OLPC seeks educational games for XO laptop
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InfoWorld - The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) Project is asking software coders to develop free, open-source educational computer games for the XO laptop, continuing its push toward a&#160;September launch date.
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CAMBRIDGE - With orders for its rugged XO laptop falling short of its initial goal, the One Laptop Per Child project announced today that it would let consumers in the United States and Canada buy the cute computer for a limited time.
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Alienware designs a laptop so slick you'll beg it to probe you; a docking station for the PSP misses the point and an all-in-one printer frees up more desk space for pictures of your cat. All in this week's Gadget Lab.
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This little OQO  machine is certainly pretty cool.  The biggest problem though is that it doesn't run Linux.  This leaves you with a device heavier than your PDA and all the insecurity and bloat of Windows and with a price tag of only sub $2000.  People don't care what OS their PDA/Handtop runs.  It can run an alternative OS and for the most part consumers don't care.  WinCE hasn't exactly been a stellar market success.  While Microsoft does have significant market share PalmOS, Symbian, and Linux are doing just fine.  Also most of the WinCE devices never have the fit and finish of their Palm and Symbian counterparts.  I don't know where OQO thinks they are going to fit in.  If they were to  ...
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By C.S. Lee  DEAR Editor,  THE other day, I read an interesting interview with Microsoft's Bill Gates.  One of the things he mentioned was the introduction of a light- weight computer that children can bring to school to replace heavy textbooks.
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As&#160;One Laptop Per Child prepares to ship its highly anticipated XO laptops in two weeks, it is developing a &quot;supercharger,&quot; a mass battery recharger that will draw power from cows and yo-yos to help the laptops run longer.The supercharger is a box that will charge 15 batteries at a time, said Mary Lou Jepsen, chief technology officer for OLPC.The supercharger complements other environmentally friendly battery charging technologies being used or under development for the XO laptop, Jepsen said. Users can hook up handcranks, cows, yo-yos, foot pedals and solar panels to the box to recharge batteries.Last week OLPC said it was designing a cow-powered generator through a dynamo with a system of belts and pulleys using cattle to generate power.A typical charge cycle for a laptop battery should be about three hours, Jepsen said. Groups of children will be able to share batteries.Currently in design, the supercharger will be ready for manufacturing next year, Jepsen said.A laptop&#39;s mileage depends on its usage, so OLPC designed an environmentally friendly laptop that could work with a rugged, low-power battery, Jepsen said. The laptop&#39;s specially designed lithium-ferro phosphate battery consumes between 2 watts to 8 watts depending on usage, Jepsen said. It lasts five years and works in environments up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius), Jepsen said.The XO batteries do not work on normal laptops, which can sap up to 40 watts of power depending on usage, Jepsen said.The XO is also the first laptop that uses only alternative energy, Jepsen said. Low-cost solar panels are great as a power option where there is plenty of sunlight, Jepsen said. Energy is especially scare in developing nations, so the laptop will hopefully pass on energy preservation lessons, which could help preserve battery life in the XO, Jepsen said.The laptop goes into manufacturing this week after three years of design experimentation and attempts to reduce manufacturing cost. It will first be offered in two weeks to consumers in the Give 1 Get 1 program, in which two laptops can be purchased for about US$400, with a user getting one laptop and the other being donated.&quot;We&#39;re exhausted, but exhilarated,&quot; Jepsen said.REFERENCES:OLPC experiments with cow-powered laptops ... seriously, Oct. 24, 2007
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(InfoWorld) - The Indian state of Kerala has decided to promote free and open-source software in education, but will not make it compulsory, a minister in Keralaâs communist government said Wednesday. The government would like to avoid a monopoly by Microsoft and provide equal opportunity for both Linux and Microsoftâs Windows operating system in schools, said M.A. Baby, education minister in the Kerala government on Wednesday. The Kerala government is encouraging some 12,500 schools to give training on free and open-source software such as Linux. The decision to use Linux or Windows would be taken by teachers and students in each of the schools, Baby said. The move by the government reflects growing interest in free and open-source software among students in Kerala, according to Baby. About 60 percent of students use Linux in their school projects, rather than Windows, as they see the benefits of free and open-source software, according to Baby. â We want to increase the number of students using Linux,â he said. Kerala in south India had a population of 31.8 million, according to the census in 2001 of the government of India. The state has a literacy rate of 91 percent, the highest in the country. The recent statements by the Kerala government in favor of free and open-source software were prompted by the visit to the state last week by Richard Stallman, president of the Boston-based Free Software FoundationÂ (FSF). The government will take the lead in popularizing free software, the stateâs Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan said last week at a seminar on âFree Software for Keralaâs developmentâ at which Stallman was also a speaker. Stallman, who also visited West Bengal, another communist-run state, was able to win some support from local political leaders. This is also not the first time that the state of Kerala has shown interest in alternatives to proprietary software. The IT policy announced in 2001 by the previous non-communist Kerala government stated that the government wishes to encourage the judicious use of open-source or free software that complements or supplements proprietary software. The position of the Kerala government is different from that of Indiaâs federal government in Delhi, which has declined to take a stand in regards to either type of software. Some Indian federal and state agencies have been beneficiaries of Microsoftâs programs to promote the use of information technology in schools.
