arstechnica.com— Quanta, the company responsible for manufacturing the One Laptop Per Child project's XO laptop, plans to sell low-cost mobile laptops based on OLPC technology to consumers in developed countries.
Mar 29, 2007View in Crawl 4
Why not, if it helps subsidise the cost of selling them in the 3rd world?Anyway, I know plenty of poor kids in my own country (UK) that could use one of these.
Yeah, most people scoff at PII and P3 processor speeds anymore, but they are still useful. I have a 266mhz Thinkpad that I use on a daily basis, running Linux, and it does what I want.
Someone should make a web site that will collect OLPC jokes...Shouldn't it be named OLPCPC, OL(PC)^2 or OLPCL?What a status symbol is that thing gonna be... I'm sure its iPod-like sex appeal will make it fashion accessory #1 from offices of New York to streets of LA.Two months after the lunch we'll see first Wii-like "how to lose weight by cranking" blogs. Soon after that someone will make a freeware Java application that will be able to transparently offload CPU-intensive tasks, such as formatting a sentence bold, from OLPC to your mobile phone.OLPC will be loved because this will be the first and last computer that won't be able to beat anyone in chess.An overclocked OLPC will be mistaken for low-end scientific calculator.Low-res 16-gray scale screensaver will be the only feature of an OLPC version of SETI@Home.There'll be no such thing as OLTP porn as it'll take less time to go out, find a date, get laid and return home than to display a single high resolution compressed JPEG image.OLPC will never lose its appeal because it will be equally unappealing from day one.OLPC will make African countries introduce one child (per family) policy.
Sorry but I dont buy the OLPC thing. Schools need computers, not children.So in a country where the average income is less than $500 (ie Nigeria), a child can take their laptop and use its wireless capability to sell the thing to people in developed countries for $150 instead of $50 + SH. Great...
The economics of this problem is much more complex than envisioned. The reality is that poor children will sell the laptop at whatever (highest) market price they can and most probably to us (geeks).
jacko1990Mar 30, 2007
Why not, if it helps subsidise the cost of selling them in the 3rd world?Anyway, I know plenty of poor kids in my own country (UK) that could use one of these.
londubhMar 30, 2007
I saw an OLPC at Pycon 2007 in Dallas, TX <a class="user" href="http://us.pycon.org/TX2007/Keynotes">http://us.pycon.org/TX2007/Keynotes</a> . It was trés cool. A lot of thought went into the engineering of the devices. I took some video of it <a class="user" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBwh1QQDMxY">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBwh1QQDMxY</a> (sorry about the really cheezy music). As for the price, they expect with mass production the price will fall below the $100 to around $50 each. They have a very aggressive plan to have a lot of them available for children in third world countries by the end of the year and even more in 2008.
hellmarkMar 30, 2007
Yeah, most people scoff at PII and P3 processor speeds anymore, but they are still useful. I have a 266mhz Thinkpad that I use on a daily basis, running Linux, and it does what I want.
abuserApr 1, 2007
Someone should make a web site that will collect OLPC jokes...Shouldn't it be named OLPCPC, OL(PC)^2 or OLPCL?What a status symbol is that thing gonna be... I'm sure its iPod-like sex appeal will make it fashion accessory #1 from offices of New York to streets of LA.Two months after the lunch we'll see first Wii-like "how to lose weight by cranking" blogs. Soon after that someone will make a freeware Java application that will be able to transparently offload CPU-intensive tasks, such as formatting a sentence bold, from OLPC to your mobile phone.OLPC will be loved because this will be the first and last computer that won't be able to beat anyone in chess.An overclocked OLPC will be mistaken for low-end scientific calculator.Low-res 16-gray scale screensaver will be the only feature of an OLPC version of SETI@Home.There'll be no such thing as OLTP porn as it'll take less time to go out, find a date, get laid and return home than to display a single high resolution compressed JPEG image.OLPC will never lose its appeal because it will be equally unappealing from day one.OLPC will make African countries introduce one child (per family) policy.
coach80Apr 6, 2007
The "Yo-Yo" is being designed by Potenco, Inc. More information at www.potenco.com or <a class="user" href="http://www.myspace.com/173260750.">http://www.myspace.com/173260750.</a>
zolushkatykvaMay 6, 2007
Dugg. Such things make me a bit crazy
kmartshopperJul 3, 2007
Sorry but I dont buy the OLPC thing. Schools need computers, not children.So in a country where the average income is less than $500 (ie Nigeria), a child can take their laptop and use its wireless capability to sell the thing to people in developed countries for $150 instead of $50 + SH. Great...
hernancAug 1, 2007
The economics of this problem is much more complex than envisioned. The reality is that poor children will sell the laptop at whatever (highest) market price they can and most probably to us (geeks).
sharly2007Oct 6, 2007
Craig Barrett was correct, $200 toy isn't gonna work when it is already quite possible to get $300 regular laptops which can run normal apps. At least I know there are companies selling entry level laptops in India with a going price of Rs 15000 - 20000. If the OLPC was actually somewhere near 100 bucks, then maybe... <a class="user" href="http://www.gwafi.com/home.html">http://www.gwafi.com/home.html</a> <a class="user" href="http://www.gwafi.com/links.html">http://www.gwafi.com/links.html</a>