under NickNeg's OLPC, Bender's UI now owned by his non-profit Sugar Labs might just end up on Intel's Classmate PC. Right, the same competing platform the OLPC camp had lambasted, repeatedly, for its "shameless" and "half-hearted" behavior in the educational marketplace. Nevertheless, Bender is quoted in an interview saying, "A community volunteer is working with Intel on Sugar for the Classmate PC. Sugar Labs helped to expedite the relationship." We assume Bender's loftier goals act as a lithium-salve to what must be a palpable internal turmoil.

P.S. That's our mockup, Intel declined to comment on the usage of Sugar.

Sugar Labs already in talks with four laptop makers

by Nilay Patel, posted May 23rd 2008 at 8:16AM

Walter Bender might be disappointed in the OLPC's defection to Windows XP, but the former head of Sugar OS development isn't sitting still: he's already founded Sugar Labs, and early word is that he's in preliminary discussions with four ultra-low-cost laptop makers to ship the kid-friendly operating system on their machines soon. Bender's already said he's interested in working with Intel and Pixel Qi, and he's mentioned ASUS in passing, but no names are being confirmed, so we'll see where this leads -- Bender seems pretty driven to get Sugar out there.

[Via CNET]

Displaced by XP, Sugar Labs goes it alone

by Paul Miller, posted May 16th 2008 at 9:47AM

While OLPC tries to wise up to the real demands of the market and build a cheap laptop that people actually want -- which means Windows XP for most -- Walter Bender, OLPC's former president of software and content for the project is taking his open source Linux-based Sugar OS and has started up a new non-profit to aid its development. Bender still has the vision of an open source learning OS, and plans to give Sugar full support for other low-cost platforms like the Eee PC. Ooh, burn.

Walter Bender speaks out about leaving OLPC, de-emphasis of radical projects

by Darren Murph, posted Apr 25th 2008 at 9:54AM

What do you know? The former OLPC head of software and content did indeed resign at least partially over NickNeg's growing fondness of Windows XP. In a recent soul-spilling interview with xconomy, Walter Bender made clear that he resigned his post at the non-profit due to the general de-emphasis of "radical projects like Sugar," the innovative XO user interface which Mr. Bender was unsurprisingly neck-deep in during his stay. Essentially, he felt as if the outfit had stopped trying to "be disruptive" and started "trying to make things comfortable for decision-makers," hence Walter darting out "to do his own thing." Needless to say, the lead developer of Sugar isn't satisfied with seeing his work forgotten, and while details have yet to be worked out, he is looking to "find a new central home for the community of educators and software developers who have been creating Sugar-compatible applications."

[Image courtesy of The New York Times]

OLPC head of software and content resigns, possibly over transition to XP

by Nilay Patel, posted Apr 21st 2008 at 3:28PM

The recent shakeups at the top of the OLPC hierarchy have apparently claimed another victim, as OLPC News is reporting that Software and Content chief Walter Bender has just left the project. Rumor is that Nicholas Negroponte is going to transition the OLPC XO entirely to Windows XP to spur sales soon, and Bender is reportedly unhappy about that. What makes this all the more interesting is that when security director Ivan Krsti? left the OLPC project last month, he specifically said he was unhappy that the restructuring no longer required him to work with Bender, and said that he could no longer "subscribe to the organization's new aims or structure in good faith." Looks like something's afoot at OLPC, and the old guard isn't happy about it. What say you, NickNeg?

Sony achieves world's highest output from sugar battery

by Thomas Ricker, posted Aug 23rd 2007 at 6:01AM

Another day, another fuel cell milestone. This time, it's sugar at the bio-electrical base. Unfortunately, the world's highest output they're touting is just 50mW per cell. Still, if you daisy chain a few together then you've got enough juice (literally) to power a modern Walkman albeit, from a battery roughly 10x the size of the player. Be sure to check their video after the break -- produced with just enough hair-porn-era synth music to make the otherwise benign experience, painful.

[Via TokyoMango]

Continue reading Sony achieves world's highest output from sugar battery

Scientists convert glucose into fuel and polyesters

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 16th 2007 at 1:10AM

Glucose has been the building block for many zany creations 'round these parts, but using the widely available substance to create "products currently created from petroleum" has some fairly far reaching consequences. Gurus at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have reportedly "converted sugars ubiquitous in nature into a primary building block for fuel and polyesters," dubbed hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF). Aside from the obvious benefits of finding yet another renewable energy to tap into, learning to harness this power could give garb and plastic manufacturers new routes to source raw materials. So what do the creators themselves think? "The opportunities are endless" -- we say: prove it.

DIY 3D printer utilizes hot air, sugar to craft random objects

by Darren Murph, posted May 10th 2007 at 11:01AM

Just when you thought a $5,000 3D printer wasn't such a bad deal after all, the zany gurus at the Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories have put Desktop Factory's iteration to shame. The CandyFab 4000 is a homegrown printer that utilized a bevy of miscellaneous spare parts around the lab as well as the same sort of CNC hot-air control mechanism that we previously saw in the text writing toaster contraption. Their selective hot air sintering and melting (SHASAM) method allows the printer to begin with a bed of granular media (sugar, in this case) in which a directed, low-velocity beam of hit air can be used to fuse together certain areas repeatedly, eventually working the remaining grains into a three-dimensional object. The creators claim that while their CandyFab machine only ran them $500 in addition to junk parts and manual labor, even starting from scratch shouldn't demand more than a grand or so, so be sure to click on through for a few snaps of the fascinating results and hit the read link for the full-blown skinny.

[Via MetaFilter]

Continue reading DIY 3D printer utilizes hot air, sugar to craft random objects

OLPC Sugar interface tour gallery

by Ryan Block, posted Apr 11th 2007 at 12:11PM

Since being announced in 2005, there aren't too many things we've wanted so much as to get some good, solid time in with the OLPC, and it's sweet, icon-driven Sugar interface. Well, as of yesterday our wishes were granted when official OLPC builds hit the internets. The live CD is of extremely limited utility, but if you want to check out the fruits of Negroponte's ultimate pet project -- and see what millions of kids the world over will be using any semester now -- we've got the goods. Check out the gallery, we covered some decent ground with some of the basic apps bundled with the distro.