Talk:One Laptop per Child/Archive 7

more important things
this is insane. Are there not 3rd world children starving to death. They need food not a laptop. Picture some starving kids begging for food and instead have a laptop placed before them. I mean you cant eat a laptop. And how can they use it if they cant read. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.195.196.101 (talk) 01:17, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Whether the project is worthwhile or not is not an issue on Wikipedia. If you wish do discuss the merits (or otherwise) of the project, your best bet would be to contact the OLPC foundation about your concerns or discuss it in an outlet specifically for such purposes. If you know of a major political or social group opposed to the OLPC project, and can find and source statements made by them about the project, you can add that information under the "Other Viewpoints" section of the article. HoCkEy PUCK (talk) 05:48, 23 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The FAQ on OLPC's wiki addresses this topic (food vs. education) in more detail. Education and access to information allow people to lift themselves out of poverty and hunger. The discussion in the "Other Viewpoints" section explores whether laptops are the best way to deliver education and information. --Mwarren us (talk) 23:18, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

OLPC Cons
Secfile (talk) 09:01, 1 September 2008 (UTC) OLPC CONS

Giving a computer to a learning child is like giving a calculator to do multiple tables or to do trig functions. This is a bad habit of learning, this reduces the brain neural wiring. There is more to write on the neural inactivity of a young while using a computer.

There are more side effects too, more of health damage, palm damage, nerve damage, eye strain, BP issues will come for these children at very young age. Already there are many health cases related to the use of computers

Secfile (talk) 09:01, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Secfile, please review our NPOV policy, as the above doens't read as neutral. In addition, are there any reliable sources to back it up that use of technology (ie. calculators) is a "bad habit" of learning? ff m  12:01, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I want a laptop from wikipidia
please wikipidia i want you to send free laptop in an african country called ghana in dangme west district -adress p.o box 43dodowa thank you for accepting my messeage please i am a student thank you very match may god bless you  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.87.80.77 (talk) 21:05, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Recycling
Anthing about how the millions of laptops will be recycled? Especially with these batteries? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 134.2.190.254 (talk) 11:00, 15 May 2007 (UTC).


 * Yes, they will be constructed using environmentally friendly techniques and recycled when they are replaced. Root Beers


 * We could use a reference for this, and an explanation of which materials are recycled and how that works. Does OLPC itself do this? -- Beland (talk) 17:10, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Contradiction (email, www)
first it says: "The data rate should be sufficient for asynchronous network applications (such as email) to communicate outside the cloud; interactive uses, such as web browsing, or high-bandwidth applications, such as video streaming should be possible inside the cloud." then it says: The projected software as of November 2006 are: [...]   * Email through the web-based Gmail service. That's nonsense: if using email implies using a website, then the first quoted block is simply wrong.

--Lo&#39;oris 18:22, 22 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Web-browsing "outside of the cloud" does indeed work (in all of our trials). I suspect that the intention of the author of the quote was to try to distinguish between the high-bandwidth connections between the laptops in the mesh--bandwidth that is generally not adversely impacted by the number of laptops on the mesh--and the shared back-haul bandwidth that is shared and hence proportional to the number of laptops on the mesh. Exactly how this maps onto application space is not always obvious or completely deterministic. --Walter.bender 19:34, 22 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The "software" section could use updating; it should be clarified what software supports "store and forward" or if that approach has been abandoned, or what. -- Beland (talk) 17:10, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Filtering options
"In response, the OLPC program laid out filtering options." This is not accurate. Filtering of objectionable content is discussed in the Bitfrost specification and numerous options had been "laid out" at "country meetings" long before the alleged incident in Nigeria. Granted none of these options had yet been acted upon at the time of Reuters article. --Walter.bender 02:03, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Is there some reason to not correct this factual error? Would it be helpful if I cited additional sources that demonstrate that the Reuters article had no role in OLPC's consideration of filtering software? --Walter.bender (talk) 02:44, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Just be bold and fix it. The "in response" isn't sourced anyway, so just write both things (Reuters article and that there are filtering options) in whatever way you think is most clear and least biased. -kslays (talk) 23:50, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The "in response" is in the Reuters source, I just fixed the footnoting. However, this story is from 2007.  The article should be updated to describe whether or not filtering software has actually been deployed, or other options offered.  The quote from the OLPC spokesperson might have been offhand or misinterpreted by the reporter. -- Beland (talk) 17:10, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Wholesale price slashed to $75/device
I [http://digg.com/linux_unix/100_laptop_unveils_new_design_2 found this article on Digg. It's not $188 anymore.]

The news article here indicates that not only has the OLPC been slashed to $75/laptop, it's been redesigned into an E-book-like device. In order to type, the keyboard appears on a touchscreen.

