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Interview with OLPC's Founding CTO Mary Lou Jepsen, by Sean Daly - Updated
Monday, January 07 2008 @ 08:00 PM EST

Mary Lou Jepsen will go down in history as the founding Chief Technology Officer of One Laptop Per Child. She has recently announced that she is starting her own for-profit company, Pixel Qi, to commercialize some of the technologies she invented at OLPC while extending them. She calls it "a spin-out from One Laptop per Child." And so naturally we had questions. Does this mean we will all soon be able to get an XO-like laptop for adults, no matter where we live? Sean Daly had the opportunity to conduct an email interview with Jepsen, and so we were able to get some answers to that and many other questions.

I'm thrilled to discover that she reads Groklaw, too. And she has a question she'd like to ask you, Pick Your Brains style: "What would an open hardware project look like?" If you have ideas, please leave a comment for her.

I'd like to highlight one of her answers, because to me it sums up very nicely why any school, any government should choose an XO laptop over any other competitor. Sean asked her why she was leaving OLPC. Her answer:

My job is simply done. When I started in January 2005, many people thought was a joke, including Craig Barrett and Bill Gates. I took it from that stage -- just an idea of a $100 laptop -- through invention, design and partnering and to delivery. The laptop is in high volume mass production, it's the lowest cost laptop ever made, the lowest power laptop ever made, it's the greenest laptop ever made, it's the only sunlight-readable laptop on the market, it's more rugged than a Toughbook, it's in the Museum of Modern Art for it's look -- and countries are buying them en masse. For example, 260,000 are going to children in one-room classrooms off-the-grid in rural Peru. The XO laptop requires less infrastructure: it's about 15 times lower in power consumption than Energy Star mandates, and 15 times lower than any other laptop on the market. The Mesh networking extends the reach of a single access point as the wifi signals can hop from laptop to laptop to reach the children living the farthest from the school.

They simply can't beat that. Not Intel. Not Microsoft. They have nothing like it, not even close. I own an XO, and I can tell you, it's also an endearing, charming laptop, one that is enjoyable to use and play with. Everyone I show mine to falls in love with it, children especially. If her new company means we will all be able to get something like the XO, and it appears that is the goal, or part of the goal, this is fabulous news. All of you who were whining that you couldn't buy an XO because you live in Europe, her stated goal for the new company is a 50 Euro laptop.

To give you a taste of Jepsen's background, here's her bio:

In January 2005, she joined with Nicholas Negroponte to lead the design, development and manufacture of the laptop, and for the entire first year of the effort was the only employee of One Laptop per Child. By the end of 2005 she had completed the initial architecture, led the development of the first prototype and signed up some of the world's largest manufacturers to produce the $100 laptop. Incidentally she introduced the first prototype to (with Negroponte) to the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. He unveiled the $100 laptop at the UN summit on the digital divide to rather large international fanfare which hasn't let up subsequently.

Notably, Jepsen invented the laptop's sunlight-readable display technology and co-invented its ultra-low power management system - and - has transformed these inventions into ready-to-ship hardware, integrated into the $100 laptop. The laptop will start high volume mass production in October 2007. It is the lowest cost laptop ever made and the most environmentally friendly laptop ever made. The laptop can sustain 5 foot drops, is mesh networked, has a new collaborative language-free user interface that leverages the mesh network, and has a new security system that makes the laptop almost impossible to steal.

Previously Jepsen's contributions have had world-wide adoption in successful Head-mounted display, HDTV and projector products. She has been a pioneer in single-panel field sequential projection display systems and liquid-crystal on silicon SOC devices. She co-founded the first company whose sole effort was the development of microdisplays in 1995 (www.microdisplay.com) and served as its chief technology officer through 2003. Until the end of the 2004, she was the chief technology officer of Intels Display Division.

Before that, she has created some of the largest-ambient displays ever. In Cologne, Germany she built a holographic replica of pre-existing buildings in the city's historic district...and created a holographic display encompassing a city block. She also conceived, built mathematical models of, resolved the fundamental engineering issues, and solved some of the logistics - to create what would have been the largest display ever for mankind: images displayed on the darkened moon. She co-created the first holographic video system in the world at the MIT Media Lab in 1989, where the interference structure of the hologram was computed at video rates, and shown on her hand-made display. This system inspired a whole new field of holographic video and received numerous awards. Her PhD work combined rigorous theoretical coupled-wave analysis with lab work, in which she created large-scale, embossed surface-relief diffraction gratings with liquid crystal-filled grooves with high diffraction efficiency in un-polarized illumination.

Jepsen holds a PhD in optics, a BS in electrical engineering, and a BA (req.) in studio art, from Brown University and an MS from MIT

She deserves to go down in history for the sun-readable screen alone, in my view. What a wonderful thing. But there's more ahead, because she has said, "I believe that the work I led in the design of the XO laptop is just the first step in changing computing... stay tuned for much more."

Update: You can read an interview Jepsen's husband, John Ryan, did in which she talks a bit about the tech:

JR: Let's talk about the machines that are actually out in the field. How is this laptop's architecture relevant and appropriate to this use case?

MLJ: It's pretty hot in much of the developing world, so we've designed a laptop that can take extreme heat. Part of that is an artifact of it being so low powered. We don't need big electrolytic capacitors whose lifetimes halve every 10 degrees hotter you get. We get to use little tiny capacitors because we've got so little power to deal with, and that's quite helpful.

Also, half the kids in the world don't have electricity at home. Half the kids. Eighty percent of the schools that we're going into don't have electricity. So we had to design a laptop that was also the infrastructure. It has mesh networking, which is the last mile, 10 miles, 100-mile Internet solution. The solar repeaters and active antennas that we've added into the mix cost about $10 a piece and help to relay the Internet. If one laptop in a village is connected to the Internet, they all are....

There's truly so little power in the developing world. If a school is wired, it tends to be on a generator, and there's one 60-watt light bulb per classroom. Generators make really weird power. Usually what comes out of the wall in most countries is 50 or 60 hertz, or somewhere in between. With generators, the frequency of the AC power can go down to 35 hertz. We therefore had to do really interesting power conditioning on the AC adapter. The laptop itself can take between negative 32 volts to 40 volts, and work well with anything from 11 to 18 volts. You can plug a car battery into it. You can plug a solar panel into it. A hand crank can produce enough energy to power the battery for some time, as can a bicycle or a windmill. India has this cow-dung system that creates methane that drives a generator. Even that will work.

On the new company's About Us page, it says this:

I believe that looking at computers in a new, holistic, systemic way, with a clean-sheet approach to computer design - rather than incrementally increasing the horsepower of the CPU - is critical to bringing computing and Internet access to more than the 1 billion affluent who now are its beneficiaries. The key is a new generation of low-cost, low power, durable, networked computers, leveraging open-design principles.

To give you a view of the XO, if you are not fortunate enough to have one, here's an article in eWeek, with some pictures. And eWeek Labs took a look at the Intel Classmate also, and their conclusion, as the title aptly phrased it, was: "Classmate PC Useful but Not in XO's Class". The review mentions that the Classmate comes with a standard power cord, and the battery only lasts a couple of hours, I've heard, which is a problem in countries with unreliable electricity. Here's my favorite picture [scroll down to the one showing all the wires on the floor] of the Classmates in use. The caption reads:

A diesel generator has had to also be installed at the school to allow lessons to continue during the frequent power cuts that blight Nigeria.

