Category Archives: OLPC

OLPC is Awesome. Press coverage of OLPC, not so much

2 Replies

CNet has some intriguing photos of the first OLPC laptops to be deployed, which were given to Nigerian students recently. They also have a written profile and fluffy video interview of Khaled Hassounah who heads up OLPC’s efforts in Africa.

I love the OLPC project, it gives me the same giddy feeling I last got from the first mars rover, but I don’t want background on the project and it’s principals.

Gimme THE FRICKIN MEAT!
What happened when the kids finally got their laptops?!? To this point, they’ve apparently received computer instruction from an instructor who has never actually used a computer. How have they reacted to the Sugar UI? Have any of them discovered they can tweak the python code underlying it? C’mon people!!! What’s the holdup?!?

Sadly, the OLPC site is no better. Their news page has a link to the CNet article. That’s it.

$100 Laptop: Made in China by Taiwaneese Company

MIT Picks Maker of $100 Laptop – Yahoo! News
Taiwan’s Quanta, the world’s largest maker of notebook computers, will manufacture an ultra-low-cost laptop developed by Nicholas Negroponte, the chairman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab.

The article doesn’t mention that while Quanta is a Taiwaneese company, they’ve recently moved their “laptop production to mainland China”:http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB111825761813954442-d4x_lQnm5A2GOO1NR6Wi_DBAyys_20050709.html?mod=blogs, which, incidentally, is likely a major customer for the $100 laptop.

Related posts: “Intel’s Chief, Clueless”:http://www.geekfun.com/2005/12/10/intels-chief-clueless/

Update 7/4/2007: It was funny for a while but all these comments from people who seem to think I’m selling cheap laptops is getting really old. I’m turning off comments.