OLPC Says No Plans for Consumer Release 208
Gr88pe writes "The One Laptop Per Child product has clarified that they have not made a decision on whether or not to carry out a consumer release of the XO laptop, despite previous reports. From the article: 'OLPC told Ars Technica in a statement that the company has no plans for a consumer version of the laptop. "Contrary to recent reports, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is not planning a consumer version of its current XO laptop, designed for the poorest and most remote children in the world," said Nicholas Negroponte, OLPC chairman.' They are considering a number of plans, but have made no formal decision."
Well, which is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought it wasn't for the really poor people. I thought the laptop was for countries that were sufficiently developed that they could focus on education as opposed to sanitation, starvation, etc.
Re:Well, which is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, education is the only answer to problems with sanitation, starvation, etc. If someone just comes in and does things for you, then you become dependent on them. It's been shown in the past that when you give a lot of food away, people produce less food, people are healthier, people are more able to reproduce... and their ability to produce food is decreased while their need for food is increased.
But if you instead educate people and teach them the values of sanitation, the dangers of unprotected sex, new methods of food cultivation, production, preparation, and preservation... then you have given them a gift which will benefit them every day, inform their every action, and which they can pass on to their children.
Education is the only solution to the problems of the third world. We cannot solve their problems for them. Even if we solved every problem we would have created a world full of dependents. If that's really what you want, then by all means focus on just giving the necessities of daily life to people.
I'm not saying we shouldn't give people food - but what I am saying is that we shouldn't give people food (or anything else) without giving them education and that education is the most valuable gift we can give them.
Re:Well, which is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
What I am trying to say is that although education is certainly the only way to solve the problems in the third-world, I am still not sure if OLPC is the best way to provide that education.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
What you (and everyone else who say this kind of thing fail to realize) is that whether this is the "best" method for giving them education is irrelevant. The people behind this project are hackers -- their area of expertise is computers, so computers is what their project is damn well going to be about! It's not a choic
Re:Well, which is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
The post above mine was talking about how "education" is the only answer to solving the misery in the third-world, not free food or free service for sanitation. And although I agree to his points about education, I don't think that OLPC is a synonym to "education" (YET, at least). And although I definitely approve (Not that it matters) and appreciate the OLPC concept, that does not mean that I think that OLPC is the best way to provide education at this point and time.
It's like saying that although drinking soda is better than not drinking any liquid at all, but it's still not as good as drinking water.
Bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, if you want to know who he's talking to, read any other Slashdot post about the OLPC. He's talking to every person on Slashdot who said "you idiot, this isn't for bare-means countries in Africa, it's for countries like Libya and Brazil." in response to anyone pointing out that starving people have little use for a computer. So which is it, Slashdot?
Re: (Score:2)
People and countries are two different things. In point of fact, the countries participating in the OLPC project are not the poorest countries in the worl
Or, put another way... (Score:4, Funny)
Light a man on fire, and warm him for the rest of his life.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not saying we shouldn't give people food - but what I am saying is that we shouldn't give people food (or anything else) without giving them education and that education is the most valuable gift we can give them.
Because a laptop is the same thing as an education. Okie dokie then.
Re: (Score:2)
The point of the OLPC project is to sell laptops and provide associated content and services to national ministries of education to support their efforts to improve delivery of education.
No one is saying that the laptop, in and of itself, is (or substitutes for) education; what is being said is it is intended (along with the associated content and services) to improve and facilitate education.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Can you think of a better way of enabling people to teach themselves about virtually anything than giving them access to the internet?
Teach themselves? How? The ability to learn is, itself, a learned skill. And hey, being able to read is a big help, too. I suppose the illiterate will just acquire reading skills through osmosis from the sheer volume of data on the Internet.
The Internet, by and large, is full of junk. It consists mostly of people's opinions and ramblings. Without the ability to judge in
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Lots of kids teach themselves to
Re: (Score:2)
Uh, education is the only answer to problems with sanitation, starvation, etc.
This, unfortunately, is one of the great fallacies of rich countries. If we can just bring knowledge to the ignorant savages, all the problems go away.
The reality is that education is completely useless is an environment of corrupt governments, gang warfare, civil war, local warlords, etc, etc, who basically steal anything of value. For education to be useful, you first have to have a stable civilization in place. These peop
Re: (Score:2)
The reality is that you yourself just rattled off a laundry list of problems that "educated people" would do away with.
