As reported by the BBC and others, Amazon has announced it will begin selling OLPC’s XO unit this fall. The new unit will support dual boot to SugarOS or WindowsXP. OLPC’s first GiveOneGetOne (G1G1) program struggled late last year.
Many canceled their orders when shipping glitches and production delays hit the first XO laptop. This new unit is expected to begin in November. Pricing has not yet been announced.
Tags: OLPC, Sugar Labs, Amazon, XO, open source, globalization, trends
The OLPC program is moving through a rough time right now with the announced departures of initial key members and the new Microsoft announcement to bring XP onto the XO Laptops.
Walter Bender, former President of OLPC has launched Sugar Labs to promote the use of Sugar on more devices. Sugar is open source and I’m running it on my Powerbook via VMware’s Fusion. Sugar Lab’s approach: children should not be forced to learning a legacy operating system designed for adult computer programmers.
Lets face facts. XP is not designed for the world’s children living in poverty. The design is simple and perfect for children:
Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back from John Kao is a timely read. To say I enjoyed his lessons how America is losing it’s innovation lead was not pleasant experience, yet the book is highly engaging.
There are timely lessons in this book from the $100 laptop and more importantly the exodus of top American talent. No surprise that top talent from India is returning home after attending college in America as globalization brings new opportunities to India.
You may be surprised to learn how Kao documents the loss of top Americans heading overseas. That’s native-born Americans leaving our best institutions (and their home country) to work in new innovation centers with more creative, less political conditions.
The list includes Paul Saffo from Stanford, John Seely Brown from Xerox PARC, Peter Schwartz from Global Business Network and Rita Colwell, former head of the National Science Foundation and current professor of biological sciences at the University of Maryland.
Max’s first laptop will be the new One Laptop Per Child prototype announced this morning by Nichoals Negroponte. No “keyboard” since both sides of this ebook reader will support a virtual keyboard.
But I’d like to buy a 1st Gen unit too. And I’ll config it to run Sugar.
Tags: OLPC, sugar, Negroponte, prototype, globalization, trends
Well the long wait is over. Microsoft Press Release has struck a deal with OLPC to offer XP on those little laptops. I’m not sure this is a good thing. Ask anyone who has Vista if they would like to downgrade back to XP (I did) and then you realize this is what will be introduced to millions of future Microsoft customers children around the world?
Lots of press here: Slashdot, NYTimes, CNET, Gizmodo,
I’m counting on the fact that behind the scenes Microsoft is helping fund OLPC. I’m not sure Sugar has what it takes to be the interface because OLPC clearly failed to market the story behind Sugar. And that’s a shame.
Tags: OLPC, sugar, Microsoft, XP, globalization, laptop, trends