On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 12:47 AM, -- Nicholas nichalp@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
I was referred to this group by someone, so this is a shot in the dark :-) I am not sure if any of you are involved in OLPC efforts both in India and worldwide. Here are a few basic facts: The OLPC project is based largely on Fedora (7 and 9) and runs on XO laptops that are powered by a 433MHz x86 Geode processor with 256 MB RAM. The laptop itself consumes a max of 8 watts. There are approx 600,000 OLPC XO laptops in the field with children worldwide - the next generation - with 55,000 laptops shipping out each month. Sounds like fun, doesn't it? ;-)
Don't worry about shots in the dark :) You have netted quite a few fish. I have visited the OLPC office at MIT, at Cambridge, MA in 2006, and have closely interacted with Samuel on content. I'm curious about the project status. They were supposed to release it in December 2006. How successful is the project till date?
--Nicholas
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Hi Nicholas,
Success is subjective ;-) However, considering that the outfit is about 26 people + volunteers, the fact that they shipped about 600k laptops in one year is success in my opinion. Most of the deployment reports are up on http://wiki.laptop.org/ Look for Peru, Uruguay, Mongolia, etc. A page with deployment details are up at
What's needed is awareness that the laptop is not just another cheap laptop. There is a complete learning philosophy that underlies the project, where it allows the XO to be a simple laptop to surf the web, read e-books, etc. but can also switch over into an overdrive of sorts and become a collaborative platform. For instance you can use a word processor on two XOs and write a letter together, in real time. Think of it as an IM within a word processor type deal.
Additionally, you can do this without being on the Internet, because the XOs talk to each other over Wi-Fi in a mesh or peer-to-peer mode. The Wi-Fi usually works across 700+ feet. We've run links across 2000 feet in San Francisco, and a guy in Australia has run links across 2km.
It is difficult to explain these features to grown-ups who are conditioned to computers; they've never seen anything like it. Children are a lot more receptive. In their minds, everything is new and discoverable.
In my professional opinion, this project is perhaps one of the most innovative IT projects *ever*. The best part is that a good proportion of its success relies on communities and contributors. Meritocracy at its best.
cheers, Sameer
Forgot the googlemaps link. http://www.buzzmoo.com/?p=257
Sameer
On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 7:58 AM, Sameer Verma sverma@sfsu.edu wrote:
On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 12:47 AM, -- Nicholas nichalp@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
I was referred to this group by someone, so this is a shot in the dark :-) I am not sure if any of you are involved in OLPC efforts both in India and worldwide. Here are a few basic facts: The OLPC project is based largely on Fedora (7 and 9) and runs on XO laptops that are powered by a 433MHz x86 Geode processor with 256 MB RAM. The laptop itself consumes a max of 8 watts. There are approx 600,000 OLPC XO laptops in the field with children worldwide - the next generation - with 55,000 laptops shipping out each month. Sounds like fun, doesn't it? ;-)
Don't worry about shots in the dark :) You have netted quite a few fish. I have visited the OLPC office at MIT, at Cambridge, MA in 2006, and have closely interacted with Samuel on content. I'm curious about the project status. They were supposed to release it in December 2006. How successful is the project till date?
--Nicholas
Send free SMS to your Friends on Mobile from your Yahoo! Messenger. Download Now! http://messenger.yahoo.com/download.php
Hi Nicholas,
Success is subjective ;-) However, considering that the outfit is about 26 people + volunteers, the fact that they shipped about 600k laptops in one year is success in my opinion. Most of the deployment reports are up on http://wiki.laptop.org/ Look for Peru, Uruguay, Mongolia, etc. A page with deployment details are up at
What's needed is awareness that the laptop is not just another cheap laptop. There is a complete learning philosophy that underlies the project, where it allows the XO to be a simple laptop to surf the web, read e-books, etc. but can also switch over into an overdrive of sorts and become a collaborative platform. For instance you can use a word processor on two XOs and write a letter together, in real time. Think of it as an IM within a word processor type deal.
Additionally, you can do this without being on the Internet, because the XOs talk to each other over Wi-Fi in a mesh or peer-to-peer mode. The Wi-Fi usually works across 700+ feet. We've run links across 2000 feet in San Francisco, and a guy in Australia has run links across 2km.
It is difficult to explain these features to grown-ups who are conditioned to computers; they've never seen anything like it. Children are a lot more receptive. In their minds, everything is new and discoverable.
In my professional opinion, this project is perhaps one of the most innovative IT projects *ever*. The best part is that a good proportion of its success relies on communities and contributors. Meritocracy at its best.
cheers, Sameer -- Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Information Systems San Francisco State University San Francisco CA 94132 USA http://verma.sfsu.edu/ http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
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Sameer Verma