By most accounts, people in Cuba and the former Soviet Union are/were very well educated. How much has/did that help them? Education is not some magic talisman you can wave around.
I like the whole caritable package (Score:2)
Were these little devices sold to the consumer market, they'd become feature competition devices and the prices would go up.
But if they are only delivered as sponsored charity hardware, any future design changes can incorporate additional "obsolete" hardware that normally gets "dumped" by the VLSI and hardware manufacturers into secondary or tertiary markets. By shifting that inventory to charity hardware, they get a tax write off, good press, and help out a lot of people.
Win-win-win-win... there is n
Re: (Score:2)
internet access + http://ocw.mit.edu/ [mit.edu] = better education
The "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" argument doesn't hold a lot of water either.
Isn't that how the western world got to this point of development? Sure the issues you've raised are real and quite difficult, but our forefathers went through that stuff too. Hopefully it will take the poorest countries less time if we tell them the lessons we learned along the way.
Re: (Score:2)
Monitors and steel cases are heavy.
Re:Well, which is it? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, they aren't. They aren't designed for use in rural areas with limited power and other infrastructure, the OLPC machines are. Further, the used computers aren't to one standard, the OLPC machines are, which enables national ministries of education buying them to support them more easily, and have standard software and content that works the same on all of them. Etc.
Not much, if at all.
Actually, they'd be far less use. They aren't designed for the use they'd be put to, they often aren't reliable to start with, they don't present a common, open platform. They don't, unlike the OLPC machines, have keyboards specific to the receiving country to accommodate national languages. In short, they are nearly, if not entirely, useless for the role that the OLPC machines are targetted for.
One of the more interesting ideas (Score:5, Interesting)
The part of it that would be of interest to me would be a system that would allow a westerner to just buy one of these for a child oversees.
Re:One of the more interesting ideas (Score:5, Interesting)
I would not mind buying two for children overseas - especially if the system of charitable contributions is set up so we end up with a "negative salestax" - but I do not want to miss out on one for myself either.
The screen may be a bit small compared to what I use on my desktop, but it's got a decent resolution and can be read outside. I want to be able to sit on the deck or in the garden and edit wiki pages, browse the web, listen to music or show stuff using the built-in camera.
The XO is also much more rugged than normal laptops. You can actually take it outside without worrying about it breaking because of dust or some raindrops. I want one
I've got a great idea.. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm there. (Score:2, Interesting)
I am very serious when I say I'd consider doing that: sign up for a year or two, have them fly me there (or i'd even pay my own airfair if i end up feeling that strongly about the potential of the project. I'm not that wholly convinced at this point.) Maybe they also get me some kind of formal certifications (like TEFL or something OLPC rea
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I really hope it does become available in developed countries in the way that you mention. I think that's a fantastic way to contribute.
Focus on your Core Competancy (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
How?
I don't see how this is really distracting substantial resources, as there are plenty of people willing to volunteer to help set up this "western" consumer edition. And the suggestion to add extra features to meet the needs of the western market IMHO is ludicri
Re: (Score:2)
If there's a "buy one, donate one" system, we rich people will get cool toys, and poor kids will get their computers further subsidized. Good for everyone, right?
I can easily see the OLPC eclipsing the Wii and PS3 as the must-hav
Make the 200% version a different colour (Score:3, Insightful)
clarification? (Score:5, Funny)
So they clarified with ambiguity. Good show.
Re: (Score:2)
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!" -- Vroomfondel, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The summary title says they have no plan to do so. (Score:2)
Production (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Production (Score:5, Insightful)
If that is true, then they are probably having problems with production already. Instead of giving away a laptop for each one purchased, they could use that money to improve production capacity, to do research on further cost reductions, or to pay for additional software development. It doesn't necessarily have to be a buy-two-get-one scheme to be useful.
Re: (Score:2)
They aren't giving any away, they are being purchased by national ministries of education. IIRC, the goal was to get commitments on orders for 5 million before starting production, and has already been exceeded.
That just seems dumb... (Score:4, Interesting)
If people demand it, the market should supply it.
I say we develop a "one child per laptop" organization. It's function would be to convince governments to develop laws mandating that you can only have a child if you have a laptop.
