Demand OLPC
5 December, 2007
As they roll off the production line demand for the little education laptop is growing. The OLPC project, created by Nicholas Negroponte, to help teach the worlds children is starting to gain real traction. It sure didn’t take long to run through the first production run! The Give 1 Get 1 program appears to have been a big success. The program was extended through the end of 2007. Don’t wait get yours now!
Over the weekend Peru pushed the demand over the first run ordering 260,000 laptops. We are very happy that the huge potential is being recognized. The stories and pictures of the children around the world receiving their laptops are terrific.
We like to speculate about the benefits that these computers will bring to a world with such limited resources. How will these tools help to enhance the ability of teachers, provide access to materials and resources that help children learn, and eventually eliminate poverty in our world?
It is easy to get the wrong idea about what this computer is, just as it is easy to get the wrong idea of the benefit of the internet. There is so much of the internet that is not good for children. The explosion of new social media has many people asking if letting children on the internet at all is even a good idea. It is true that delivering access to basic software and the internet is of little value and could even be considered harmful. If the OLPC project was about delivering laptops there would really be no good reason to support it.
OLPC is not laptops, it’s software. It’s Squeak and EToys. It’s communications and collaboration. It’s coordination of lesson plans between teachers and with students. This is no regular computer, it’s an education platform geared to enhance the abilities of teachers to teach. To extend the reach of real educators, to provide a common platform so that the worlds brightest minds can reach across the great north-south divide and help teach children that have so little resources. It is a way to share the greatest discoveries of the past with the children of the future. There is no better way to fight violence and poverty than with education.
Children around the world will benefit from the extraordinary efforts of all the volunteers and participants in this very worthwhile project. Children that may even be in your own back yard. Like maybe Birmingham Alabama in the U.S.A. where the city just ordered 15,000 laptops for every child in grade 1 through 8.
It appears the questions about success are beginning to fade. The real question is can production keep up with demand. Demand OLPC today. There is no substitute for the little education laptop.
Full speed ahead. With the rise of virtual technology and a huge lead in the virtual workspace market, Qwaq pulls even further ahead with a successful first round funding raising $7 Million from Alloy Ventures and Storm Ventures.
Qwaq Forums the company’s first commercial product is built on Croquet and open source virtual world development platform written in Squeak, an open source version of Smalltalk. The work that Qwaq has put into forums is exceptional. The platform takes the concept of a virtual world with all the benefits of immediate communications and immersive visual feed back and integrates it with important business technologies that allow users to truly collaborate in real time. They have taken Croquet and made it work for business.
The news is really terrific, not only for Qwaq and their customers, but for our open source communities as well. Qwaq continues to share code and support both Croquet and Squeak, not to mention hiring some of the best and brightest Smalltalkers, something I’m sure Qwaq will continue to do with this new funding.
Congratulations Qwaq!!
Give One. Get One. NOW!!
13 November, 2007
Seaside – One Click Experience!
10 November, 2007
Philippe Marschall announced the Seaside – One Click Experience!
There has been a lot of talk recently about improving the Smalltalk, Squeak and Seaside experience for new users. Especially to make it easier and faster to get started. The two vendors that support Seaside are working in this area. That does not mean Squeak can not lead the way. Today we present you the Seaside One-Click Experience [1] for OS X, Windows and Linux based on the work done by the Sophie Project [2].
Just download the zip-archive, extract it and double click on the executable for your platform and you have Seaside 2.8 final running.
Cheers
The Squeak Seaside Team
[1] http://www.seaside.st/download/squeak#167943699
[2] http://www.sophieproject.org/
Who you gonna Call? – The Net Neutrality Squad!
8 November, 2007
Net Neutrality is not just about money. It’s not just about power. It’s not about just about limiting what you can view. Or censoring your voice and freedom. IT’S ABOUT ALL THOSE THINGS!!
Are you ready to have FOX news streaming to your computer with lightning speeds and MSNBC unable to connect? Do you want to see a world where to get Google search you have to pay a premium fee to your ISP? Do you think it is ok to have to pay every ISP to carry the traffic from your website? “No, I’m sorry you can’t see my web site from there, I didn’t pay AT&T, so they censor my website from their customers! Oh you are not an AT&T subscriber, well they must support the traffic in your area with their cables, I’m sorry.”
Does anyone really think this is a good idea?? It’s no wonder Google is looking for way to get off the wire! The internet is a public utility, and it needs to be protected from schemes that will do nothing but squash your freedoms, create huge monopolies, and destroy our new electronic economy. Somebody should do something about this!!
Check out NNSquad! NNSquad was started by PFIR but look who else showed up! Bruce Schneier and David Reed! I couldn’t be happier to see these two names on the list.
Bruce is a cryptography hero, he speaks about common sense in security. He is not afraid to take a controversial stance and speak truth to power. If you have not signed up for his news letter, consider it, it is very interesting reading.
