The One Laptop per Child Give one, get one program just started, and will end on November 26. I've ordered mine -- it's not often that you can donate to a worthy cause and get the world's most advanced educational computer system for your kids as a premium.
Not that I expect my kids to be particularly interested. MINE!!
Today was marked by a surprising amount of press about Linux, leading off (at least for me) with a column by Larry Magid in the San Jose Mercury News with the title Another option to Apple/Microsoft duopoly: Linux PCs. Kind of surprising, actually. He mentions Dell, Wal-Mart's $200 Everex gPC, the ASUS Eee PC mini-laptop, and the OLPC XO. I may very well buy myself an Eee -- it's the right size and price. I'll have to see what the keyboard and display are like.
Magid didn't mention the day's other major announcement: Google's Android mobile-phone platform, but the New York Times does. Unlike Apple, whose iPhone is tied to a single carrier and locked down tight, the Google "Phone" is basically just a Linux distribution for mobile phones. Any handset maker can build it into a phone, it'll work with any carrier, and the customer can install software on it. There's a little more analysis here and here.
Say what you like about Linux not being "ready for the desktop"; it's just fine for the low-end user who only wants the web, email, music, and occasional word processing. People who want the darned thing to just plain work, and to keep working without needing an expensive upgrade every year or so.
I wonder how long it will take Linux's market share to double. Not long after Christmas, at a guess. And that's not even counting the millions of cell phone users who already have it in China and Japan, and the millions more who will get it when Android hits next year.
I can hear the screams of agony all the way from Redmond.
Asus has made the specifications for the upcoming Eee PC configurations available, along with pricing. The highlights include a two pound weight, and simple user interface for plenty of web apps (full list below). The best model has 8GB (SSD) with 1GB RAM; the lowlights include a 2GB (SSD) flavor with a paltry 256MB RAM, prices going from $299 to $399, which is considerably more expensive than the OLPC. Each has 3 USB ports. Jump for the complete d-low on the various permutations. Note that this is the worldwide launch; the US launch is TBDThe native OS is Linux; it's more expensive than the OLPC XO, but about the same as the buy two/keep one deal. Probably doesn't have the dual-mode screen, mesh networking, and awesome power management, though.
The Foundation that manages the One Laptop Per Child Program (which will give one low-cost, Linux-based laptop to every child in the developing world -- eventually) is making their machines available for sale in the developed world this Christmas. The price is $399, and includes two laptops, one of which will be given to a child in the developing world. I've just signed up to get one -- I just wish that this was structured as a donation to the Foundation, since I think they'd sell a ton of these if the purchasers could get a tax-receipt for them just before the tax year closes.It's not unlikely that I'll take advantage of this. The XO is just amazingly cool. (From BoingBoing; also noted in this post by
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technoshaman.)If you haven't been hiding under a rock for the last two years you've probably heard of the One Laptop per Child project. But, like me, you probably haven't heard much about the software apart from the fact that it runs on Linux. That's too bad, because it's brilliant.
Go read this blog post as an introduction, then go read the OLPC Human Interface Guidelines. They're simply brilliant. They actually use all four edges and the corners. They bring the mesh network into the interface. They get rid of the stupid "Caps Lock" key and add "View Source". Most of the software is written in Python, one of the two best teaching languages in existance at the moment (the other is Smalltalk). They have a journal, for infinite undo and version tracking.
Go read it, and ask yourself what Microsoft and Apple have been doing for the last 15 years.
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