Think about it. To use words instead of pictures, here are some differences Jepsen points out to Sean:

Classmate is more expensive, consumes 10 times the power, has 1/3 the wifi range, and can't be used outside. Also, the Classmate doesn't use neighboring laptops to extend the reach of the internet via hopping (mesh-networking) like the XO does. So not only is the XO cheaper than the Classmate, the XO requires less infrastructre expenditure for electricity and for internet access. In Peru we can run off of solar during the day and handcrank at night for an additional $25 or so per student this is one-time expense the solar panel and the crank will last 10 or perhaps 20 years. Just try running electricity cables up and down the Peruvian Andes for that cost while making sure it's environmentally clean energy. The Classmate isn't as durable as the XO, and its screen is about 30% smaller, the batteries are the type that can explode and only last 1-2 years and can't be removed by the user and harm the environment. The batteries are expensive to replace: $30-40 per replacement. The XO batteries last for 5 years and cost less than $10 to replace. Finally, the XO is the greenest laptop ever made, the Classmate isn't this matters a great deal when one proposes to put millions of them in the developing world.

And with that, I'll let you enjoy the full interview:

*********************************

Interview with Mary Lou Jepsen, by Sean Daly

Q: You're turning to a new page in your varied career. What has prompted this change? What will you be doing next?

Mary Lou Jepsen: I'm starting a company called Pixel Qi. Pixel Qi is currently pursuing the $75 laptop, while also aiming to bring sunlight readable, low-cost and low-power screens into mainstream laptops, cellphones and digital cameras. Spinning out from OLPC enables the development of a new machine, beyond the XO, while leveraging a larger market for new technologies, beyond just OLPC: prices for next-generation hardware can be brought down by allowing multiple uses of the key technology advances. Pixel Qi will give OLPC products at cost, while also selling the sub-systems and devices at a profit for commercial use.

Q: The One Laptop Per Child's Give One, Get One campaign in the USA sent tens of thousands of laptops to children in developing countries. I think it's safe to say that many donors are curious to try out a laptop which is so different. I know I speak for many of us, particularly in Europe, who hope that your new position means that an XO-like laptop will be available eventually for us to purchase.

Mary Lou Jepsen: I hope to enable this. I believe that it will leverage economies of scale. When you make more of something, the price comes down it's the distribution that can be expensive on a single person basis.

Q: Professor Negroponte has often stated that OLPC is an education project, not a technology project. Could you tell us a little more about that?

Mary Lou Jepsen: Exactly. OLPC is an education project, but we needed a low-cost, low-power, networked, rugged laptop. For me it was a way to use my technology skills in the best possible way: to give children with little or no opportunity a chance in life. Now that the laptop is in high volume mass production I feel the best way that I can continue to help OLPC is by setting up a new structure to concentrate on further price reductions in personal computing.

Q: Some were quick to suggest that your departure from OLPC is a sign of trouble at the organization. Is that true, more FUD, or something in between?

Mary Lou Jepsen: My job is simply done. When I started in January 2005, many people thought was a joke, including Craig Barrett and Bill Gates. I took it from that stage just an idea of a $100 laptop -through invention, design and partnering and - to delivery. The laptop is in high volume mass production, it's the lowest cost laptop ever made, the lowest power laptop ever made, its the greenest laptop ever-made, it's the only sunlight readable laptop on the market, it's more rugged than a Toughbook, it's in the Museum of Modern Art for it's look and countries are buying them en masse. For example, 260,000 are going to children in one-room classrooms off-the-grid in rural Peru. The XO laptop requires less infrastructure: it's about 15 times lower in power consumption than Energy Star mandates, and 15 times lower than any other laptop on the market. The Mesh networking extends the reach of a single access point as the wifi signals can hop from laptop to laptop to reach the children living the farthest from the school.

Q: Looking back, what would you say was the hardest part of your work at OLPC?

Mary Lou Jepsen: Hardest part: the travel 80% of the time. We decided to create and then leverage partner companies rather than staffing up. As a result it was key that I be there -- both to find the partners and then to keep them swimming in the same direction. Large manufacturers have billions of dollars invested in their factories; they are risk averse. My main job in Asia was to convince them to take more risk, to find ways around the roadblocks that made this or that "impossible". It means that most of my work is 12 time zones from where OLPC is located in Boston. Exhaustion sets in going round the world every 2-3 weeks for three years. When I was in Boston I would have teleconferences that started at 6:00AM and ran well past midnight nearly every day. Impact, for example -- I went into full-blown adrenal failure on a flight from Taiwan to Boston in late February 2006. The plane had to be emergency landed, and I was rushed to the hospital, I was dying -- and all I could think of was I can't die yet -- I have to finish the laptop first. Luckily I was pumped up on steriods and recovered in about two weeks. I have been more careful since.

Q: What was the most joyous moment?

Mary Lou Jepsen: There have been many, but seeing the first beta version of the laptop roll off the line in November 2006 was the pinnacle for me. I was so excited I snuck a camera on the manufacturing line and snapped a picture -- this was illegal, but I just *had* to capture the moment. I got forgiveness later and promised not to do it again, and I've been good since. Also, I got married just after getting the screen to work in August 2006 -- which was joyous on a personal level -- getting married more than the screen -- but both were exciting. I flew in the furthest for the wedding -- in from Asia with my new screen.

Q: The XO laptop is facing perhaps unexpected competition: the Asus Eee PC which runs on an Intel processor, the Intel Classmate which runs Windows XP (or Puppy Linux, or Mandriva, depending on the market). Is that competition positive or negative for OLPC? For children in developing countries?

Mary Lou Jepsen: Whatever gets more kids laptops is good. If the effect of the bickering is to make the ministry of education delay the purchase of all laptops or computers, then it's bad. We wanted to work together with Intel. I personally tried very hard to make it work, on the technology side some work was starting to come together -- ultimately Intel wants to sell lots of their chips but they get beat up in the market whenever their gross margin drops below about 50%. Fundamentally, low-cost computers aren't about expensive CPUs. The key feature of the CPU as far as I'm concerned is how fast you can turn it on and off in order to save power. Kids don't need a gazillion GHz machine. They need web browsing, video camera, text writing, music, video editing, games, news, logo, etoys and the ilk.

Q: The world is now very aware of the spoiler role that apparently Intel tried to play. Can you though talk to us about the differences technically between the Classmate and the XO?

Mary Lou Jepsen: Where to start: Classmate is more expensive, consumes 10 times the power, has 1/3 the wifi range, and can't be used outside. Also, the Classmate doesn't use neighboring laptops to extend the reach of the internet via hopping (mesh-networking) like the XO does. So not only is the XO cheaper than the Classmate, the XO requires less infrastructre expenditure for electricity and for internet access. In Peru we can run off of solar during the day and handcrank at night for an additional $25 or so per student this is one-time expense the solar panel and the crank will last 10 or perhaps 20 years. Just try running electricity cables up and down the Peruvian Andes for that cost while making sure it's environmentally clean energy. The Classmate isn't as durable as the XO, and its screen is about 30% smaller, the batteries are the type that can explode and only last 1-2 years and can't be removed by the user and harm the environment. The batteries are expensive to replace: $30-40 per replacement. The XO batteries last for 5 years and cost less than $10 to replace. Finally, the XO is the greenest laptop ever made, the Classmate isn't this matters a great deal when one proposes to put millions of them in the developing world.

