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OLPC security chief resigns, cites ethical concerns as final straw
Nary a fortnight after Nicholas Negroponte affirmed that his role wouldn't be changing all that much once a new CEO was strapped in, along comes word that the nonprofit's highly regarded Director of Security Architecture, Ivan Krsti??, has moved on to greener pastures as of three weeks ago. According to a soul-bearing post on his own blog, the ex-chief outrightly noted that he could no longer "subscribe to the organization's new aims or structure in good faith, nor [could he] reconcile them with [his] personal ethic." Additionally, he admits that he was "asked to stop working with Walter Bender," someone he greatly respected, and forced to report to a replacement "with no technical or engineering background who was put in charge of all OLPC technology." It should be noted that Krsti?? seemed to admire his colleagues overwhelmingly, but we can't help but wonder who else in there is feeling similarly about the recent internal restructuring.[Via Yahoo / Infoworld, image courtesy of TheAge]
$50 Teachermate PC launched by Chicago nonprofit
As you've probably figured out from all the OLPC XO and Intel Classmate news we've hit, computers aimed at students are a pretty hot topic these days. A Chicago-based nonprofit called Innovations for Learning has joined the fray with a new $50 entry dubbed the Teachermate. The small PCs come equipped with a 2.5-inch LCD display, 512MB of RAM, an SD slot, and built-in microphone and speaker. The systems are being rolled out to a whopping 500 Chicago elementary schools over the next two years, with the aim of having a unit in the hands of every child. The kid-friendly computers will come with a special case that allows charging and data-sync of 30 units at a time, allowing teachers to collect score-data quickly. If you absolutely must have one, it looks like they're going to commercially available on Amazon, so you will be able to add it to your collection.
Negroponte says role at OLPC not changing, Windows coming soon
It's just been a few short days since Nicholas Negroponte seemed to make it clear that his role at OLPC would soon be changing, but it now seems like that may not be the case, with Nick Neg telling Laptop Magazine that his role will "not be changing drastically" once a new CEO is put in place. He also went on to say that "replacement" is not the right word, and that he had never held the CEO title nor used it, adding that he'll now go under the title of "Chairman and Foreign Minister." With that out of the way, Negroponte also dropped word that "a Windows operating system is in the process of being fine-tuned on the XO as we speak," and that it "should be available on the XO in less than 60 days," which is about the firmest word of a release date we've heard so far.
Negroponte looking for CEO to replace him at OLPC
After a stay that's been anything but uneventful, OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte has announced that he'll be stepping down as CEO of the organization, and that he's now searching for a successor, although he'll be staying on as Chairman. That word comes from an interview Negroponte gave to BusinessWeek, where he admitted that "management, administration, and details are my weaknesses," and even went so far as to say that the organization needs to be managed "more like Microsoft." He also revealed that the search for a new CEO had actually begun last year, but had ratcheted up in recent weeks, during which time the organization was also reorganized into four operating units, including technology, deployment, market development and fund-raising, and administration. No word on any contenders for the top spot just yet, but Nick Neg described the ideal candidate as someone with a "leadership profile similar to that of Kofi Annan," adding that he hopes to have the search concluded by April or May.
A MacBook Air and an XO walk into my office...
It may sound like the intro to a joke that would only be funny at WWDC, but for a few minutes this afternoon I had both a shiny new MacBook Air 1.8 SSD and a not-so-new but still cute as a button XO laptop hanging out at my desk. If they were high school kids in a '50s movie musical, one would be nicknamed "Peewee" and the other one would have to be called "Slim."The MBA is moving on to its permanent home soon (the owner will be getting it next week, once we've -- ahem -- done our due diligence in testing), and the XO is on loan from iTransmogrify developer Joe Maller. It seemed like the thing to do in the presence of these two pieces of 21st century tech, each desirable in its own way, was to take a few snapshots for posterity.%Gallery-16467%
5-year-olds repair OLPC laptops at Nigerian "hospital"
During the recent Greener Gadgets Conference in New York, former OLPC CTO (and XO challenger) Mary Lou Jepsen discussed the real-world difficulties with using the kid-friendly laptops, including the creation of an XO "hospital" used to repair broken computers. Apparently, in the crowded conditions of schools in places like Nigeria, the little green laptops have a tendency to be jostled around and even knocked on the floor from time to time. As there's typically no repair shops nearby, the kids have learned to fix the systems themselves, setting up a "laptop hospital" where they can repair what's broken using simple tools and cheap replacement parts. Mary Lou says the company designed the systems to be easily fixable, including extra screws embedded in the computers themselves, and allowing for quick changes of the LCD backlight and other components. The in-house repairs cut down on shipping, promote reuse, and increase kids' understanding of ownership and responsibility, thus furthering the OLPC mission, and making everyone generally want to hug.[Image courtesy NotebookReview / Kevin O'Brien]
Birmingham, AL totally confused by OLPC purchase
We knew we were in for some rough chuckles when Birmingham, Alabama signed up to provide an OLPC XO to every K-8 student last December, but we didn't think they'd be this silly from the get-go: apparently the mayor's office, which negotiated the deal, is now saying the school board needs to add WiFi to every school for the laptops to work. That's news to us -- the mesh-networking XO was designed to be used in rural parts of the developing world, after all -- but we're still puzzling out what mayoral advisors John Katopodis and Bob McKenna meant when they said they're "trying to make the whole city WiFi," or where they got a quote of $39 per school to enable wireless access. Of course, the only response from the school board was one member who worried about students accessing porn -- which seems to be a real theme with the XO -- but for some reason we're not at all surprised that bureaucratic officials have totally missed the point of the OLPC project.[Thanks, Jay]
OLPC XO gets fully dissected -- cover your eyes, kids!