Re: (Score:2)
But the laptops are already being made. The more they sell, the more economy of scale works to reduce the cost of the thing, which benefits everyone - users, manufacturers, and designers. With the Ford example, giving the cars away for free only benefits end-users.
-b.
Re: (Score:2)
People don't demand free cars. They demand cars, and car makers are providing them with whatever they can offer at the best price they're getting away with.
OTOH, many people may want a free car, but that doesn't mean they're going to get it.
Why the hell not, (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why the hell not, (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Why they're looking to promote the gray market by not selling retail is beyond me...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If the demand is satisfied in the west, the price that can be asked for on Ebay will be so low that it won't be worth the effort.... and the governments who are buying these things will have an economic incentive to try and stop the wholesale theft (presuming they are spending their own money to buy these computers).
Yes, perhaps a marginal market
Re:Why the hell not, (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Selling the same model would undermine the social-disapproval mechanism the project hopes will discourage a gray market in the OLPC machines; which is why the program has often said they are looking at making a distinctive derivative version of the machine for individual sale.
2. The price point is controlled by the fact that they aren't supporting an infrastructure for individual sales/support/etc., only selling to national ministries of education in enormous lots. Paying twice the cost that governments were buying them for in bulk wouldn't be enough to support commercial individual sale and have excess "profit" to subsidize delivering one to the developing world.
Re: (Score:2)
It worked for donated clothing, it got dumped in such quantities that an industry picking the valuable items out for resale in second hand shops in the 1st world sprung up.
Queue Nigerian spam -- my late husband's private container of OLPC computers got stuck in Rotterdam...
It's still a good funding idea... (Score:5, Interesting)
One idea I heard floating around was the to buy one for yourself, you would have to buy one towards the initiative. To me that sounds like a win win, they get more in contributions to the cause, people that want to play with one get the opportunity and production orders increase which usually drives down costs even more.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is similar to what the Freeplay Foundatation and C. Crane were doing with the Freeplay Lifeline Radios [ccrane.com]. Buy one for yourself, and one is donated to orphans in Rawanda.
Apparently this wasn't popular enough, because it looks like Freeplay and C. Crane have discontinued the program. The radios were probably too large and ugly for most American shortwave consumers, I suppose.
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.ambientweather.com/fialcrcrrawi.html [ambientweather.com]
Compare that one for instance, its smaller, far more portable, nicer looking and has more features...for $19. The laptop program though has a product I cant find...a crankable laptop fast enough for b
Re: (Score:2)
I agree. But I wonder how hard it would be to buy a hand crank and a wireless card with a Marvell 88W8388 (or equivalent) chip, and hook it up to a cheap used laptop you find on ebay.
We have poor people in the West too (Score:2)
The idea that everyone is rolling in money in USA and Europe is a myth propagated by Hollywood, the media and politicians, because the reality of the situation is neither popular nor a vote winner. If anyone doubts that, just check the stats on homeless people right across the richest nations. 37 million people in the USA alone were living below the poverty line at the last count
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hi, I live below the poverty line according to my income. I'm typing this from a Powerbook in a (really fucking nice) 1200 sq ft apartment which I commute to work in a VW Jetta. I also pay for my own school (no student loans, paying out of pocket), I have $3000 in savings. I just got a promotion at where I work (movie theater!) but the pay raise hasn't come in yet. I've got Cable broadband, and it's fabulous. No handouts from my parents, doing this on my own. I had about $3000 in credit
These guys seem to have no Goddamn clue (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Assuming this part is serious, and only (if anything) the later questions were sarcastic...
The orders they are taking are something like 1 million+ units per order; it would take a huge (and expensive) marketing blitz to even have a remote chance of getting enough consumer sales to make a substantial difference in the overall volume and unit cost.
Re: (Score:2)
Good Decision (Score:4, Interesting)
(Bletsas acknowledges that some abuse is inevitable. "Will some parents sell their children's laptops on the gray market? Sure." ) source [linuxtoday.com]
Yes this is only initially, but if the children that these laptops are designed for are missing out because some random wants to play with it in his apartment along with his 2 pc's his other laptop, his pda and 3 game consoles something is seriously amiss, regardless of how much he pays for it.
Re: (Score:2)
Sell as many as you can to whomever can buy. The profits can be used to increase production capacity.