Q: If I'm not mistaken, it seems a key difference between the XO and the Classmate is in the XO's mesh networking -- XOs network with each other, allowing children to interact directly, while Classmates are networked through the teacher's computer. Is this the case? Is this an important difference? Why or why not?

Mary Lou Jepsen: Yes, it's a key difference because you want the children to be able to be on the internet, even when they are home. The internet signals can hop from laptop to laptop all the way to the child that lives furthest from the village school.

Q: From the standpoint of a school in a third world country without reliable electricity, which of the two laptops would meet their needs best, and why? Apparently Intel is giving away generators because the Classmates can only run a couple of hours without recharge and in some places electricity isn't reliable, so I'm wondering what will happen in those schools once Intel leaves.

Mary Lou Jepsen: They are giving away generators? I didn't know that. We use 1/10th the power of a Classmate and so simply don't need use the things that spew noxious fumes as often. They are dangerous, in many places children aren't allowed to touch the generators. They are loud. The XO can use clean alternative energy, a small solar panel or handcrank, a cassette that attaches to a bicycle, other forms of wind and water power, even animal power, in India a pilot school is experimenting with cow power. XO can also use generators but the generators will go 10 times as far because XO consumes 10 times less power.

Also, generators create power that isn't as conditioned as most wall power, and so Intel will need to do what I already did with the XO: make the AC adapter tolerant to frequencies as low as 35Hz (usually they are at 60Hz (US and other countries) or 50Hz (Europe and other countries). Intel will also need to make their AC adapter tolerant to multi-kilovolt spikes (as I did at OLPC for the XO laptop).

Q: Let's talk about batteries. I don't think any of us are satisfied with the performance of the batteries in our gadgets. Obviously, there has been progress; modern NiMh and LiFePo batteries are intelligent and can communicate their status to host machines. Do you think power is the central problem in portable devices, or are other aspects (ergonomics, form factor, display, software cost, environmental impact) more important?

Mary Lou Jepsen: Yes -- power is the central problem in portable devices.

Q: Children are naturally excited about accessing the Internet, but in developing countries, that access is expensive, particularly in rural areas. How do you think that problem could be solved?

Mary Lou Jepsen: A shared connection via satellite (for example) will have to do with local caching and sometimes waiting overnight for bandwidth heavy requests to be filled (outside of primetime at cut rates for children). There is much that can be done with line-of-sight beaming from village to village -- and high bandwidth connections in the villages and between the villages. In Peru (a place where I'm still helping with deployment) you can even reach the jungles this way because they are close to the Andes mountains and can receive signals quite far away with an antenna at the top of a tall tree.

You know how Asia leapfrogged everyone in cell phone use because they weren't burdened with a landline infrastructure? We were all jealous in the US. Well, just wait until you see what Africa and the Least Developed Countries do with Mesh... maybe we will all want to move there...

Q: I understood that you have one or more patents in screen technology which are in the XO laptop. Are you taking those patents with you for licensing, or do they belong to OLPC? Can you clarify the patent situation for us?

Mary Lou Jepsen: When we eventually filed papers to make the OLPC 501c6 real, we also then started hiring (in early 2006). I then assigned the inventions that I had both already made and would make to OLPC. Pixel Qi -- my new company -- is now licensing my inventions from OLPC. This isn't an OLPC employee benefit, it's a deal I created with OLPC and Pixel Qi, and the benefit will go to OLPC and to the children of the world, lowering the price of the laptops, and thus allowing more kids to get laptops.

Q: It seems you have long been fascinated with vision, visual perception. Your holographic projection work in Cologne and of course the dual-mode display of the OLPC XO laptop are but two examples. During your art studies, were you influenced by Seurat and the pointillists, by the chromatics studies of Ogden Rood, by other artists or researchers?

Mary Lou Jepsen: I was much more into Man Ray (and Bauhaus in general). People don't realize that Ansel Adams was a chemical engineer. Holographers were like him when I was coming of age -- e.g., making their own film and developer recipes and cameras to create what could be just magical. Steve Benton was my mentor; he was a leading researcher in holography who took enormous efforts to teach the artists. In the field of holography you find equal representation from the arts and the sciences. The artists often, very often, figure out how to do things that the scientists and engineers can't. The scientists were always surprised by this, but growing up with it, I find it normal. The human visual system is really very complex, and you can make things appear to be there that aren't and again, vice-versa.

Q: When OLPC began, did they have any idea that they were identifying a new market, one that vendors had never thought about before? Did you have an idea that Intel and Microsoft would play the role they did?

Mary Lou Jepsen: Absolutely. It's been obvious to me for some time. We need to provide computing to more than one billion affluent people in the world. Those people are poor, often lack access to grid electricity -- but they are not stupid. They want the access to information, and it's been pretty obvious for some time that if we can get the price, power consumption and performance right, we can let the whole world into the information age. It's happened with cell phones, but they also want and need access to data computing and creation tools.

Q: Many of Groklaw's readers bought XOs in the G1G1 program, and they are having a wonderful time with them. How can they help the project? What kinds of volunteers are needed?

Mary Lou Jepsen: We need every kind of help -- there is a page at wiki.laptop.org explaining how people with different backgrounds can help.

Q: What is the future, do you think, technically in laptops? In displays? What will our computing devices look like in five years? Ten years?

Mary Lou Jepsen: The big laptop makers have woken up, and there will be a dozen $200-300 laptops on the market in late 2008. I think that the price is way too much. We go higher, I'm starting a company to go lower -- I think that we need a $50-75 laptop in the next 2-3 years.

Also: Touch should not be as expensive as it is, it should be in incremental cost to the price of the display and embedded into the TFT matrix, or the LED light bar itself, and in every layer of the software stack so that it can be used and accessed easily and transparently.

Q: Thank you for taking time from your very busy schedule.

Mary Lou Jepsen: You are most welcome. I read Groklaw as I'm able (it's blocked in China though). Groklaw is one of the best places to go for fantastic high quality content. Keep up the excellent work.


  


Interview with OLPC's Founding CTO Mary Lou Jepsen, by Sean Daly - Updated | 297 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
corrections here
Authored by: sumzero on Monday, January 07 2008 @ 08:05 PM EST
please indicate the nature of the correction in the title.

sum.zero

---
48. The best book on programming for the layman is "alice in wonderland"; but
that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.

alan j perlis

[ Reply to This | # ]

off topic here
Authored by: sumzero on Monday, January 07 2008 @ 08:07 PM EST
please indicate your subject in the title and make those clinks lickable.

sum.zero

---
48. The best book on programming for the layman is "alice in wonderland"; but
that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.

alan j perlis

[ Reply to This | # ]

news picks discussions here
Authored by: sumzero on Monday, January 07 2008 @ 08:11 PM EST
please indicate in your title the news pick under discussion.

sum.zero

---
48. The best book on programming for the layman is "alice in wonderland"; but
that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.

alan j perlis

[ Reply to This | # ]

Those BBC pics are illuminating...
Authored by: Bernard on Monday, January 07 2008 @ 08:14 PM EST
As PJ mentioned, the cable tangle is, well, amusing... (and I know Nigeria is
an oil-rich state, but a diesel generator?)

