The OLPC Linux Based Laptop Wins International Design Award

 
The OLPC Linux Based Laptop Wins International Design Award
http://www.linuxelectrons.com/news/mobile/11401/olpc-linux-based-laptop-wins-international-design-award

"COPENHAGEN, Denmark – Yesterday, the Linux based One Laptop Per Child was presented an INDEX: AWARD for winning the Community category. The INDEX: AWARD is presented every other year, and in addition to the glory, each award comes with a €100 000 prize. INDEX: AWARD operates with five categories, which refer to the context for which the designs are intended: body, home, work, play and community.

99 % of children in developing countries leave school without having touched a computer. Without a computer-literate population, developing countries will continue to struggle to compete in a rapidly evolving, global information economy. The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) foundation aims to provide every child in developing countries with a laptop, but given the resources that developing countries can reasonably allocate to education, the design team behind the XO, also known as the $100 laptop, had to create an affordable, yet technically advanced solution.

The XO Laptop is about the size of a textbook and lighter than a lunchbox, making it easy for children to carry. XO is designed to be used in parts of the world where many classes are taught outside, and therefore it is sunlight-readable as well as shock and moisture resistant. In order for students to interact, a mobile ad-hoc network allows many machines to gain internet access from one connection and a maze-network connects all the laptops within reach. The XO can be hand-powered and comes with at least two of three options: A crank, a pedal, or a pull-cord. Plus, it features enhanced battery management for an extended recharge-cycle lifetime.

"Great design is a way to tell people that you value them," said Yves Behar, a Swiss designer who was part of the team behind the "XO" portable computer. Yves will donate the prize money to the OLPC.

OLPC have collaborated with several leading designers on the XO laptop, including Pentagram, Design Continuum and fuseproject. At the INDEX: AWARD ceremony in Copenhagen, INDEX: jury member Arnold Wasserman, chairman of the Idea Factory, praised the work of the cross disciplinary design team: "This team has applied the most admirable of all designer hallmarks; addressing a real need by refusing to accept that there was no available solution to the problem."

OLPC Chairman Nicholas Negroponte was pleased to have been recognized for emphasizing design in parallel with low cost. "There are two ways to make an inexpensive anything. One is to take cheap components, cheap labour, plus cheap design, to make a "cheap" product. The other is to use advanced manufacturing, large scale integration, very big quantities, plus good design, to make a low cost, high quality device. We focused exclusively on the latter and deeply appreciate being awarded the prize for it," said Negroponte.

The OLPC team consisted of Rebecca Allen, Christopher Blizzard, V. Michael Bove, Yves Behar, Walter Bender, Michail Bletsas, Mark Foster, Jacques Gagne, Mary Lou Jepsen, Nicholas Negroponte and Lisa Strausfeld.

Already, nations like Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Thailand and Uruguay have committed to buy the XO for their schoolchildren and the first laptops will roll of the assembly lines in October. Prices currently start at $135-175 USD, and the goal is to reach the $100 USD mark in 2008."

"The INDEX: Award does not categorize design according to traditional labels - visual design, apparel and industrial design - since these categories do not fully reflect the interdisciplinary approach employed in most interesting modern design. INDEX: asks that the nomination bodies think horizontally, across design categories and industries, when selecting their nominees for the five categories vital to human life; BODY, HOME, WORK, PLAY and COMMUNITY.

The winning designs are chosen by an international jury consisting of leading designers, design researchers, design writers and design thinkers from Europe, Asia and the U.S. All jury members have a great deal of professional experience from broad areas of the design industry and wide ranging experience from other internationally recognized juries.

Also, the focus on Design to Improve Life differentiates the INDEX: Award from other design awards, as design is evaluated in a much broader sense than traditionally, focusing not only on form, but also on the context of the design, e.g. ethical and cultural considerations, and impact, including the number of people affected, sustainability and level of innovation."

Asus Eee PC - $200 Laptop For Everyone

"Back when he first introduced his grand dream to the world - improving education through Constructionism, personified in a laptop for every child to learn and play with - Nicholas Negroponte picked an amazing marketing meme to express his dream's affordability: "$100 laptop".

In doing so, Negroponte subverted his original idea in the minds of many. Gone was an educational tool for children. In its place was the idea of an adult computer for $100. So while the One Laptop Per Child team was focused on a primary school student-centric design, everyone else was thinking about teenagers and adults using low cost computers.

This second, more mainstream idea is now coming back around to One Laptop Per Child in the form of competition from Intel. First there was the Classmate PC, which is a quick OLPC catch-up computer that sacrifices much to make a sub-$300 price point but at least pays lip service to Dr. Negroponte's original education idea, even as the OLPC pot called the Intel kettle black.

