Deborah,

In your research around One Laptop Per Child, I humbly submit OLPC News as an independent source of information on the project.

For example, we predicted the current cost of $175 for just the laptop, explored the power supply options in great detail (the hand crank is gone), and have extensive coverage of the OS, with clarity on the Windows rumors.

And while we too have techno-lust for the innovative technology the OLPC XO offers, one question we've been asking since last August, without a satisfactory answer is: "What is the OLPC implementation plan?"

So far the reply has ranged from "It's magic," to "The countries will figure that out," which should give great concern to anyone familiar with the challenges of technology introduction - into schools or anywhere else.

I second what Wayan says, and add an additional concern with the project. The technical issues includes the roll-out question Wayan identifies, but also the tech support to millions of first-generation experimental laptops.

However what concerns me is the ideological assumptions behind the project. As well as its specifically constructionist basis, it looks exactly the same as many development projects from the 60s and 70s that sought to export technology that was successful in the social and economic context of industrialised countries and turned out to be doomed in most other contexts.

I wrote more at last year, so I'll leave it there, shrug my shoulders and wait to see whether the project achieves what it claims that it will. My prediction - it won't.

Hello,

I've had the chance of testing out the OLPC in last december (at CCC/berlin) for a few minutes and ever since have been convinced by the whole project, it is very much different from the usual "cheaper pc and an office bundle" systems, this is really a computer, tool, for children.

if you have any possibility, skip the questions you listed in the blog post (they're all in the OLPC faq) and instead ask them to bring one along.
I'm quite sure You'll find Yourself convinced after a few minutes, too, though it's hard to put it in words, except maybe 'perfect userinterface' or such.

Hi Deb -

I'm glad you've opened up this conversation, and I'm interested in more answers too - along the lines of what OLPC News are demanding. I've been on the sidelines of the OLPC story as it has developed over the last few years, but am an incredibly skeptical though equally curious observer.

On my blog earlier this week I wrote Negroponte’s “$100 laptop” plans: yeah, right! This is basically a response to an arstechnica article on India’s “$10 laptop”.

I made some innocent fun of both the $10 and $100 laptops, and MIT a little bit, but the main point I made is this one:

My question is, can Negroponte do it? I am by no means an insider to this story, but I have always had an uneasy, queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach whenever I read about the cleverly named One Laptop Per Child program. I am sold on the basic concept and love the design of the gizmo itself. I am very enthusiastic about those smiling, curious kids they use in their clipart playing with the computers, and want to go out and buy one myself and one for them. But at the end of the day, with the million unit orders requirement and the massive publicity, this is fast turning into a development aid disaster, a dam project with bunny ears and a touch screen.

We're being asked to trust Negroponte a great deal, and there's alot of money involved here. And not just money, but goodwill in the ict4d and open source community. From what I hear, while some of the side effects (great new software and hardware innovations that will be copied by others and usable on any PC) are going to be very positive, I have my doubts that the main purpose will be achieved.

Beyond that - to which there probably isn't an easy answer - I'd like to hear the answer to this question:

Why should we trust Negroponte that the device is not going to be running Windows when it's out there?

And a footnote: I played with the XO interface yesterday, which is available as a free download. Very much recommend that you do this too. It's quite cool and my 4 year old daughter enjoyed playing with Paint and was able to navigate around to different "activities".

I know there are kinks to work out, and expected to see some wackiness like the internet connection not working on my laptop right away - it is linux after all. But as I dug around I saw some disturbingly M$ oriented things: save a text document, and the format offered as a default is Microsoft .doc. Look for the network, and see "Microsoft Network" as the default. These things bother me. I thought we were looking at a NEW way of doing things that give freedom to play with all aspects of the software. Creating .doc files doesn't fit that for me and I worry that there is an unholy compromise being made.

Cheers,

Tobias

Maybe they simply chose to rather let their users exchange files with what 99% of computer users use for a computer?

Personally, i can't open doc files at all, nor would my laptop mount windows file shares, but i can still see a point in such concessions to reality.

Thanks for the comment re .doc files. By your measure, though, it seems to me the editor should be saving .html files instead - which are read by 100% of computer users (if you make up a percentage I can make one up too - obviously there are still some computers out there without web browsers on them, and obviously there are even more that do not have access to the Internet!).

The XO editor itself is quite basic and does not hold a candle to M$ Word or other more sophisticated word processing software, including open source software... in fact if memory serves it looks quite a bit like the simple wysiwyg web forms like this comment form I'm tying in right now. So why not just save as HTML?

The deeper question that interests me is whether or not these machines will ultimately be running Windows on them, or whether the XO operating system will gain real traction and continue to be developed. If not, then the whole experiment is really rather silly and we should all be directing our energy (and developing countries their precious development dollars) on other efforts.

Cheers,

Tobias

First, I have posted some of the items below on the olpc web site. This is in response to the 15th mtg and Arthur's post on DDN

1) Apple's iPhone is an indicator where tech is going. One pocket device for folks built around the phone. The cyber immigrants said small screens won't work but have not observed what is happening with the iPod and other really portable devices. The cell phone is ubiquitous and easily used in a variety of settings not necessarily conducive to lap tops, no matter how sophisticated

2) Bandwidth is an issue if the device is to be wireless or wifi. Wireless providers give phones away but sell access. If the world is going to move to wireless everywhere, then cost of accessing bandwidth outweighs to cost of the hardware, regardless of how sophisticated. As Negroponte has pointed out, the expectations of the OLPC device are that capabilities will rise and price will drop. But the capital cost is the small part when operating costs on a daily basis (including other support) are considered

The idea that the cost is "too high" (now 175usd) is not the cost issue

3) The idea behind OLPC is still mapping bricks into clicks. It is a virtual "brick space" class room at a time when learning has moved outside of the brick space phsically and out of the synchronous only mode.

4) Many students have to work to keep the family from starving. That is a considerable barrier which OLPC in its current embodiment is unable to off-set. A family with several children can live for more than a year on the funds to equip the children with an OLPC computer much less support. Yes they would be spending their future for food today. But no food today is no future considering that nutrition is critical for the development of the child from conception through 20's when the brain stops growing.

The issue is not the front capital, but the life-cycle costs of OLPC in all dimensions.