http://o.aolcdn.com/videoplayer/AOL_PlayerLoader.swf I haven’t been a big supporter of the One Laptop Per Child project but the goal – to offer children in horrible situations a window on the world and a tool that the average first world kid takes for granted – is a noble one. Besides, who couldn’t love it when the founder, Nicholas Negroponte, makes such a cogent argument for the rise of the robots. All hail our metal overlords! via TVSquad → Read More
The OLPC XO laptop seems to be a hit in Peru. The country placed the largest order for the machines (272,000) and it’s already enjoying success in many of the smaller rural villages. One village in particular, Arahuay, is featured in an Associated Press article published on Monday. It’s an interesting read about how the computers are being used in daily life and how positively the people in the village — children and adults — have responded to the project. → Read More
Whuh oh. There’s something called the Konyin keyboard that basically has a second shift key function which allows its typist to use the different letters and symbols of Latin-based alphabets from around the world. The company that developed the Konyin keyboard, Lagos Analysis of Nigeria, is now claiming that Nicholas Negroponte and the OLPC project bought a pair of the keyboards "with the express purpose of illegally reverse engineering the source codes" in order to develop a similar keyboard for the OLPC XO laptops. That’s a pretty bold claim and, if true, could spell even more trouble for the project. Natick-Nigerian firm sues Cambridge-based One Laptop Per Child [Cambridge Chronicle] → Read More
Whatever the reason — lackluster sales or a true "outpouring of support from the public," according to Nicholas Negroponte — the One Laptop Per Child project will be extending its Give One, Get One program until the end of the year. For $400, you can buy two OLPC machines. You get one, and a deserving child in a far away land gets one. I think it would make sense to just keep this program going for a long, long time instead of making the units unavailable to the general public next year. Sure, it’d free up more OLPCs to go directly abroad but the current program lets people over here foot the entire bill and help out those less fortunate. Seems like a win-win. OLPC Extends ‘Give One, Get One’ Program [PC World] → Read More
