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OLPC update: India isn't buying
It's not like we expected every developing country in the world to jump at the chance to blow $100 million on the minimum order of Negroponte's pull-string powered laptops, but India sure did seem a logical fit. With their burgeoning tech economy, it would seem training a new generation of tech support personnel engineers and programmers would be a priority well met by the OLPC, but the Indian Ministry of Education busted out the vocab and called the laptop "pedagogically suspect." They seemed to think the funds were better suited for building classrooms and hiring teachers, not "fancy tools," and their reasoning is hard to fault in that regard. Education Secretary Sudeep Banerjee also questioned the maturity of Negroponte's plan, and said no major country was seriously interested. Of course, Nigeria just ordered up a cool million, and places like China, Brazil, Argentina, Egypt and Thailand are still likely targets, but it looks like India is content to wait on the sidelines and call sour grapes for now.
OLPC will be powered by pulling a string
We've been following Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child initiative ever since the machine was still priced below $100, but once they jettisoned the hand crank, we've been wondering how they're going to deliver power to the 500MHz device. Enter Squid Labs, an R&D firm chock full of MIT Media Lab grads -- the same lab that Negroponte founded and ran for many years -- with an innovative human-powered generator that works by repeatedly tugging on a string in a motion similar to firing up a gas-powered lawnmower or snowblower. The team at Squid designed the external generator so that one minute of pulling yields ten minutes of computing, and included an electronic variable motor loading feature so that it can be operated by users of varying strength. Another nice feature of this system is that it can be configured in a number of different ways: users can either hold the device in one hand and pull the string with the other, or clamp it to a desk and operate the string with their legs. As long as further testing confirms the design's durability, and a better option doesn't come along, it looks like we'll be seeing classrooms full of string-pulling students when the laptop finally goes into mass production next year.[Via Slashdot]
GSMA wants 3G for developing countries
Sure, the OLPC project's connectivity options are all well and good with the promise of WiFi and mesh networking, but how's about tethering that $100 $130 laptop up to some high-speed WWAN action? The GSM Association has announced its "3G for all" initiative to bring UMTS access well beyond its current user base of 72 million people, most of whom reside in industrialized nations. Although OLPC is not specifically mentioned, the synergy is pretty obvious -- we suspect these laptops could find themselves in a few places where WiFi is hard to come by. Besides challenging carriers to build out the network, GSMA is asking manufacturers to develop 3G handsets with the needs of emerging markets in mind, something they've done in the past for 2G handsets with the goal of mass production at the $30 price point. UMTS has a long way to go in some industrialized nations before we see this all happening, but dare to dream, guys -- we're all about $130 laptops tethered to $30 3G-capable phones.
First video of working OLPC prototype
We've come a long way from back when the OLPC project was just a glimmer in Negroponte's eye, but after peeping this video of the prototype in action, we're not surprised that the crew wants some more time with the unit. The problem is, hardly anything is "final" in this current form, including the design, the motherboard, the battery, the OS and of course the screen. All of this translates to a sluggish PC running an unfinished OS -- a far cry from Negroponte's "bat out of hell" claims. We also haven't seen laptop's trackpad in action, or any untethered use, so both the interface (not that there's any software to interface with right now) and the battery life are fairly unproven. Ah well, we're glad we get a peek just the same, and look forward to 2007 when this thing starts getting some polish.
OLPC gets a price hike and a launch window
Turns out that magical $100 figure was too good to be true, and Negroponte's OLPC project will get off the ground next year for somewhere around $130-$140 -- before shipping -- when it gets released for sale to governments next April. The hope is that the price can get down to $100 by the end of 2008, but Negroponte said manufacturing has to hit 5 to 6 million to get scale pricing on these. While the amount of RAM will effect pricing, the biggest factor right now is the display, which still isn't finished. According to Negroponte: "It has to be sunlight readable. That won't be done until August/September." After that there will be a beauty contest among three systems for the final production design, and then manufacturing will begin. A whole bunch of countries are currently interested in the idea, but we're guessing they'll want to see real deal before they commit to buy that one million unit minimum.[Thanks, Alex N.]