Of course everyone here knows who David Reed is. David is one of the principal architects of Croquet. He is also very well known for his work on Social Networks. If anyone knows about the Internet and it’s implications it is Daivd.
It’s exciting to see some movement around this issue. It is definitely time to make some noise before we all wake up and the world as we know it today has already been bought and sold. Get involved, say informed, support NNSquad!
OLPC Moves into Mass Production
6 November, 2007
And they are off! Mass production of the One Laptop Per Child XO computer has started. The last of the major problems in production appear to have been chased out of the assembly line. Some minor problems with tooling that was causing some small blemishes on the bumpers have been tweaked. Everything is ready to roll.
The last major technical issues have been addressed with new tests developed to run on the production line itself. This high level of testing is necessary because of the harsh environments that this laptop will be used.
OLPC is an extremely low power very durable computer which is being developed to improve access to learning materials for the worlds children. This education project continues to amaze the world with the level of commitment to provide opportunities for all. Reaching Mass Production is no small task. Congratulations to all!
The world watches as the adults fight over power. Who will run the country of Napal, what will the political solutions bring to the people, what will it mean to the children? I know I’m not the first to recognize the incredible beauty of the country, just look at these beautiful pictures in Nepal’s Open Learning Exchange first learning activity, developed in Squeak to be used in OLPC. We can only hope that the people that win power, during this difficult time, will concentrate on the children, on education, and on happiness and enlightenment for all.
The Program itself is beautifully done. I found myself learning how to say the numbers. This Tiger was really fun, and kinda difficult to reconstruct.
This is a very good example of what technology can give to children, and how the local community can participate to help educate their youngest members.
Read it from the creators:
“The word in Devanagari script at the top is “E-Paati.” OLE Nepal’s General Secretary created this term. “Karipaati” means blackboard and we use “E-Paati” to refer to any kind of computer, such as a desktop, laptop, or PDA. OLE Nepal’s unofficial slogan right now is “From Karipaati to E-Paati.” We think this slogan expresses that using laptops in schools in simply the next logical step in education. We prefer the E-Paati over “laptop” or “computer” because both are seen as luxuries in Nepal. Karipaatis are not seen as luxuries but essential to education. We hope to convince the Nepali public that in this day in age E-paatis are essential to a quality education. “
This level of understanding of local conditions can only come from the local people themselves. Developing an education platform and making the tools available throughout the world far surpasses the value of a cheap laptop. This is only one of what will be thousands of projects that will change the planet. The $100 Laptop came first but everything else comes now. The software will easily surpass the value of the computer! As Nicholas Negroponte is fond of saying, “This is an education project, not a laptop project.” We couldn’t agree more, and we are proud that Squeak and EToys are a part of this terrific project. Today is a good day to celebrate E-Paati!
Seaside 2.8 Released!!
28 October, 2007
After a beta phase of two months we release the final version of Seaside 2.8. Most bugs fixed during this period were either long standing (already in 2.7), minor or portability related, Together with the dozens of Seaside 2.8 applications already in production today this gives a pretty good feeling about this version. A special mention goes to Roger Whitney, thanks to him we went from 99 commented classes to 144.
This release brings major performance and memory improvements:
- The rendering speed of an average page is up to twice as fast as with previous versions, because of the new character encoding architecture.
- An average application requires up to four times less memory than with previous versions. The reason for this is the optimized object backtracking and the reduction of stored continuations.
We have a list of new features [1] and a migration guide [2] on our homepage.
Squeak users can get it either from SqueakMap, Universes or directly via Monticello (Seaside2.8a1-lr.518). A special note for Squeak users, do not load Seaside 2.8 into an image that has already Seaside 2.7 in it. If you use Squeak 3.7 you will have to load SeasideSqueak37 as well.
VisualWorks users can get it form Store (2.8a1-lr.518,tkogan).
GemStone/S users can load Seaside2.8g1-dkh.522.
[1] http://www.seaside.st/community/development/seaside28
[2] http://www.seaside.st/documentation/migration
Cheers
The Seaside Team
Recess!! Learning at play.
26 October, 2007
Bill Kerr tells us about a really cool new project from Mark Shuttleworth’s Foundation called Kusasa.
Check out Bills comments about learning from Play, and please be sure to follow the links on his post, they are very interesting.
See Bert and OLPC on German TV (in German)
17 October, 2007
Check out Bert and Olpc on the tagesschau.de. The video is in German. Notice the link on the left “100-Dollar-Laptop” that will take you right to the clip. Feel free to skip the computer salesman’s comments. Who knows where they got this guy from! The project must be looking up if this is the best they can do. It’s like the debate about global warming in the U.S.A. For a long time we’d hear that scientists have reached a global consensus, all except Joe – from the Wyoming Science Club who says global warming doesn’t exist.
This is a very exciting time for olpc. Congratulations everyone.
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