The one I find really funny, though, is the screenshot of a student browsing
Yahoo. Fully 1/3rd of the screen is taken up by the "furniture"
(toolbars, icons, etc) of running IE on Windows on a tiny screen. Doesn't leave
much space for actual content!

Bern.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Open source hardware
Authored by: kawabago on Monday, January 07 2008 @ 08:47 PM EST
Here is an idea I had a while back, an open inkjet printer made with standard
interconnecting modules so you can pick and choose the base/case, paper
transport, printhead/inktype, printhead transport, control module and
accessories like lcd panels and flash card readers.

The modules could all be made by different manufacturers which means small
businesses would more easily be able to get into technology manufacturing
because they would only have to make one module for an established market. It
would also start cottage industries making custom printers for people/businesses
around the world.

[ Reply to This | # ]

What would an open hardware project look like?
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 07 2008 @ 08:47 PM EST
Ms. Jepsen -- thank you for your fine contributions -- asked what an open
hardware project would look like?

That's easy. Look back to the mid '70s -- Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs who
founded Apple. Woz had a philosophy of making the hardware open. He did that by
providing the full set of hardware documentation for the entire machine, even
including the ROM source listings and schematics, and left some room for
expansion (via slots).

The fact that this was so well documented meant it was easy for others to extend
the design through their own add-on cards and software. I realize that expansion
may be difficult with a laptop. But in the very least, if you document
everything well, that opens it up to inventive third parties to extend the
design in innovative and perhaps previously unthought-of ways.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Open Hardware Projects
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 07 2008 @ 08:53 PM EST
Open hardware projects have been around for years. A very notable example is OpenCores. At that particular site, the modus vivendi is very similar to software projects, because digital designs are described in hardware description languages anyway. At other levels of hardware design, one would need to share, say, PCB layouts, but that too is something that gets stored and manipulated in computers, so there's no conceptual problem. Years ago I even saw an open source automobile project. Unfortunately, I don't remember the URL and don't know whether that project still exists.

[ Reply to This | # ]

I did not buy the XO
Authored by: argee on Monday, January 07 2008 @ 08:55 PM EST
I had already filled out my info and credit card info for the
G1G1 thing ... and, in the end, I did not push the final
button. I am still sad about it, but haven't changed my mind
either. Here's why.

The laptop is endearing, with a lot of features I would want,
but it is deficient in two regards.

1. The chicklet Keyboard. We had those in the days of the
IBM Jr in 1981. It was a flop then, and is still not real
desirable today. It would be okay if it were a bit larger,
because us adults have fatter fingers. Still, I could
have lived with it if not for the ...

2. Hard drive space. 1 GB, 2GB is not going to cut it.
Period. Too many things will not fit, specially documents,
pictures etc. The thing here is that there are a number
of Flash Drives in 2.5" form factor coming up, like the
one from BitMicro announced today. But the XO does not
have a 2.5" interface, so it is moot.

What they should have done is fit their flash drive
memory to a 2.5" interface (or SATA) and make sure such
a drive FITS into the case.

When this gets fixed in XO v2, then I will buy. Even if
a 2GB is standard, and the bigger drives have to bought.
And please, a bit larger KB! Just a bit!

The ability to expand the XO's drive is a real killer, and
I think the cost of making room for another drive and the
interface would not have added much if anything to the cost.

I also considered just donating one. But, because of the
above reasons, I figured the XO v1 as it now stands is
going to be a long term disservice. Lets get version 2
out and we will see!


---
--
argee

[ Reply to This | # ]

Interview with OLPC's Founding CTO Mary Lou Jepsen, by Sean Daly
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 07 2008 @ 08:56 PM EST
opencores.org is a collection of open hardware projects.

[ Reply to This | # ]

A Current Open Hardware License
Authored by: fb on Monday, January 07 2008 @ 09:21 PM EST
The TAPR Open Hardware License.

[ Reply to This | # ]

THANKS!!
Authored by: grouch on Monday, January 07 2008 @ 09:52 PM EST
Woohoo! I've been hoping for this article and interview. Thank you, Mary Lou, Sean, and PJ!

Now to go read it... :D

---
-- grouch

"People aren't as dumb as Microsoft needs them to be."
--PJ, May 2007

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • THANKS!! - Authored by: PJ on Monday, January 07 2008 @ 10:56 PM EST
    • heroes - Authored by: grouch on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 12:07 AM EST
  • THANKS!! - Authored by: Sean DALY on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 03:30 AM EST
Interview with OLPC's Founding CTO Mary Lou Jepsen, by Sean Daly
Authored by: PolR on Monday, January 07 2008 @ 10:21 PM EST
I am impressed with the XO. Thanks Mary Lou. Thanks Sean for the interview.

There has been much talk on this sites on Clayton Clayburne, disruptive
innovation and the Innovator's Dilemma. The XO departs so much from conventional
laptop wisdom. Here is a partial list from the interview alone. I am sure there
is more.

- Sunlight readable display
- Low power, can last one day on battery charge and use a variey of green power
sources available in most remote locations.
- Mesh networking
- Low costs durable device

It all goes counter the business model of incumbent vendors. Just going for low
power CPU instead of continuing the Moore's law race to higher and higher
performance is a revolution. The killer word is "durable". A whole
industry is built on the artificial need to replace the hardware every three to
five years. OLPC says we already have plenty of power. Just make it do what it
has to do for as long as we can as cheap as we can. Boom! The business model
goes down in flame.

Mesh networking flies in the face of Telcos and network hardware vendors. With
stuff like DSL, cable modems and WiMAX, one need to pay for the connection. One
subscription per customer is the rule. One modem per household is revenue for
the hardware vendors. But with mesh networks, who needs to pay? A business model
goes down in flame here. The Internet access point become a community service.

Remember there is WiMAX in Nigeria for the Classmates. This is no accident.

They say OLPC is an education project, not a technology project. But the
technology is all over the place. And also they think environment to boot.

It would be a great thing if a similar interview is done about the XO software.
I am sure it will be fascinating.

[ Reply to This | # ]

What I'd like to see in a cheap laptop
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 07 2008 @ 10:45 PM EST
No major insights here. But to state the obvious....

To sell to individual users in the 1st world a few design decisions need to be
rethought.

1. Lithium Ion batteries. We can afford the difference and since we already
face the problem of recycling the bazillions already in use the green issues are
minor. The runtime and weight savings more than make up for the price increment
once absolute lowest price isn't the overriding design factor.

2. Love the dual mode screen, but a little bigger would be even better. Again,
price isn't the overriding factor anymore so a better balance between useful
features and price would be a big win. In the mode without the backlight,
especially with some more mAH in the battery pack, it seems a OLPC type screen
could compete with ebook readers based on epaper. First ebook reader to display
a letter sized PDF and actually have it readable wins the market for portable
tech documentation. btw, this also implies a wide aspect ratio and ability to
flip between landscape and portrait when moving between laptop and tablet
modes.