The OLPC XO may be a kid's machine at heart, but it's been caught doing some mighty grown-up deeds over at NotebookReview. Sure, we caught a teaser of this thing's innards way back when, but there's nothing that satisfies like a full frontal tear down. Click on for lots, lots more -- we promise it's all PG.
Ubuntu gets squeezed onto the OLPC XO, with details
Those looking for something a little less nostalgic than the Amiga OS to put on their OLPC XO may want to head over to the always handy OLPC News website, which now has not one but two step-by-step tutorials for installing Ubuntu on the little green laptop. As you might guess, however, neither option is exactly the most straightforward of OS installs, but they should be easy enough for anyone with a little Linux experience under their belt. Of course, given the OLPC's somewhat limited capabilities, you'll also need more than just the laptop and an Ubuntu CD to get things rolling -- namely, a USB drive or SD card with at least 600MB of space and another computer running Linux -- but we're guessing those requirements won't be much of a problem for anyone considering the move to a decidedly less kid-friendly OS.[Image courtesy of moocapiean]
OLPC America will bring XO to the US
Proving once again that he's still got love for the home team, Nick Negroponte has announced the impending launch of OLPC America, a division of the organization with its own director and chairman that will bring low-cost laptops to US students. According to an IDG interview with Negroponte, distributing the XO stateside has always been in the plans, arguing that "to have the United States be the only country that's not in the OLPC agenda would be kind of ridiculous." Besides helping out kids at home, NickNeg anticipates that a domestic deployment will accelerate the project to critical mass in terms of adoption, software, and developer support. OLPC America will reportedly work with individual state governments to handle the details of the disbursement, although specifics of the plan will remain under wraps until the official launch later this year.[Via Slashdot]
Microsoft sez no OLPC dual-boot, still committed to XP on XO
Those of you who participated in OLPC's "Give One, Get One" program will probably be disappointed to learn that, despite earlier reports to the contrary, Microsoft has no intention of developing dual-boot Windows / Linux support for the XO laptop. According to a statement sent to BetaNews, Redmond flat out denied any work on such a project, instead claiming that it "plans to publish formal design guidelines early this year that will assist [any] flash-based device manufacturers in designing machines that enable a high-quality Windows experience." The blurb goes on to say that the company will be conducting limited XP-on-XO field tests later this month, although BetaNews notes that notebook's hardware limitations have proven problematic for the software giant, which may be forced to offer the OS on an SD card -- a move that would require a new BIOS for the XO to enable booting from removable storage.[Via Slashdot]
OLPC spin-off plans $75 laptop
According to a report in the New York Times today, a spin-off of OLPC is planning to launch a competitor to the company's $200 XO laptop. Mary Lou Jepsen, former CTO of the Nicholas Negroponte-led company, claims that her new organization, Pixel Qi, can do it cheaper and better. "Spinning out from OLPC enables the development of a new machine, beyond the XO [laptop], while leveraging a larger market for new technologies," Jepsen wrote on the company's website, adding, "Besides, I need that extra $125 for laundry and stuff." Jepsen claims that the cost of a device like the XO can be reduced by, "Allowing multiple uses of key technology advances." If you'll recall, the original target price for the XO was $100, back in the hazy, optimistic days of 2005. Using an advanced abacus coupled with a complex system of levers and pulleys, we've determined that when and if the Pixel Qi laptop makes it to market, the cost will be no less than $150, and Nicholas Negroponte will say something crazy about it.
OLPC hacked to run Amiga OS
Clearly a match made in heaven, the doomed-but-beloved Amiga OS has been made to run on the maybe-doomed-but-beloved OLPC. It's not running natively, sadly, so the real hack here is getting the Amiga Forever emulator running on NickNeg's baby, but still, this combination is just beautifully tragic.
Negroponte says he'd welcome Intel back to OLPC
He's already made nice with Microsoft, and it now seems that OLPC head Nicholas Negroponte is extending an olive branch of sorts to Intel as well, despite the all-out lambasting of the company he doled out only yesterday. According to Infoworld, Negroponte calls what happened with Intel "very unfortunate" and says that he hopes "there's a way of rebuilding it in the future because there's no interest in OLPC pushing Intel out." In case you missed it, Intel up and left the OLPC board of directors last week after it claimed that OLPC insisted it give on cooperating with the competing Classmate PC if it wanted to stay in the OLPC fold. Negroponte, however, now says that the idea that OLPC is anti-competition is "ridiculous" and that it wants to "see as many laptops out there as possible and kids have the widest choice possible." For it's part, Intel says it's willing to talk with OLPC, although it maintains that there are "differences" that they've so far unable to resolve.