-b.
I too think it may be good (Score:4, Insightful)
If the use an application of these things are considerably more limited and not general purpose, then that could go a long way to prevent their abuse.
Re: (Score:2)
I would venture if someone wanted to use these to make a 419/click-fraud farm, they would find one either on the grey market or just take one. (There should be plenty going to war torn, despot leaded areas of Africa where a militant could just walk out and go YOINK!)
The tinkerers would be the ones necessary to find how they're doing it and
Re: (Score:2)
So I guess that we should make everyone undergo a strict background check and state their reasons for wanting a computer license before they get to buy a computer? If someone's using a computer for fraud, arrest them, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
-b.
Everybody knows (Score:4, Interesting)
If they don't *know* that this laptop would be a huge benefit to poor people in ALL countries, then they're either being threatened by the likes of Dell (hard to sell $500 POS desktops when you can get a durable $100 laptop) or are completely blind to the people who are right under their noses.
As long as I have a computer with an internet connection I will never be broke. I may be homeless, but I'll never be broke. But, I guess people don't care about the homeless people in say New York that could use a laptop to get started in developing web-sites to bring in some extra money (or even to find resources like food banks and shelters) to help them get back on their feet.
Re: (Score:2)
Basically you have summed this all up in one line which IMHO is very appropriate. A a cheap laptop for people in third world countries sounds very humanitarian at first until you think about it then you really have to ask the above question.
I am quite sure these people who are proposing the $100 computer mean well but I feel the $100 could be spent on better basic education such as reading, wri
Re: (Score:2)
I think they would sell the laptops to people in first world countries. But you'd have to buy a million of them, and give them all away to children.
Too popular? (Score:2, Interesting)
Way too popular (Score:2)
But there's something about it that nags at me, and I can't quite put my finger on it. Something a little condescending, a little too much hubris about it all. The way the planned recipients of these devices are described almost in cargo-cult like terms. Almost as if the Great White Fathers in the West expect to come back a year late
Re: (Score:2)
Please provide an example of the OLPC project describing the planned recipients of the devices in anything fairly described as remotely resembly "cargo-cult like terms".
Re: (Score:2)
I think we're handing out a bunch of very large lime green mp3 players. Oh well, as charity goes, I can't see this one being too destructive (unlike the food programs that destroy the very farming economy necessary to get out of famine).
Re: (Score:2)
I think, that while the project itself is developing content and has some ideas about how to use them in education, the expectation is that governments spending hundreds of millions of dollars on hardware will also spend a few man-hours on their own considering how they might best apply that hardware in their own educational system.
There's no magical thinking involv
Re: (Score:2)
For me it's the control aspect. "We'll give you this laptop for $150. But you have to buy a million of them. And you have to give them away to children. And those children aren't allowed to resell them."
And this part probably isn't intentional, but what's going to wind up happening is these poor countries are going to be used as Guinea Pigs. If
Re: (Score:2)
Think of the OLPC as a consolation gift.
A Question I didn't ask on the OLPC wiki.. (Score:3, Interesting)
If someone nice and rich out there really wants to buy these laptops for the first world, I think they can do it. Just don't go asking OLPC for 3 units "for my grandkids" for xmas next year.. cause that's not the way electronics manufacturers sell stuff.. they sell in bulk to retailers who add their markup, add postage and handling, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
So sell to an electronics supply house (perhaps for more than $100 in the US) and let *them* handle the distribution logistics to end users. Let them decide whether there is demand for the product and at what price. If they buy 1000 of the laptops at $250
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Robbing? If Negroponte's company is making a profit, you gave money to the company. This money can be reinvested to manufacture more OLPCs at even lower cost to give to more children. That's the way capitalism works, tovarish.
-b.
Re: (Score:2)
He wasn't talking about buying one from the developers, he was talking about buying one from some warlord who hijacked the shipment and hocked them on Ebay for ammo money.
Someone should design a PDA (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree that the OLPC is designed well and sounds really cool, but in practice I think most people in the developed world would be hard-pressed to find actual uses for it. Our youth shouldn't be trained on a specially-designed OS that has little relation to actual OS's when we can afford simple windows, linux, or OSX based desktops. Most adults wouldn't be caught outside using this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:OLPC-XO_in_Col
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The outdoor usable display is the big selling point for someone who lives in perpetually sunny Texas. I tried using the B&W feature on my powerbook, but you really need a backlight to see anything. That OLPC display is incredible.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, it does. I'm not going to respond to the part replaced with the
Re:Someone should design a PDA (Score:4, Insightful)
90% of "computing" work involves writing documents. This would do fine for the purpose. As it would for chatting, e-mail, and a lot of web browsing.