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To share your toys you'll need to pay up Microsoft has released its anticipated PC-hosted Xbox 360 games development package, XNA Game Studio Express, in the hope it can turn game players into game makers. And make some money out of them: it's charging would-be coders $99 a year for access to sample software, support and such.â¦
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Both business travelers and kids in remote villages in developing nations need cheap, small, rugged and power-stingy laptops. So does the OLPC XO laptop work for business users?
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The One Laptop Per Child Foundation (OLPC) has teamed up with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to launch a pilot project in Haiti, the first time the group will be able to comprehensively evaluate the idea of giving laptops directly to students as a learning tool.OLPC, which makes&#160;the $188 XO laptop&#160;aimed at kids in developing nations, will contribute $2 million&#160;to the project, while IDB will provide a $3 million&#160;grant. The project aims to distribute XO laptops to 13,200 students and 500 teachers in 60 Haitian primary schools, the groups said in a statement.The organizations are financing the project to test whether the use of laptops in schools on a one-to-one basis can improve teaching and learning in Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world.&quot;We have studies about the impact of computer labs and shared computers in the classroom, but there&#39;s never been a comprehensive evaluation of the learning model based on giving each child a laptop,&quot; said Emma N&#228;slund-Hadley, the IDB&#39;s project team leader. &quot;This is crucial to determine the effectiveness of this model under conditions of extreme poverty and as a tool for accelerating learning.&quot;One aim of the project is to determine how the laptops can be used to help solve problems such as a shortage of qualified teachers, as well as educating children of different ages and grades in the same classroom. The Haitian government hopes the laptops can help speed up the learning process for students who enter school late or have to repeat grades, according to the release.Teachers and students will be trained how to use the laptops and carry out basic maintenance and trouble shooting. Some students will receive vocational training to handle more complex laptop repairs.The project will be evaluated by UNESCO&#39;s Regional Office on Education in Latin America and the Caribbean, which will conduct standardized math and language tests before and after the pilot project to determine performance improvements. Observers will also gauge whether the laptops affect attitudes and behaviors regarding school management, the value families place on education, the use of laptops at home, and the perceived educational progress of the students.The OLPC project started as an attempt to build a $100 laptop and work with governments to pass them out to kids in poor nations, but the XO, will likely end up costing nearly double that amount at first. The organizers of the effort, led by academics and researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), hope high-volume sales of the device will drive down costs.The goal of OLPC is to make sure nobody misses out on the benefits of computing. The fear is that&#160;the price of a PC&#160;is keeping too many people in developing countries from learning how software, the Internet and communications via computing can improve their economies, job prospects and lives, or that poor countries will fall further behind the modern world due to their inability to access computers.&#160;
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Microsoft opens Xbox development to the masses today, and plans summer workshops to teach middle-schoolers to make 360 games. In Game|Life.
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(InfoWorld) - Some of the low-cost PCs designed by One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) for kids in the developing world will go to people in North America. That's the result of a program the group plans to launch on Monday that will let U.S. and Canadian residents pay US$400 for one laptop to keep and one to give to a child in a developing nation. Initially, at least, purchasers won't be able to choose where the second laptop will go. "The idea is to help feed programs in the least developed countries and broaden the community of engagement," said Walter Bender, president of software and content for OLPC. By putting the laptops in the hands of people in North America, the group hopes to persuade more people to contribute content or other developments to the project, he said. The offer will start on Nov. 12 and run through Nov. 26. "We don't want to divert too much away from the developing world, so we'll do a short window," Bender said. Mass production of the laptops is scheduled for October, with the first units landing in the hands of kids around the world in early November, he said. The initial run will generate 40,000 units and production will quickly double and triple that capacity to meet demand, he said. The original plan for the OLPC project was to create a laptop that would cost less than $100, but more recentlyÂ the price has been pegged closer to $190. The $400 deal for two laptops includes some padding for the cost of sending one of the laptops to a remote location, Bender said. Â
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InfoWorld - The One Laptop Per Child Project (OLPC) plans to launch OLPC America in 2008 to distribute the low-cost laptop computers originally aimed at developing nations to needy students in the United States.
