Digital Trends
They call it Sugar on a stick. It’s the collaborative open source software originally developed for One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), the hoped-for $100 XO laptop, which actually comes in a $199. And now it’s available for all PCs, and “a great new opportunity to breathe new life into these old machines," Walter Bender, founder of Sugar Labs, told the BBC.
It can be run from a USB drive, giving older PCs a new interface and access to collaborative educational software.
Although for the last few years India hasn’t exactly been warm to the idea of the One Laptop Per Child project, IDG News Service is reporting two Indian government organizations have placed an order for 250,000 OLPC notebook computers. Although the order still leaves the struggling OLPC organization far short of its goal to have shipped millions of OLPC notebooks by this point, if the order plays out it could be a significant shot in the arm to the organization.
According to reports, distribution of the OLPC notebooks is set to begin in June, with as many as 1,500 schools in rural and suburban areas receiving the notebooks.
As part of a general hardware redesign, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) will be switching from an AMD processor to one by Via on its Generation 1.5 machine. Currently using the AMD Geode, new models will carry the Via C7-M.
"The design goal is to provide an overall update of the system within the same ID and external appearance," wrote John Watlington, OLPC’s vice president of hardware development . "In order to maximise compatibility with existing software, this refresh will continue with an x86 processor, using a chipset from Via."
The One Laptop Per Child organization has announced it is launching an internship program to send graduate and undergraduate students to Africa to help out with creating educational opportunities for children in African nations. Dubbed OLPCorps, the program will outfit up to 100 student teams with 100 OLPC XO laptops and up to $10,000 to cover operating expenses, and the teams will spend nine weeks in an African nation working directly with community and education partners to integrate the XO laptops into children’s primary education.
One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) famously aimed to create the $100 laptop and make it available to schoolchildren throughout the world. It never reached that cost target – the actual figure is close to double that – but it’s made a big impact, and now it hopes to make and even bigger one.
Speaking at the TED 2009 conference, founder Nicholas Negroponte announced that the company would open source its hardware design and encourage others to a copy it, according to blogger Ethan Zuckerman.
As part of a plan to update technology in Indian schools and colleges, the country is set to unveil its own low-cost laptop, the BBC reports.
It’s due to be introduced today at Triupati, Andrha Pradesh, as the central pillar of India’s National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technologies, and will stand as a competitor to similar machines from One Laptop Per Child and Intel, both of whom offer low-cost laptops. It was developed at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras.
The much-touted One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program has announced it is laying off half its staff and reducing salaries for its remaining employees, blaming the global economic downturn for the restructuring. At the same time, the program is vowing to do more with less, including spinning off the development of the Linux-based Sugar operating system to the OLPC community and working to deploy a $0 laptop for the worlds least developed nations.
The changes leave the OLPC program with 32 people.
Being dead isn’t necessarily a handicap to appearing on TV. John Lennon, the iconic former Beatle, was shot dead in New York in December 1980, but digital technology means he’s back on small screens appearing in an ad for One Laptop Per Child (OLPC).
OLPC, formed in 2005, aims to provide poor children around the globe with cheap, solar-powered laptop computers. One way of doing this is making them available commercially under the “Give One Get One” system by which customers pay for two machines, one of which is given to a child.
The One Laptop Per Child project as re-launched its Give One Get One program, making it possible for individual customers in developed nations to donate an OLPC XO laptop to a child in a developing region—or donate a notebook and set their hands on one of the OLPC XO laptops for themselves. Although the program was embraced last year by donors willing to support the project to get computers to children in developing nations, the initial Give One Get One program plagued by shipping and delivery problems. This year, the One laptop Per Child project has partnered with Amazon.com to handle shipping and fulfillment in hopes of improving customers’ experience.
One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) has been selling its machines through Amazon in the US since September, after having had trouble delivering machines under its Give One, Get One scheme, through which buyers obtain a laptop for themselves and in the price donate one to a school child in a developing country.
As of today the scheme will begin operating in Europe, again through Amazon, with OLPC’s distinctive laptop available in all 27 EU countries, as well as Turkey, Switzerland and Russia, the BBC reports. It will retail for around $395.
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