Now there is the ASUS Eee PC and it doesn't even pretend to be a pure education play. Oh yes, it does borrow heavily from OLPC with its tagline of "Easy to Learn, Work and Play" but do not be fooled. This is not a computer for children. This is One Low-Cost Laptop For Everyone.

With such a broad target, there are going to be instant winners and losers. The first winners will be anyone who wants a low-cost computer and can afford the $200-300 price point. This includes students and adults in the developing world who are not part of OLPC's target market of young children and might find the Sugar UI to be childish anyway. They are now going to be seen as a viable market, one even giants like Intel should focus research, development, and production resources to serve."

Laptop With a Mission Widens Its Audience - New York Times

In November, you’ll be able to buy a new laptop that’s spillproof, rainproof, dustproof and drop-proof. It’s fanless, it’s silent and it weighs 3.2 pounds. One battery charge will power six hours of heavy activity, or 24 hours of reading. The laptop has a built-in video camera, microphone, memory-card slot, graphics tablet, game-pad controllers and a screen that rotates into a tablet configuration.

 

Stuart Goldenberg

A laptop for third-world children has a camera, communications ability and a high-resolution screen. Buy two: keep one and the other goes to a child overseas.

Click here to see OLPC Video.

And this laptop will cost $200.

The computer, if you hadn’t already guessed, is the fabled “$100 laptop” that’s been igniting hype and controversy for three years. It’s an effort by One Laptop Per Child (laptop.org) to develop a very low-cost, high-potential, extremely rugged computer for the two billion educationally underserved children in poor countries.

The concept: if a machine is designed smartly enough, without the bloat of standard laptops, and sold in large enough quantities, the price can be brought way, way down. Maybe not down to $100, as O.L.P.C. originally hoped, but low enough for developing countries to afford millions of them — one per child.

The laptop is now called the XO, because if you turn the logo 90 degrees, it looks like a child.

O.L.P.C. slightly turned its strategy when it decided to offer the machine for sale to the public in the industrialized world — for a period of two weeks, in November. The program is called “Give 1, Get 1,” and it works like this. You pay $400 (www.xogiving.org). One XO laptop (and a tax deduction) comes to you by Christmas, and a second is sent to a student in a poor country.

The group does worry that people might compare the XO with $1,000 Windows or Mac laptops. They might blog about their disappointment, thereby imperiling O.L.P.C.’s continuing talks with third world governments.

It’s easy to see how that might happen. There’s no CD/DVD drive at all, no hard drive and only a 7.5-inch screen. The Linux operating system doesn’t run Microsoft Office, Photoshop or any other standard Mac or Windows programs. The membrane-sealed, spillproof keyboard is too small for touch-typing by an adult.

Find this article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/technology/circuits/04pogue.html?_r=1&em&ex=1191729600&en=3dc2ce6b6d434d21&ei=5087%0A&oref

Nicholas Negroponte - Keynote at Harvard University

Nicholas Negroponte keynote at Harvard University
Posted by Charbax in Nicholas Negroponte on August 13, 2007 - 9:31 am |

Nicholas Negroponte speaks about the One Laptop per Child project (OLPC) at Internet and Society 2007, a conference at Harvard University, Berkman Center for Internet and Society.  For more information, click here:
http://olpc.tv/2007/08/13/nicholas-negroponte-keynote-at-harvard-university/

Video: Yves Behar

One Laptop Per Child

Here is a video from Yves Behar, the designer of XO

Click here 

Open Source is a Strategic Imperative

Techworld.com - London,UK
By Myles Burke, CIO UK The acquisition and deployment of open source
software is now a strategic imperative for UK business, according to
research released ...
http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?newsID=9549&pagtype=all

See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ncl=http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm%3FnewsID%3D9549%26pagtype%3Dall

Australian Open Source Industry & Community Report

The Australian Open Source Industry & Community Report was
commissioned and executed by Waugh Partners, with the financial
support of sponsors, NICTA, IBM and Fujitsu.
We worked closely with psychometricians and statisticians provided by
NICTA, our primary research partner, to ensure the end-to-end quality
of the research. While our sponsors and supporters provided feedback
at numerous points throughout the project lifecycle, this report is the
result of independent analysis by Waugh Partners. It is based on data
collected through a pair of online surveys held between October and
December 2007.

http://census.waughpartners.com.au/census-report-2008-r1.pdf 

Waves of Innovation: From Open Source to Open Learning

 Waves of Innovation: From Open Source to Open Learning
By Sam S. Adkins 

There are now waves of new learning products hitting the global education and training industry. On the surface it appears like open source technology is the most significant wave. It is certainly getting the most attention. Yet, big-picture analysis reveals that open source products are just part of the story. There are larger socio-economic trends at work that transcend open source.

Proposal - Educational Initiative

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