I think this would be something valid to update the article with. --Let Us Update Special:Ancientpages. 18:04, 22 May 2008 (UTC)


 * These are announcements by OLPC about their proposed Gen-2 machine. The Gen-1 machine is currently priced at US$188. --Walter.bender (talk) 21:02, 22 May 2008 (UTC)


 * So when do we end the redirect of OX-2 and start updating it? deepsack (talk) 05:59, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The 75USD machine will be here in 2010 at the earliest, and will probably end up costing 100USD . ff m  16:51, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Technology: Environmental Issues (apparent nonsense)
"The project has received criticism due to concerns over environmental and health impacts of hazardous materials found in other computers. The OLPC has asserted that it is aiming to use as many environmentally friendly materials as it can; that the laptop and all OLPC-supplied accessories will be fully compliant with the EU's Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS); and that the laptop will use an order of magnitude less power than the typical consumer notebooks available as of 2007, minimizing the environmental burden of power generation."

Uh, what? This makes no sense whatsoever. I'd fix it, but I'm not sure what the meaning is supposed to be. Why would the OLPC project receive criticism due to other computers' hazardous materials? They've got nothing to do with other computers. Either someone vandalized it (in which case, it originally said that the XO was criticized for its use of hazardous materials), or it's irrelevant nonsense. HoCkEy PUCK (talk) 05:45, 23 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The early estimates that somewhere north of 10 million laptops would be handed out by OLPC raised concerns that such a large influx of material to areas without recycling infrastructure might result in contamination. These concerns were raised largely before the actual XO-1 laptop was finished and described publicly; without an actual XO-1 laptop, critics assumed (incorrectly it turns out) that the waste from an XO-1 would be equivalent to a standard laptop. With the current information from OLPC and the XO-1's actual construction, I agree that the environmental criticisms of the past seem  strange. Perhaps this article would be improved if the historical context of that comment were made clearer. --Mwarren us (talk) 23:49, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Sunday Times article
You might find the following article useful for the controversy section Why Microsoft and Intel tried to kill the XO $100 laptop. It was printed in the UK's Sunday Times magazine supplement on August 10th Richerman (talk) 00:58, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Deployment failure?
This from the latest RISKS digest;

''...there was no one hired to work on deployment while I was at OLPC, with Uruguay's and Peru's combined 360,000-laptop rollout in progress. I was parachuted in as the sole OLPC person to deal with Uruguay, and sent to Peru at the last minute. And I'm really good at thinking on my feet, but what the sh*t do I know about deployment? Right around that time, Walter was demoted and theoretically made the "director of deployment," a position where he directed his expansive team of -- himself. Then he left, and get this: now the company has half a million laptops in the wild, with no one even pretending to be officially in charge of deployment. "I quit," Walter told me on the phone after leaving, "because I can't continue to work on a lie."'' Toby Douglass (talk) 07:25, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * This got a replay in the recent RISKS digest, but note that the original post is about a period from ~18 months ago. A comparison of deployment processes over time might be relevant.  I've been part of OLPC since the first deployments started, and can respond to any questions by people trying to add this information to the article.   I wouldn't use the dramatic language in Ivan's post, but there's no question that early deployments had their snags and were learning experiences, and that last year we had to rethink how we supported deployments, particularly after Walter left.  +sj +  16:09, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Association v. Foundation
The OLPC Association and Foundation are separate entities, and this should be clarified better in the article. The Foundation generally handles research and development and donations, and the Association generally handles deployment and sales. As above, feel free to use me as a resource for information. +sj + 16:09, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Specification copying
The specification section appears to be copied from http://laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/specs.shtml, or the other way around, what should be done with it? Isofox (talk) 15:39, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, laptop.org and wiki.laptop.org material is available under a CC-BY license. So it's free to use; though it should reference the original source.  –SJ +  22:39, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Micro$oft involvement
I just love how the article doesn't discuss the Micro$oft takeover of the project at all. Negroponte sold out, pure and simple. A big wad of dollars works wonders. The world don't need any educated citizens in the 3rd world countries, what we need is more mindless consumer drones. Hallelujah! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.77.245.213 (talk) 10:25, 26 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Except that the effect on the project has been negligible. Very few, if any XOs, running Windows have ever found there way into use. If Microsoft had been successful in taking over the project then that would rate extensive coverage here. In fact Microsofts efforts appear so far to have failed completely. Yet another Microsoft failure just isn't that interesting - especially as there is very little evidence as to what it was that they actually tried to do.filceolaire (talk) 16:23, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Is technology truly beneficial to learning?
Today, not every student has a laptop. But in the United States computers are readily available in most educational settings and yet we do not lead the world in many fundamental educational disciplines. If we believe that One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is truly beneficial to learning shouldn't we be focusing on our own children first?

I'm not sure I subscribe to the idea that technology is a requirement for learning. Are we doing any favors for our children by providing laptops? I have noticed that my own children have terrible penmenship and spelling skills. Is this a consequence of a dependance on technology? A dependance on typing and spell checking?

I believe the article would be enhanced if it included quantitative measurements of how th deployment of these devices enhanced the learning experience.