Most adults wouldn't be caught outside using this:
I seem to recall Apple selling quite a few clamshell iBooks. If anything, this is a bit more elegant and tasteful. I'd certainly buy one or two.
-b.
No sale (Score:2)
IMHO, a small but successful commercial run should be a minimum prerequisite for the major rollout.
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't have an aid mission. Its not soem gift being airdropped by the West onto developing nations, its something national governments are buying.
Its main mission provides more of an economy of scale (and without the hassle of dealing with retail networks or direct support of individual users) than marketing
Chanel Conflict... (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I would consider converting my home server to one of these OLPCs. A couple hundred MHz, a couple USB ports for storage, and low power usage sound about right.
Re:Chanel Conflict... (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What do you mean, "derivative?" All they need to do to is use a different color plastic for the case on the commercial version. That'll make it plenty "distinctive," and it's easy enough that they can sell them immediately!
Re: (Score:2)
Well, here's what the OLPC Wiki [laptop.org] says:
Retail Sales on the Open Market
This part of the model is currently not clearly defined. Firstly, it is not something that OLPC itself will do either now or in the future. However, there will be retail sales of 2B1 or similar models. This will happen sometime after the initial country rollouts when the manufacturers are comfortable enough with pr
Send in the clones (Score:2, Funny)
You want what you can't have (Score:2, Insightful)
Stupid? I would buy one... (Score:3, Interesting)
But here goes another story - what if I would decide to develop (here in Central Europe - why not?) software/services for this machines? I would like to get one for developement and stuff (those OS images for emulation are not suitable for Real World testing The Platform)?
For me not releasing it (even if it costs like 3x more) to general public is like creating a barrier - so kids in other countries will get this stuff. And me? Me not. I guess this laptop was intended to break the barriers - this situation - when it is not aviable for whole world creates a barrier.
Like come on - I would love to hack it and share what I did with other people.
Re: (Score:2)
Buy three laptops and give two away... aka pay $300-$400 and make a donation to the OLPC effort at the same time.
It is precisely this sort of suggested fundraising that the OLPC supporters are rejecting flatly, and there is not a single shred of evidence that any other similar sort of financial arrangement is being made. If the BBC claims that such an effort is being done, it is a very slo
tiny (Score:5, Informative)
Argument for a conumser version (Score:2)
If all of the poor people in the world run one platform, and only poor people run it, aren't they more likely to use different file formats? And if that happens, won't it be harder for us to talk to each other?
I know we don't do much talking now, but I think that's a big problem, and one we should be trying to chip away at, and not reinforce.
idealism * reality = crime (Score:2, Insightful)
Free Market Delusion (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
What is missing here is that if the OLPC group has the opportunity to nip all of that in the bud and be able to profit from this opportunity at the same time... turning this from a fleecing of 3rd world governments to a fleecing of western consumers with the "profits" being used to help get these laptops to the intended individuals.
Why they can't see that it would be chea
Why? (Score:2)
This is misguided. If the "Western" world has no contact with the platform becau
Amen! (Score:2)
I have been highly critical of the OLPC project since the beginning for precisely the very reasons you have given, and more, as it shows a sort of arrogance and complete lack of understanding of economics on the part of the major contributors to this project.
And while Ebay may be able to stop the sale of these particular computers explicitly in some sort of weird new policy specific to the OLPC project, they have no legal obligation to do so, nor is it going to stop a grey market
Diamond Age version (Score:2)
If introduced in the now neglected "first" world, this could spur development of a huge quantity of educational materials. (Eg. Wikipedia, but with animated examples and at different levels of difficulty (eg. for pre-schoolers to PHD's) which in turn would
Well, congratulations (Score:2)
Yeah, well... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I agree completely. Looking forward, the best way to add value to The Children's Machine is to increase the amount and diversity of software available for it. And the best way to do that is to sell the machine to those who want to tinker with, and possibly program, it.
Re: (Score:2)