Colombia signs up for OLPC laptops with Windows – Network World
Network world is carrying the following story that details OLPC’s second Windows based deployment to South America. It looks like Microsoft will be heavily involved in this one: Colombia will become the second country to use the One Laptop Per Child Project’s (OLPC) XO laptops running Microsoft Windows XP in schools after signing an agreement [...]
here comes eGames – 14th-16th November – Melbourne
The eGames Expo will be in its third year when it kicks off this friday at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. Despite being fairly close to the whole process, this year will be the first year I’ve been able to attend (and even then, it was touch and go!). eGames is packing some interesting things this [...]
olpc marketing issues
It’s been a good few months since I started to seriously focus on One Laptop per Child related things. After reading an article at ZDNet today, I can say that the challenge of getting people to understand OLPC as an education project rather than a computer project is huge. As I’ve said a few times [...]
One Velociraptor Per Child
Jurassic Park and OLPC related humor all rolled into one? What are the chances? I’ll take it! One Velociraptor Per Child’s mission is to increase the Darwinian fitness of the world’s poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-energy, internet-enabled velociraptor with content designed for collaborative, practical, self-empowered survival. [M]etabrain [E]ntry [L]og [...]
Sugar Spin
The Fedora Project has just announced a Fedora Live CD that uses Sugar as it’s GUI. Included in the functionality are a bunch of XO Activites. Before I got my hands on an XO I attempted to run the virtual version that’s been available for quite some time. Performance was the problem, though, and I [...]
CASE’s One laptop per child open day – brief review
Just back from CASE‘s One Laptop per Child Open Day, held this afternoon in Belconnen. We had a good time with a dozen or so people showing up. Visitors were introduced to the laptop and then had the opportunity to play with them and experience the feel of one. This stimulated a good amount of [...]
it’s not just about UI
Over the past 24hrs the “Windows VS Linux on XOs” debate has picked up [1][2][3], with CNet posting a good article that’s picked up a decent amount of interesting comments. The post concludes, from a child’s point of view, they’re probably going to enjoy an XO no matter what software it’s running and they’d get [...]
Cultural Content
Clive Longbottom at Silicon.com suggests a list of things you don’t want to assume when working on something like the One Laptop per Child project. Literacy, competency and connectivity are three things you need, that’s for sure. And, quite rightly, he suggests that content is king. The nature of the beast is that content has [...]
Insight from from East Africa
Following the recent donation of 5000 XO laptops, Rwanda is on the move. From a Ugandan newspaper comes a report of a large scale adoption of the program within the country. The reporter also has further insight on education in developing nations: “The reason the political leadership has never bothered with providing quality education in [...]
8.2.0 update
I’m currently updating my XOs to the new release (after battling it out with my home network). I’m interested to see the GUI updates and am quite happy they’ve introduced an “Extreme Power Save” mode so the wifi can now be turned off easily. Absolutely essential! I’ll have more to say when I’m up and running.
breaking news: OLPC XOs come to Canberra
I’m pleased to announce… ===== For Immediate Release 14 October, 2008 One Laptop Per Child Open Day Computing Assistance Support & Education (CASE) will be hosting Canberra’s first One Laptop Per Child Open Day Monday 27 October 2008 3.00pm at Volunteering ACT 55 Chandler Street (corner of Chandler and Cameron Streets) Belconnen. Pia Waugh, open source software [...]
OLPC Video Chat
Video Chat for the XO is now (re)available at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Video_Chat. At the moment it supports one-to-one video chat between XOs and in future releases will feature increased whiteboard functionality and, hopefully, multi-conferencing. Check out Pia’s announcement on one of the hottest XO apps out to date! And then download a copy yourself.
Update from Ethiopia
Daniel Drake, OLPC Inc. intern, has been in Ethiopia for the past half a month working on that country’s first OLPC XO deployment. He now has a great series of posts covering his (continuing) time there, full of impressions, insights and photos. Some interesting things that I think are of note: The children are using [...]
OLPC PNG?
CORRECTION: This article incorrectly detailed a deployment in Fiji. It was supposed to read “Papua New Guinea”. According to The Cook Islands Herald, The Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea has announced this week that his country will begin an OLPC XO trial of some description with the ultimate goal of a multi-year, multi-million dollar rollout. If [...]
The Emerging Netbook Market
I’ve put together a short brief to bring anyone out of the loop into the loop in regards to netbook computing. A static link to this article can be found in the articles section. What is a “Netbook”? The term “netbook” refers to a low-cost, small-sized, energy-efficient laptop computer. The term has only begun to [...]