OLPC, Microsoft working on dual-boot Windows / Linux system
We already knew Microsoft was at least toying around with putting Windows on the OLPC XO, but it looks like things have just gotten quite a bit more serious, with the OLPC folks now saying that they're working "very closely" with Microsoft to develop a dual-boot Windows / Linux system for the laptop. What's more, Nick Neg himself reportedly said that the version of Windows that's now up and running on the XO is "very fast" and "very, very successful." There's no word just yet as to when we might actually see such a system be released, however, but OLPC is apparently now talking with Microsoft and "possibly" the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation about putting the XO to use in some of the education programs Microsoft runs in developing countries, a possibility that Negroponte says is "really cooking at the moment."
Nick Neg says Intel "undermined" the OLPC, likens company to alcoholic
As if OLPC's Walter Bender hadn't already dragged this breakup far enough through the mud, Nicholas Negroponte himself has weighed in on Intel's departure, accusing the company of using underhand sales tactics to block OLPC sales and to win over OLPC customers to the Classmate PC. Nick says of Intel: "They were selling laptop with their brand on it directly to exactly the same people we were talking to. They would go in even after we had signed contracts and try to persuade government officials to scrap their contract and sign a contract with them instead. That's not a partnership." Apparently OLPC had six million dollars on the way from Intel before they scrapped the partnership, but Nick Neg had had enough. "Each time it happened they said they would correct their ways. It's a little like cheating on your spouse, or alcoholism, or something you just can't eventually fix and we had to finally part ways." Intel sees it differently, of course. "I don't want to get into specifics but we met every obligation that we were committed to," said Intel's Paul Otellini, who called Negroponte's version of events "hogwash." Intel's version of the story states that OLPC wanted Intel to drop its non-XO projects, namely Classmate PC. This was obviously always an awkward union, given the respective organizations' competing products, but you'd really hope for a bit more maturity in the breakup given the fact that this is all, you know, for the kids.
OLPC says Intel's efforts were "half-hearted," uninvites to birthday party
Nothing like an amicable parting of the ways between two mature organizations to warm the heart. But, naturally, the OLPC folks are having none of that. OLPC President Walter Bender had quite a few parting shots to make at the non-profit's former board member, Intel. After explaining that Intel's departure will have no impact on his organization, Bender accused Intel of making a "seemingly half-hearted effort" to build an XO to OLPC's spec. "The only thing they were interested in was ... helping them make marketing statements about how Intel's approach to learning was different from OLPC's approach to learning," said Bender. "They weren't interested in how we can learn together and make something better for kids." Bender also complained of Intel's unwillingness to help out on software and failure to perform in general: "They developed something that, as far as I know, is more expensive and more power-hungry than our current offering, so I'm not quite sure what the point is." According to Bender, Intel's primary interest in the whole affair was the positive PR -- and, of course, kicking the crutches out from under sick children as they walk past.
Intel steps down from OLPC board
Not entirely surprising given their own efforts to democratize low cost computers and history of anti-OLPC vitriol, but Intel has stepped down from its position on the board at OLPC, which it's occupied all of six months or so. Apparently Negroponte was after Intel to cut its own Classmate PC program, but Intel wasn't having any of that funny business. It also didn't help that the OLPC is based on AMD hardware -- for now, anyway. We can't help but wonder what might have been with the hardware Intel was supposedly developing for the next version(s), but, you know, strange bedfellows sometimes part ways. [Warning: sub req'd for read link]
Nigerian firm wins interim injunction against OLPC, asks for $20M in damages
Well, it looks like that Nigerian keyboard patent infringement case against OLPC is underway, and it hasn't started out too well for Nick Neg and co.: the court has granted LANCOR's motion for an interim injunction against OLPC, meaning the XO can't be imported or sold in Nigeria. On top of that, LANCOR is now asking for $20M in damages, and has been searching the offices of OLPC-affiliated organizations in Nigeria for "evidence." All of this currently going down with zero input from OLPC's lawyers, but we're told the organization is preparing an "aggressive" response. Check the read link for an exhaustive summary of the case to date over at Groklaw.[Via CNet]
OLPC sells 150,000 laptops to public, may do Give1 Get 1 next year
Shockingly enough, Laptop magazine -- of all magazines in print today -- wanted remind everybody that tonight's the last night your hard earned (and increasingly devalued) American currency can be exchanged for an OLPC. But they also got a few words out of NickNeg as to how many OLPC units sold in the decidedly successful Give 1 Get 1 program (150,000+, not counting big buyers like Birmingham, Alabama), and why not continue the program indefinitely ("We are a charity and not a business. If we continued it, it would become 'sales' versus a charitable promotion.") While we kind of take umbrage with that attitude -- isn't it better, after all, to seed as many machines to underprivileged children as possible under any circumstances you can? -- we're hopeful at least that the gang at OLPC will bring back the G1G1 program next year with their v2 hardware. Hopefully by then some sovereign nations will have actually bought some OLPCs of their own.