3. Mesh is great in the developing world but we have lots of access points and
probably won't have enough of the same sort of Mesh enabled thingies anytime
soon. So leave it in but allow it to be killed to save battery life.

4. The XO was designed around children. But adults will find it difficult to
use the small form factor so offering a slightly larger one sized for adults
would be a good thing. But do keep the ruggedized case, love the idea of a
cheap 'beater' unit, heck service folks, police departments, etc would beat a
line to yer door for something more rugged than a Toughbook for a fraction of
the price.

5. Shun the folks who will insist 'it just won't sell' if it isn't geared
around playing video. The upsizing of everything required for DVD (or worse,
HD) quality video, from CPU to battery to weight, price, etc., will kill it like
multimedia killed Palm. It is OK if the CPU CAN ramp up enough for MPEG4
decoding but don't spec the whole system around doing it for hours at a time
until it gets really cheap and low power to do so.

6. Make it upgradable where practical. Memory prices are in continual
freefall, don't solder it down and force people to buy a whole new unit just to
get more RAM or Flash. It also avoids being left with unsellable units every
time memory makes a major shift downward.

7. While price isn't everything, it IS important. Keep it retailing under $250
and everyone will want one. I was so stoked over the Asus offering when they
initially promised $200 but lost interest when the price doubled.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Great interview of a real pioneer brought to you on a pioneer web site
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 07 2008 @ 11:50 PM EST
As long as there are people like Mary Lou Jepsen,
this world still has a chance.
What a brilliant and enchanting person.
Thank you!

PS: her comparison of the OLPC to the Classmate alone
was worth staying awake until 5am (MEZ). Enlightening.
Can you do it better with so few words?

I even would be proud working as car guard in her start up.
Go Mary Lou!

[ Reply to This | # ]

The world moves on, but Microsoft doesn't
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 12:08 AM EST
The problem with near monopolies is that, once you've built them, they're like
the pyramids: very impressive but they don't move. Computing devices are getting
smaller, the "PC" is slowly becoming an anachronism, and MS can only
maintain their monopoly if they manage to leverage it into new markets. They are
finding that fairly hard, or at least they don't seem to be able to extend the
monopoly to other markets, although they can enter them. Linux is rather well
placed to capture much of the mobile market, and of smaller, low cost computing
devices like the OLPC.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Still waiting for OLPC foundation to make it right...
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 01:07 AM EST
I posted a controversial thread over a week ago about some of the problems I've
had with my G1G1 experience. This is a follow-up just to let everybody know
that it isn't getting any better...

Curious to see if my experience was an anomaly, I checked out olpcnews.com and
was surprised to discover that many others received laptops broken in an
identical manner to mine. Just search for "no display" on their site
and see for yourself. Also, many others were told that a supervisor would call
them with an RMA number within a week. So far only one person reports actually
getting a call.

Having not received a call within the specified period, I called again last
Friday but "the computers were down" and they were going to call me
back the same day. I'm still waiting.

Here's the really interesting part: I placed ANOTHER G1G1 order on 12/29 and the
confirmation number that they sent me seems somehow linked to my PREVIOUS order.
They sent a new confirmation number and when I track it in their web based
tracking system, it shows me the same delivery information that my old
confirmation number did. If I take no action at this point, I expect that my
new OLPC laptop will never arrive, and I will never get a call with an RMA
number so I can return the broken one.

Again, I realize that these are all volunteers and I support their goals. I
just think that they need to do a better job. I truely hope that the 3rd world
receipients of the two laptops I've donated receive theirs in working
condition.

JSL

[ Reply to This | # ]

Hello, Mary Lou
Authored by: webster on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 01:08 AM EST
..
..
1. Before reading the interview it must be noted that The OLPC is a disruptive
technology. By some parties its success will be considered a defeat. Every
computer sold is one less commercial laptop sold now or in the future. Maybe
many. It is disruptive in so many ways. Many are afraid of it, and not just
tech companies. It is an implementation of freedom as in speech, broadcasting
it, and receiving it, a freedom of the airways through community meshing.
Theoretically men can network at will, unregulated and untaxed, so long as they
can connect to their neighbors. With enough of these things wherever men are,
they can connect, coordinate and organize, for good or ill. Some governments
aren't going to like it. Think of mesh phones, solar power and handcranks.
This does not leave the phone and power companies much to do. Some
revolutionary rethinking is in order. This techinical power available to
individuals has to be defined and protected in terms of human rights, and not by
the governmental and commercial powers alone, if at all. Combining the mesh
with wider, wireless broacasting will technologize the "developing
world" and the dispossessed. Clearly OLPC and Mary Lou Jepson didn't start
out to please any shareholders. Intel and other shareholder-pleasing entities
will go to their wits' end and to the extent of their considerable powers to
disrupt OLPC and free, enabling technologies. The powerful few much prefer to
keep the power to the few rather than power to people even if a few babies
starve. Every student in this world should have a computer, just like he should
have access to a doctor. Especially if society has the resources to provide
them. Will either be permitted to happen? The way Ms. Jepson sets and achieves
goals, one of these will get done.

2. She is determined to produce a $75 laptop. Even if she must settle for
$150, it will be revolutionary. She will probably put them on the lower rack of
rotating vending machines so they won't break on the drop. Touch z-7. People
considering a laptop will overcome all doubts and try one of these Pixels
instead of opting for a $1000 experiment. You can't go wrong with a $75 laptop.
Why that's less than an eye-pod! [Pardon. This user is gushing haven written
more so far than the interview! OLPC and Pixel are exciting!]

3. Question Four - Departure. Her job is done. Look at what she did! So she
is starting her own company. What a risky prospect. She could have been a
happy shareholder and CTO for anyone she wanted. She is going commercial to
help OLPC. One obviously doesn't count her great wealth in share prices.

4. Question Five - Hardest part. Clearly she drives herself. She is a
self-starter. She must succed at pacing herself.

5. Question Six - Joyous moment. First beta moment, the screen, and then
marriage in that order. The courtship schedule is priceless.

6. Question Seven - unexpected competition. She knows her "market"
which isn't traditional. Fast, expensive CPU's are irrelevant. Fast on-off,
low power, kid apps are her targets. Flaming gamers are not her thing.

7. Question Eight - Classmate-XO comparison. Obviously the classmate doesn't
have a chance in powerless walk-up villages or the jungle. The kids aren't
going to learn IE and Monopoly Office off the XO. They'll get a broader
education.

8. She is still helping Peru to deploy internet access. She is working with
mountains and tall trees. She will probably invent many network hacks that can
also be more easily implemented in "developed" cities.

9. Question - new market. She talks about getting computers to the part of the
world that does not live on an electric grid. How much of the world is that?
Will getting them low powered computers generate wealth for them? In many poor
countries kids can go to school but don't. They work. If they went to school,
there is nothing for them after. Can education with laptops change this?

10. She is going to sell some machines. Imagine a $75 touch-screen laptop with
a normal keyboard. What an immense impact she and OLPC have made already! They
can license these inventions and enjoy the competition.