Paul in NH (talk) 13:42, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

a new OLPC blog
the OLPC project is a great idea that, unfortunately, haven't had enough success in its early five years of life, with a selling of less than 1.6 machines, so far, despite, the potential number of persons that might need this PC is of over two billion, worldwide, so, before the OLPC project fails, I've decided to start a new project called "MY Low Cost PC" to try to develop MY version of an affordable computer for poor countries and poor peoples, hoping to have the support of the OLPC team and of the PC industry, to develop, produce and sell my idea more quickly

and here is the blog where my project starts: http://www.olpcdesign.com/

since there are just a few blogs about the OLPC project, a link to my blog in the main article is welcome, thanks

posted by gaetano marano March 7, 2010

. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.10.110.84 (talk) 04:10, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Haiti
Boston Globe, "DHL, One Laptop Per Child send laptops to Haiti", 23 March 2010 (accessed 27 March 2010)

So... OLPC and DHL are giving 2000 XO's to Haiti...

76.66.192.73 (talk) 07:25, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It may end up being a bit more than that. We are discussing what projects in the country can accept the laptops most effectively this year. –SJ +

Deployment updates: Argentina, Peru, Gaza

 * On April 13, La Rioja children had received the first 1,000 of 60,000 XOs ordered by Argentina.
 * On March 17, Peru recently purchased an additional 260,000 XOs to expand their program.
 * On April 29, Gaza had a celebration in honor of 2100 laptops that had been deployed.

–SJ + 19:23, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

more updates
I removed Colombia from the table of confirmed orders -- that was a hopeful statement, but not a confirmed order; as far as I know Colombia has only a pilot of a few thousand XOs at the moment.

Uruguay has just ordered 90,000 new models - an XO-1.5h with a customized keyboard and color scheme for high school students. I haven't seen any very reliable reports about this; just references to a press release, so you should wait before considering that confirmed.


 * June 14-15 announcement and blog post: 90,000 XO-1.5 machines for Uruguayan high schools 18:43, 6 September 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.91.152.135 (talk)

I also updated the data on Colombia, the US, and Australia in the more free-form list of countries with XOs. (there is also a single school in Chester, Pennsylvania that it might be worth adding there at some point.)


 * style="white-space: nowrap;" align="center"| +110,000
 * style="white-space: nowrap;"| November 10, 2008
 * style="white-space: nowrap;"| Colombia (Bogota and Cartagena)
 * style="white-space: nowrap;"| Colombia (Bogota and Cartagena)

Updates and two separate organizations
The OLPC Foundation and the One Laptop per Child Association are two separate entities. Until a year ago, they were both based in Cambridge and under similar management. They separated in the summer of 2009, with the Association moving to Miami under Rodrigo Arboleda Halaby, and taking over engagement of self-sufficient country partners and support of projects in Latin America. The Foundation remains in Cambridge under Nicholas Negroponte, dealing with countries in conflict, LDCs, refugee camps or disaster areas, and other regions that need international help to set up such large-scale projects.

There isn't much good information about the new Association headquarters in Miami, but some of the recent press releases, particularly in Spanish, come from them. There should be better information about both groups on laptop.org in the near future. This will take a thorough cleanup of the article to reflect current/past work, since originally the One Laptop per Child Association did most or all of the project's work, and the OLPC Foundation was limited to receiving individual donations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 18.85.46.242 (talk) 16:52, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

The current structure of OLPC is the non-profit OLCP Foundation, led by Chairman Nicholas Negroponte; the OLCP Association, led by Chairman and CEO Rodrigo Arboleda Halaby; and there is OLCP Europe, led by Walter De Brouwer. --Dreedkelly (talk) 19:26, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Maintenance
There should be a section covering maintenance of hardware and software. Are replacement batteries available in a third world country? What about other parts? What mechanism is available for updating the system software? Regards, PeterEasthope (talk) 15:52, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Deployment of XO laptops
The three subsections here are a mess. Why not combine them into a short "history of deployment" subsection and a table of data, for projects of all sizes? There's recent data at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Deployments.
 * Agreed. The data and discussion are a mess, also in how they choose to cite sources -- anything covered by mainstream media, even if the media got things wrong, is included in the first table; projects (or program updates) that didn't get such coverage is not.
 * For instance, India has received under two thousand laptops, despite sporadic press announcements that some states plan major deployments. I removed that line from the first table, despite the pcworld article that announced intention as reality.
 * The Deployments table and OLPC map have more recent data, as you note. olpcmap.net is the most up to date, and includes very small deployments (under 500 laptops) not listed elsewhere.  I'll try to post a better summary/update later -- including recent large orders from Peru and Rwanda, and new partners in Latin America, the total deployment is roughly 2.5M laptops.  – SJ +  04:24, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Linux?
One interesting aspect of the project is that the laptops run Linux; but a reader has to search to discover this. Even though I can't find a single report of a school using Windows, it is mentioned 11 times in the article and Linux only 4! Mst14 (talk) 17:00, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Tech specs
The specifications section is much more detailed than the rest of the article. Isn't there a canonical spec sheet that can be linked to? Mst14 (talk) 17:04, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, there are sheets for each model. See XO-1.5 and XO-1.75. – SJ + 04:18, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Founding Partners
Founding partners are AMD, Brightstar, Ebay, Google, Marvell, Nortel, Quanta and Astra. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dreedkelly (talk • contribs) 20:20, 10 February 2011 (UTC)