Working OLPC prototype gets its close-up
We still miss the crank, and had sort of gotten used to the lime green color scheme. But we have to admit that seeing an actual working prototype of the computer from Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child initiative beats all of the mockups we've been looking at for the past year or so. We don't have any specs (other than the fact that it's clearly running Fedora Linux), but from the looks of it, Negroponte has clearly done a decent job at making this kid-friendly. And the keyboard, while small, doesn't look a whole lot worse than the one on the new MacBook. If this puppy can be outfitted with WiFi, one of Samsung's new NAND drives and a couple of USB ports, customers from the industrial world may just order enough of them to subsidize that $100 price tag for developing countries (if Negroponte is willing to let us buy them, that is). [Via BoingBoing]Update: We also heard from a reliable source that final versions of the PCshouldprobably have a more fleshed out Red Hat build installed, and will have WiFi. We'll let you know more as we do!
Intel's Eduwise low-cost PC revealed
The freaktastic, not-so-altruistic battle between Negroponte, AMD, VIA and Intel to bring low-cost PCs to developing nations just hotted-up with the formal unveiling of the Eduwise by Intel CEO Paul Otellini at the World Congress on Information Technology. The $400 device announced a few months ago in Brazil, sports "light-blue accents" and "snaps shut like a purse" -- perfect for students and teachers on a tight-budget with a sense of flair -- runs Windows or Linux, and ships pre-loaded with special software allowing students and teachers to interact through shared presentations and test administration over the Eduwise's built-in WiFi. The Eduwise will be available "next year" via the usual outlet of PC manufacturers who'll no doubt tweak this reference design a bit. Of course, Intel had to take the spotlight opp to blast a shot across the bow of the $100 OLPC with Otellini saying, "nobody wants to cross the digital divide using yesterday's technology." Yeah, nor should they have to harvest a kidney to avoid crossing the classroom for a little one-on-one, eh? Man, we haven't seen this much selfish generosity since Atlas shrugged.[Via Sagags]
Details on YellowSheepRiver's $150 Municator
We first heard about the Municator / YSR-639 from our Chinese bureau a couple weeks ago; now it looks like we've got somemore solid info on the $146 Linux PC by Chinese firm YellowSheepRiver. It's not exactly a device we imagine is going to run amok in the state-driven market before the impending worldwide release of the OLPC (or to a lesser extent, the Edu-wise), but the BYOKVM angle will definitely put the hurt on Intel's Community PC. The specs ain't too shabby either: the Municator features a 400 or 800mhz 64-bit Godson-2 CPU, 40GB drive, 256MB of RAM, four USB 2.0 ports, IrDA, S-video, VGA, Ethernet, PS/2, and runs a Linux variant called Thinix OS. YellowSheepRiver also supposedly has a lithium-ion battery, WiFi, and modem options lined up; we'll definitely be keeping an eye on this one.[Via LinuxDevices, thanks Kim L]
New OLPC deets: 500 MHz, 128MB RAM, Windows CE and no hand crank
Given that a number of companies have been boasting of their computing plans for the developing world in recent weeks, it's kind of a relief to see Nicholas Negroponte back in the spotlight talking up the One Laptop Per Child project. Especially when he's willing to be so free with the box's specs. Speaking at the LinuxWorld conference in Boston, Negroponte shed some light on his plans for the OLPC, including more concrete specs than we've seen before. The mini-laptop will be powered by a 500 MHz AMD processor, will have 128MB RAM and 512MB of flash memory for storage. It'll also include an LCD display that will switch from an 1180x830 black-and-white mode for daylight viewing to 640x480 color for indoor use. He also revealed that, despite Bill Gates' reservations about the OLPC project, Negroponte is working with Microsoft on a version of Windows CE that will work on the computer. Negroponte also said the laptops will be extremely stingy when it comes to power consumption, using just 2 watts, one of which will run the display. However, despite that low power, he said that one of the most recognizable features of the original OLPC prototype (above), its handcrank, will have to go -- not because it can't generate enough power, but because it would put too much stress on the box (more recent prototypes have already jettisoned the crank). However, an adapter to allow the machine to run on pedal power is planned. Negroponte also had some bad news for his hosts at LinuxWorld (as if anything could be worse than saying he supports Windows CE): he said the penguin OS is as bloated as Windows, and will need to slim down to run on the OLPC. We suspect that his words didn't go over very well -- and that a half-dozen open-source projects to shrink Linux down to size were started within an hour.