---
webster

[ Reply to This | # ]

Interview with OLPC's Founding CTO Mary Lou Jepsen, by Sean Daly
Authored by: brooker on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 01:21 AM EST
All of Sean's interviews have been wonderful, but this one is my very favorite
so far. The OLPC project has always seemed like such a joyful one and I believe
it will have a grand future. The entire article made me smile!

I was very excited recently to learn that some friends of mine (school
teachers!) had participated in the Buy One - Give One offering. They promised
that I could come and play when the XOs are delivered. I can't wait! I had
wished so much that I could have gotten one (and given one!), but couldn't
afford it. I truly hope to be able to participate next time.

Thank you so much Mary Lou Jepsen, and thank you Sean, and PJ!

brooker

[ Reply to This | # ]

Super low-cost PC's are disruptive technology
Authored by: Walter Dnes on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 01:32 AM EST
Reading both Mary Lou's interview, and Bill Gate's interview (Gates on OLPC)
reminds me of a couple of turning points in computing history...

1) The PC destroyed most of the mini-computer market, even though the corporate
market tried to destroy the PC. Ironically, it was a one-off project staffed by
new IBM employees that made the corporately unpalatable PC. Why was it
unpalatable for IBM?

- instead of buying a $100,000 mini-computer, businesses could buy a $5,000
PC. As Martha Stewart would say, this was "not a good thing" for
IBM's profit margins.

- instead of buying a multi-thousand dollar Unix licence and associated
software from IBM, plus ongoing annual fees, people bought a $50 one-time PC-DOS
licence, and $200 software from MS or other publishers. Bad again for the
profit margins.

Dropping the price of a standard laptop from $1,500 to $150 destroys a lot of
profit margin. To quote Mary Lou,
> We wanted to work together with Intel. I personally tried very hard to
> make it work, on the technology side some work was starting to come
> together -- ultimately Intel wants to sell lots of their chips but they
> get beat up in the market whenever their gross margin drops below about
> 50%. Fundamentally, low-cost computers aren't about expensive CPUs.
Intel doesn't like lower profit margins.... dohhhh.

The use of linux is even more threatening to INTEL and MS.
- With X86-based CPU's, Intel at least gets licencing royalties from AMD. Linux
will run on a lot of architectures. X86 is not necessary. This is another
nightmare for Intel.
- and of course, every OLPC sold with linux is one more machine sold without
Windows, which eats into the MS bottom line.


2) Approximately 15 years ago IBM tried to turn the market away from an open
BIOS, to proprieatary PS/2 architecture. That effort flopped. In the past
couple of years MS, cheered along by Intel, have tried to move the market to
really heavy-duty (i.e. expensive) hardware configurations. MS did its part by
trying to kill XP and promote resource-hogging Vista as the natural successor.
Much to their (and Intel's) horror, a lot of people have decided to...
- keep the lightweight hardware (Intel says "ouch"), and
- run linux on it rather than Windows (MS says "ouch")

"The WINTEL duopoly" (MS and INTEL) do *NOT* want cheap laptops.
Super-cheap laptops will destroy MS+INTEL's cash cows. Unfortunately for them,
they can't stop it. Not that they haven't tried. They certainly aren't
practicing "non-disparagement" against OLPC. And they've tried to
sabotage sales in Nigeria (install XP over linux) and Peru (use Classmates
instead). This reminds me of IBM deliberately hobbling CPU speeds on the 80286,
and their BIOS hooks to prevent people from overclocking them. I forsee more
dirty tricks all over the place as MS and INTEL do their utmost to prevent
super-low-cost laptops.

For a precedent, look at the North American auto industry. Rather than adapt
to consumer demand for economy cars in the 1970s, the "Big 3" kept
pushing oversized, expensive pimpmobiles. They got slaughtered in the market,
and eventually got the government to enforce so-called "voluntary import
quotas" to allow them to keep selling oversized, expensive pimpmobiles.

[ Reply to This | # ]

open hardware project -- ronja twibright
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 02:18 AM EST
This is an open hardware project. Successful. Has been around several years
and is growing. Provides ethernet over point-to-point free-space optical link.
It is being home-built from readily available parts by lots of people in eastern
europe, where there is high density population, good line of sigt, but wires
don't go all the places they are needed.


http://twibright.com/

[ Reply to This | # ]

my take on the XO...
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 03:18 AM EST
I now have two XO's, one for my son, Kevin. The other was a xmas gift from a
customer. How cool is that?!?

I'm completely impressed with the XO. You can go all the way to the shell prompt
*easily*. It's just Fedora, in all it's splendor.

I discovered ***Doom*** is now an activity for download. Um. Too funny. Not
really for kids in the 3rd world, but cool none-the-less. I put SimCity and
almost all of the other activities I could find. I am currently learning Python
so I can write some learning games to put on the XO for my son. He's in 1st
grade and has to learn to spell 100 words. I'm hoping to figure out how to
record/play and put a simple program to help him practice. He spent a couple of
hours taking photos of his little toys, played with the music for awhile, even
ventured to play SimCity. (He's only 6!!!)

I'm still blown away that it all fits in such a small file system. No matter. It
still has more than 1/2 of the space free. (That's even before I hooking up a
usb thumb drive.)

The kids that get these devices are gonna rock your world 2-3 years from now.

It's not for us adults... well in the ***business*** sense. It's for us to
tinker with, learn, and enjoy our children's learning.

Sure it has ssh, vnc (and I was able to see a winxp with it), even
"VIM". But, it's ***designed*** for children.

Thanks to all of the OLPC people that made this happen.

[ Reply to This | # ]

touch screens
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 03:25 AM EST
Why the fascination? These things are dreadful.

First of all, screen quality is absolutely critical.
Anything that even slightly reduces visual quality is bad.
(this should rule out most touch screen mechanisms)

Second of all, touch screens are lousy. They have no
concept of pointer movement without clicking. Tooltips
can not work. FYI, the "sugar" GUI strongly relies on
the ability to detect hover for tooltip-like menus.
Add in the inaccuracy and we already have a disaster.

Third of all, you're now poking at the screen. When one
of my kids touches the screen, I reach for the alcohol
and a tissue. I don't want to read through fingerprints.
I especially hate kid fingerprints -- just take a look
at a kid's hands sometime. You'll find mud, butter, snot,
paint, and worse. Some of that stuff even contains grit,
which will scratch the screen. Kids shouldn't be forced
to foul their screens.

You'd be way better off with a pointing stick like the
little red bump in the midle of an IBM ThinkPad, or with
the analog thumb stick used on many Nintendo controllers.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Europe - here we come !
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 04:46 AM EST
1st quarter

23 January. 2008 PC World - OLPC Considering 'Give One, Get One' Offer in Europe.

Straight from the horse's mouth

Toon Moene (not logged in while at "work").

[ Reply to This | # ]

Open hardware project
Authored by: elhaard on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 07:00 AM EST
I personally like the Openmoko cell phone project. There, the hardware manufacturers have been really open about the whole process, taking a lot of input from the community. A lot of care has been taken to ensure that hardware components had open specifications to allow for open source drivers.