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New component could allow players small enough to fit in notebook PCs.
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Microsoft has announced a new promotional program offering free access to some of its development, design and gaming software to students worldwide. The stated goals of the program are to help spark creativity and prepare the next generation for high-tech careers. In addition, the promotion may also help develop a preference for Microsoft  among a younger generation that often leans toward open source alternatives.
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Nicholas Negroponte thinks everyone in the world should have a computer. His nonprofit OLPC wants to build and distribute the world's most-affordable laptop, priced at less than $100 and aimed at youngsters in the developing world.
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(InfoWorld) - Discussions are under way to put an Intel microprocessor inside a version of theÂ One Laptop Per ChildÂ (OLPC) project's "$100 laptop" for children in developing countries, according to representatives from both parties. "Intel, like a lot of other people, is more than welcome to try to design great silicon for this project and this mission, and we've been working with them to help them do exactly that," said Walter Bender, OLPC's president, in a telephone interview. Despite its nickname, the OLPC's lime-green XO laptop actually costs $175. The first version of the machine runs on Advanced Micro Devices' 433MHz Geode LX-700, an x86-architecture chip that is slow by the standard of mainstream processors but consumes little power and costs less. OLPC is close to starting productionÂ of the XO. The group has already gone through four generations of test systems to refine the laptop's design. A production run of 300 machines was completed in August, a final preparatory step before the XO goes into mass production later this month or in early October. While OLPC has yet to decide whether or not to use Intel processors, Intel confirmed its engineers are developing a motherboard based on one of its chips for an OLPC laptop. That process required the engineers to start from scratch, since the current XO design isn't based on Intel's chips. "It requires a new design, a new product," said Leighton Phillips, the manager of Intel's World Ahead Program in Asia. The design, which Intel plans to submit for OLPC's consideration, will be based on either existing mobile chips, such as modified versions of the Celeron M called A100 and A110, or Silverthorne, an upcoming processor designed for small, mobile computers. The dual-coreÂ Silverthorne processorÂ will be made using a 45-nanometer production process and will be available early next year in different versions. Silverthorne's main advantages are lower power consumption and size. The chips are so small that Intel can fit 2,500 of them on a single 300-millimeter silicon wafer, helping to keep unit production costs low enough for them to be used in handheld devices and low-cost computers. Whether Silverthorne is cheap enough to be used in laptops like the XO remains to be seen. "We're looking at ways to get there," Phillips said. If an Intel chip ends up inside an OLPC laptop, the laptop may be different from the existing XO design. That laptop was designed for use in harsh, rural environments with lots of dust and high humidity, but OLPC wants to develop laptops for use in urban areas where better infrastructure is available. "I can imagine there will be a family of laptops in terms of processor power and maybe there will be a larger form factor for older kids," Bender said. The discussions over an Intel-based laptop are part of wider talks on how Intel and OLPC can cooperate on technology and product development. Those talks started in July after Intel and OLPC signed an agreement that, among other things, gave Intel a seat on the group's board and prevents the two sides from disparaging each others' products. Besides putting an Intel processor inside a future OLPC laptop, the talks could see some of the technology developed by OLPC find its way into Intel's hands. For example, the chip maker is interested in the low-power screen technology developed by OLPC. Offering an OLPC laptop with an Intel processor doesn't mean the group will stop using AMD's chips, Bender said. "The Geode's been very easy to work with and hasn't been a limiting factor whatsoever," he said. As part of OLPC's desire to offer systems based on different processors, the group is looking to work with other vendors, in addition to Intel. One such company is Marvell Technology Group, which could see its Xscale processors, which the company acquired from Intel in 2006, also end up in future OLPC laptops, Bender said. "We want to have lots of choices, lots of people doing this, because there are lots of kids and lots of need," he said.