OLPC Launches Buy One, Give One Free Program

Tha_Big_Guy23 writes "For the first time, and for a limited period only, people in North America will be able to get their hands on the XO, MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte's rugged little laptop that's designed specifically for children. And for each cutting-edge XO purchased in the West, another will be given to a child in a developing country. For $399, customers can order a laptop for themselves; bundled into the price is the cost of delivering a second XO to a child a poor country."

Nice Chance for a Donation

[blh]

Just ordered one a few hours ago.

Nice way to help a worthy cause and not a bad deal for a years t-mobile service.

Re:Ordered!

[soccerisgod]

Me too! For my niece, as well. Pitty I can't get one because I don't live in the US or Canada. Pitty also for a child that has to go without laptop because of that limitation. I assume it's a) because of limited manufacturing capacities and b) logicistics. Still sucks though.

Re:Other options?

[ScorpFromHell]

But certainly Asus eeepc will be a better option if not Dell/Acer?

Definitely too little too late

[VorlonFog]

Considering I picked up two full-feature Acer laptops at Wally World [slickdeals.net] two Fridays ago for under $350 each.

Re:Other options?

[magarity]

Do they say how much of the money is shipping to the third world country?
 
Since the price is $399 for 2 and the manufacturing costs are "about" $180 each, that leaves $20, or about 10%, for distribution and other miscellandy costs.
 
I wonder if that's enough to cover the 'gratuities' to 3rd world customs officials who just want a little extra something for themselves no matter what it being transported.

Guaranteed?

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Is it guaranteed that my purchase will be matched by the delivery to a child, or am I simply throwing my money into a huge black pit, in the hopes that the number of people who buy one in the US will be the same as those delivered to children, apart from their already-planned deliveries?

I ordered one.

[Falkkin]

The North American model sadly doesn't come with the hand-crank. It's not clear if those will be available for purchase later on, or if I can use (or mod) my cell-phone hand-crank to work with the XO laptop. Excited to try out the XO though, and I'm very happy to support this project.

Re:North America has poor folks too!

[magarity]

Though I do not underestimate the level of need in the so called "poor" world
 
The 'poor' in America are ONLY poor in relative terms. In China, which has an up and coming boom economy, I saw people living in such abject poverty and squalor that I can't even imagine how crappy it must be in Saharan Africa where apparently people have it really rough. Panhandlers at the traffic lights here in the US have it easy compared to 95% of the 'working class' people I saw there. However, even the poorest Chinese was busting butt to better their circumstances and even the most ignorant understood that education for the children was the best way to better the entire family. How many of the poor in the US understand that vs how many understand how to wait for the next handout? Sorry, but I've worked too much with the poor in the US and become completely disillusioned with any romantic notions of how all they need is a little more 'help'. They need the help withdrawn so they'll have a little motivation.

Re:Other options?

[AvitarX]

The XO is:
1) Same price (4GB w/ camera, less after tax deduction)
2) includes a donation.

Does the better CPU and RAM beet the low power usage reflective mode? I would have to see it to know.

Also, pull chord is a very compelling extra (don't know if it will be available though).

The spill-proof design also has some value to me (business part is in screen and keyboard is sealed).

I personally can't wait to see what the XO gets for it in the hands of hackers (either in the form of full distros or addons to sugar OS).

Re:Other options?

[JonathanBoyd]

Actually the Bible frequently talks of the fear of God in a positive sense and being in no way opposed to God loving. A major theme of the book of Proverbs (and the Psalms for that matter) is that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

Looks like a great first computer to me

[fhmiv]

I'm buying one for my 3-year-old. I can see several advantages to this approach over other laptops. First, I can give her a rugged computer that actually works, something she will surely like as she sees her mom and I using our laptops all the time, and kids learn a lot by imitation. Second, I can continue teaching her about philanthropy - we bought one for her and one for someone else who could use one but can't afford it. Third, to counter the arguments about the US educational system ignoring the OLPC, education begins in the home.

As a programmer, I look forward to seeing the software efforts that are built atop this platform. There's plenty of room for free educational software for kids and this looks like a good platform for it. Surely someone will port the platform stack to a standard Linux distro, and then any software you write for this, you can run on your PC you bought at Wal-Mart.

Cheers, Frank

Re:Other options?

[grumbel]

My main reason for wanting a OLPC XO is that it can be used as eBook Reader, i.e. the screen can be rotated and the thing converted into a tablet, none of the other cheap laptops I have seen so far allow that, heck, even the non-cheap laptops don't allow that, only the really expensive ones. And all the special eBook reader are far more expensive then the OLPC XO. The only other device that seems to come close is the Nokia N770/N800/N810, but they are all rather small.

When it comes to selling, we have to wait and see. Currently the OLPC isn't even sold by normal means, you can buy two for the price of one, but only when you are in the USA and only when you order it in the next two weeks or so, which kind of limits it to how many people can buy one.

I'd love to buy one, but I guess I have to wait a little longer till its even available here in germany.

Re:North America has poor folks too!

[argmanah]

However, even the poorest Chinese was busting butt to better their circumstances and even the most ignorant understood that education for the children was the best way to better the entire family.

That's generally true, but part of the reason is that in Chinese culture, you are expected to take care of your parents to a much greater degree than we are expected to here in the U.S. While any decent parent would want their child to have better than what they themselves had, that part of the culture motivates the less decent ones as well.

Worth Careful consideration

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a lot of flame bait and rather than reply directly to it, I will just reiterate some basic facts about the
laptop and the project.

A lot of super-reputable people at MIT and some of the best employees at a number of key players in the
semi-conductor/hardware/software industries have put together a laptop specially designed for children
in the developing world.

* It has super low power requirements, so that it can be powered by things like a hand crank

* You can read the screen in full sunlight. It's also ruggedized to survive rough handling, so the
build quality has to be high.

* It's small and lightweight so a child can lug it around.

* The wifi antenna is way more powerful than the average laptop, and even in places with no internet
connection at all, children will be able to network with each other via the mesh network. Moreover,
given the antenna range, it's possible that there could be a mesh network over large regions of a
country, which could replace conventional telephony, or provide telephony in places that don't have it.

* It has a suite of software and an interface that would appeal to children. Developers have spent
oodles of time coming up with packages that reside in the relatively small memory and hard disk space.

* It has great internationalization support in the software. This much is necessary if it's going
to be used in non-english speaking countries all over the world.

* It has a camera. This camera might be the first one, or one a few in the places where this laptop
will wind up.

* When production scales up, it is designed to cost roughly $100. The only thing preventing this
from happening now is cautious countries who are waiting to place large orders.

Based on these points, I would say that a lot engineering challenges have been met and this is a kind of
watershed event in the history of the distribution of computing technology.

Why is a laptop important for education?

While you can certainly waste time and goof off on the web, there is also a wealth of instructional
material, learning material, free encyclopedias, and help of all kinds to be had on message boards.
Children could learn, for example, methods of improving local sanitation, agricultural techniques,
and health information which could end up saving the developed world millions or billions
of dollars in humanitarian aid. They could also learn other languages which could open up entire worlds
to them.

Even if they didn't have the internet, they could learn how to program, how to compute, make art, photographs,
drawings, and a whole bunch of other stuff with it. Not to mention the fun factor. It's not an educational
panacea but it WILL change the world.