As another user suggested above, a great step forward would be standardized, modular design for mobile devices st that you could mix hardware from different vendors. Of course, this costs space (and maybe weight). This might still be an issue for things like mobile phones, but it should be possible for laptops nowadays.

Finally, a huge thank you from me to Mary Lou and the whole OLPC project. You have caused a huge leap forward for both mobile computing and education. I think that the OLPC will have a huge impact on education everywhere - not only in the third world, but also in industrialized countries.

Obviously, the XO has changed the way other laptop manufacturers think. They have discovered that there is a market for small computers aimed at adults, too. I hear that the Eee PC has sold quite well, too...


---
This comment is licensed under a Creative Commons License (Attribution 2.0). Share & enjoy!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Taking the OLPC to the next level.
Authored by: Frihet on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 08:34 AM EST
First, I have felt from early in the OLPC project that the machine being
developed was the start of a rebirth of "Freedom" in the computer
hardware business. It is a completely open architecture, hiding nothing,
limiting no user. Even the BIOS is open for inspection. In this "digital
millennium" where we exercise our basic human rights to write and
communicate with computers, that is what we need, not the DMCA, not DRM, not
monopolies, and not cartels. Our tools of creation must be free of these
tyrannies and must not limit our scope think and act. This is, above all other
benefits, what the OLPC promises and what Mary Lou might do well to keep in
sight as she moves forward.

Second, the OLPC design reminds us that we do not need a 3 gHz quad-core
processor to run a word-processor, browser, mail client, and messaging client.
We don't need a Ford Expedition to do what a Honda Insight will do if that's
truly all we need to do.

Third, I hope Mary Lou recognizes what the open source community can do. I'm
sure she must. Would it not be wonderful if her new endeavor could create a
trustworthy hardware and software anchor for open source development. A moral
partnership between the open source community and her firm in which she can earn
her keep and the community can insure completely unfettered access to the
technology that these times require for economic and social justice.

OLPC gets it.

---
Frihet

Repeal the Digital Monopoly Conservation Act.
Write your congress folks!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Mary Lou - are the folks at OLPC aware of this? This might make them change the specs of the XO
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 08:39 AM EST

Mary Lou

Education Related, Future of... - Your kind attention please - The idea behind this below is a good one. Please forward to your friends at OLPC and MIT as the main idea here is that in the future a child might use this web based software (when it matures or is forked to focus just on being for remote classroom operations) to attend meeting or attend a class anywhere in the world. To have access to any classroom (or classroom videos), anywhere in the world, where you can interact with multiple students and teachers all at the same time, is an amazingly powerful idea for education. To use the internet to go to school, no matter where you live, snow bound in a house in remote Alaska, or on a desert plain in Africa, or just sick for the day and have to stay home in another place in the world with regular access to a school... Or to attend an advanced class because your local school does not challenge your most advanced students with teachers that are smart enough to keep up with them? A powerful dream, but why not dream, because when you wake up, and we look at this tech, and imagine, then we start to see what is possible and then we can plan to make it possible!

For the future of Education - Below is an idea that even the creators (CalTech and funded by the US Department of Energy) can imagine. Right now the tech they are using might be too fat? And it might be fixed to be used with an OLPC XO computer. If not, then a student's computer might need to be designed to work with this as a miniumum as this web site needs to be able to work on OLPC XO like device (Education related).

http://www.vrvs.org/index.php

It is web conferencing for research and for schools to use - see: http://www.vrvs.org/index.php?id=819 |1 - Titled €œWebconference Brings Beamline to the Classroom€ - for an example of how it is used, there are other examples on the main VRVS web site. €œ

and the NEW sister site (or new site) that runs the same Video Conferencing for schools software (internet based)

http://evo.caltech.edu/

€œE VO used for teacher training, events and conferences, to fulfill CERN mandate to promote science, physics, particle physics and CERN.€

If you look at the first site, you will see that it is very education related (with a focus on Physics), they link into classrooms as you can see in their information. The OLPC XO needs the resources to run this site (if students or teachers want to get this site to work in a classroom or for more advanced secondary school or university use).

http://evo.caltech.edu /evoGate/help.jsp?EvO_Manual

The minimum computer listed here is rather large ...

(P4, 1.5Ghz, 512 RAM (1GB RAM recommended), Windows, Linux, Apple computers all work, JAVA is used.

Ouch... maybe some folks should show them how to do this where less of a PC is needed?

The older VRVS site has this: http://ww w.vrvs.org/Documentation/Recommendation/computers.html

(from the older site and so you wonder why the minimum hardware increased from the VRVS site to the EVO site)?

We suggest this minimum configuration:

  • Intel Pentium 4 CPU

  • 256 Mo of RAM

  • 10 Go of disk

  • Ethernet PCI card (10/100 Mbps)

  • True Color AGP accelerated graphic cards

  • SoundBlaster compatible sound card

  • USB support if you want to connect USB camera

What ever.... Is there any way that you can see where the resources for the VRVS and EVO tech can be made to be less than they currently are?

This is really an amazing thing - a sick child from home or in a hospital could never miss a day of class if this were available everywhere.

[ Reply to This | # ]

IHow can a university get an OLPC laptop for research and demonstrations?
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 04:15 PM EST
I would really like to know the answer to this,and I have not found any public
information anywhere.

Meanwhile, there is a very sad story about the Give One Get One project, in
head-on collision with the Office of Business of our university, which is trying
to enforce on the entire campus a very unpopular "Purchasing Policy"
introduced a couple of years ago, which requires that all computer equipment has
to be purchased from the designated vendor, who was chosen by public bid from
the list of those "designated vendors" who "qualify" for the
bidding process, mainly by being huge companies.

Any exceptions to the Purchasing Policy have to be approved by the Business
Office, which treats all such requests with extreme suspicion and hostility,
precisely because they are enforcing a policy which emanated from the Business
Office and nobody else likes it.

I tried during December to get approval for the purchase of one OLPC laptop for
my department (Mathematics). I was told that the purchase has gone through, that
the laptop is under way and will probably arrive sometime in January.

Today I came to work and the secretary in charge of departmental purchases told
me that the purchase order had been rejected by her superiors at the last
minute. She also said that she had been persistent about the matter and that
now, after the winter break, the way is finally open for us to order one OLPC
laptop. However, the Give One Get One program, which was the only way that we
knew of to get one of these machines is now expired!

I have sent an e-mail to Professor Negroponte, asking for help. He is a busy
man. I do not doubt that. He may not even answer and I could not blame him for
that. I do not know who else to ask.

We are an educational and research institution. We are in Alabama and presumably
will have students in the coming years who have used it, from Birmingham City
Schools. This is not a question of sales to the public, but to an educational
institution in the United States where there are people who might be very
interested in the project.

Does anyone know whom we are supposed to ask? It seems that there is a problem
on both ends. First, there is and has not been any obvious and openly stated way
that we, as an educational and research institution which gives training in
computer and software engineering as well as having a school of education can
ask for an OLPC laptop, even if we are willing to pay for what we get. Second,
on our side there is administrative nonsense which caused the request to buy
under the Give One Get One offer to be looked at as an attempt to fly under the
radar of an unpopular purchasing policy, and the approval was then held back
until it cannot do any good.

Does anyone on this forum have any idea about how to get around these problems?

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • ebay ? - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 05:09 PM EST
    • ebay ? - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 05:54 PM EST
      • ebay ? - Authored by: PJ on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 06:13 PM EST
        • ebay ? - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 06:59 PM EST
          • ebay ? - Authored by: PJ on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 08:59 PM EST
            • ebay ? - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 09:40 PM EST
        • ebay ? - Authored by: John Hasler on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 06:59 PM EST
          • ebay ? - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 07:24 PM EST
  • At the risk of being ridiculous.... - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 09 2008 @ 06:47 PM EST
Open Graphics, Open Hardware, and what is that anyway?
Authored by: Lourens on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 04:57 PM EST

It's been mentioned in another comment, but given your interest in displays you should really check out the Open Graphics Project. We're working towards a fully open graphics chip and card, and we're currently putting the finishing touches on an FPGA based development platform called OGD1. A lot of RTL is also being written, so that we'll have something to put into those FPGAs that can send a picture to a display. Most of the OGP activity takes place on the OGP mailing list.

The Open Hardware Foundation is a spin-off of the OGP. In the near term we will be doing various practical things for the OGP like accepting donations, but we're also looking at creating an open hardware definition, and at open hardware licensing. We've recently opened a mailinglist on hardware licensing issues.

We're always happy to hear from interested folks, so don't hesitate to drop by.

Regards,

Lourens Veen
Open Graphics Project/Open Hardware Foundation

---
Post licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 Netherlands License.

[ Reply to This | # ]

I$75 laptops
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 06:26 PM EST
Mary Lou wants to produce $75 laptops. Olpc plans for the price of the XO to be
$50 in a few years.

What about Intel's Classmate? I understand it is presently about $350. Is it
going to follow them down? Or, when XP support ends, will it upgrade the chips
for Vista, and keep the price the same? My bet is on the latter.

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Let us look at the school more closely
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 07:02 PM EST
The BBC article seems to indicate that this was a poor, run down school that is
being revived by Intel. Let us look at some of the phrases:-

"humanitarian efforts rub shoulders with commercial schemes"
"on the outskirts of Abuja"
"The original school buildings are all now topped with gleaming aluminium
roofs and the orderly classrooms pack the latest technology."
"When we started this program there was no infrastructure. The classroom
did not have any desks and chairs,"

Hmm.

A bit of Googling and we see that Jabi is in the middle of 3 phases of creating
a new Capital City to replace Lagos. Government money seems to be pouring in to
create the facilities. Spectacular Government buildings are going up. Public
servants are getting Government support to buy houses. Not exactly a poor, run
down rural area. What about the poor and needy. There have been programs to run
them out of the area to make room for the development.

From the photos we see spanking new uniforms and desks. Well, it is now obvious
why the trolls made so much noise about that. Another point the trolls have been
making is the colour of the OLPC XO, we see again, why. All those lovely
uniforms and laptops in Intel colours. Nice little classrom? The Government has
a target of getting pupil/teacher ratios DOWN TO 60:1, I no see 60++ pupils in
that room! 280 machines 8 teacher laptops I make to be 35:1. As for the laptops
let us see, "the school hopes to start moving them between different
classrooms to give access to all 750 students" not exactly 1 laptop per
child. I wonder why the photo of them being lugged round 6 at a time, not going
to let the pupils loose on those eh?

As for internet access the link is 256 kilobits per second (kbps) Wimax but
there seems to be an issue with this already.

"Entrepreneurs are also setting up around the school, piggy-backing on the
wireless signal that floods the area, according to Mr Ibhawoh."

"the school takes the details of regular users and provides them with a
username and password for a small fee.

The money provides an additional revenue stream for the school. "

Uh, right, this is for the pupils. I can see the pupils struggling to connect
while outside 'Entrepreneurs ' are hogging the service, well, they are paying
aren't they.

Cynically.

Tufty

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The risks list
Authored by: attila_the_pun on Wednesday, January 09 2008 @ 03:36 AM EST

Kudos to the Risks list for picking this up.

The risks list is the "Forum On Risks To The Public In Computers And Related Systems". Everyone with a serious interest in computers should read the risks list (news:comp.risks and http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks )

[ Reply to This | # ]

BBC radio interview with Mary Lou Jepsen
Authored by: TJ on Wednesday, January 09 2008 @ 08:22 AM EST

Currently available as a podcast or download from BBC World Service Digita l Planet programme. Starts at 7:48.

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from newspicks: olpc vs intel
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 10 2008 @ 09:40 AM EST
I'm not sure what really happened, but the way that things ended with Intel
makes OLPC look bad. Sure the salesreps were slimy and tried to screw OLPC by
badmouthing their product. But the larger picture is that OLPC played into the
worst stereotypes of a non-profit filled with professors and student council
types. For-profit companies like Intel have a difficult time in partnerships
with non-profits due to cultural differences. Let's hope that other businesses
are not scared away from OLPC due to the ugly way that OLPC and Negroponte
trash-talked Intel on the way out the door.

Frankly, if someone wanted to make a PC for $100, their first call should be to
Wal-Mart. When a true $100 laptop exists, it will be the same price everywhere,
on Ebay, and in bins at Best Buy and Wal-Mart. I just bought a dual-core CPU
laptop with 2GB of RAM and 160GB of hard drive space for $700, so prices are on
the way down.

I think that the efforts of OLPC and others with a similar mission should be to
raise money to pay for the machines and then donate them, rather than trying to
build and sell them. Trying to get 3rd-world governments to pay for the machines
looks like a losing proposition.

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Classmate? pffffttttt!!
Authored by: grouch on Thursday, January 10 2008 @ 09:43 PM EST
In the interview pointed to by the "update":

Also, half the kids in the world don't have electricity at home. Half the kids. Eighty percent of the schools that we're going into don't have electricity. So we had to design a laptop that was also the infrastructure. It has mesh networking, which is the last mile, 10 miles, 100-mile Internet solution. The solar repeaters and active antennas that we've added into the mix cost about $10 a piece and help to relay the Internet. If one laptop in a village is connected to the Internet, they all are.

-- Mary Lou Jepsen

Intel's Classmate simply can't handle reality where the XO is going. You can't buy extension cords that long and that heavy. The Classmate had best stay within the boundaries of the pampering, expensive infrastructure for which it was designed.

---
-- grouch

"People aren't as dumb as Microsoft needs them to be."
--PJ, May 2007

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What would an open hardware project look like?
Authored by: John Dalton on Sunday, January 13 2008 @ 06:28 AM EST
I think an important aspect is that it attempt to use the Linux bazaar model
rather than the old GNU cathedral model.

There is an open hardware community out there and I'm sure lots of is members
are champing at the bit to contribute to project like OLPC (I am).

The other aspect is to clarify the legal basis for open hardware. It still
isn't clear what is even meant by "open hardware". Are we allowed to
manufacture it ourselves? Is all design information free? How do patents work
into the mix?

A third aspect is open source design tools. Does open hardware require the use
of open source design tools? If not how can access to the design data be
guaranteed? Are open source design tools currently up to the task?

I'm looking to Pixel Qi firing up the open hardware scene.

[ Reply to This | # ]

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