Intel Employee Caught Running OLPC News Site

An anonymous reader noted yet another story about credibility and disclosure on-line. An OLPC news site highly critical of the project was run by an Intel employee who actually is working on a project that competes with the OLPC. Oh, and the site failed to disclose this pretty serious bit of bias. The article talks about the most extreme interpretation ("Intel secretly bankrolls blog that disses competitor") but even the less extreme version ("insider badmouths competitors anonymously at night") is pretty fishy. Just more reasons to never believe anything on-line, including me I guess.

The real story

[Henry V .009]

Okay, after being forced to dive into the sources by lousy reporting, here is the story:

Christopher Blizzard has posted to his blog [0xdeadbeef.com] that Wayan Vota, a main writer for OLPC news is the director of Geekcorps. That Wayan Vota writes for OLPC news is not a secret (his name is on every post). And a Google search for "Wayan Vota" [google.com] turns up the Geekcorps result as its third hit.

Now, on Geekcorps' website, of one their technology partners [geekcorps.org] is listed as Intel.

I don't know about you, but that's enough to convince me that the black helicopters are involved! What a conspiracy.

BTW, is this the Digg effect? I notice more and more looney conspiracy stories over there all the time. Maybe it's spreading.

Re:Old news...

[gEvil (beta)]

from the clues, I'd say TFA was written sometime at the back end of 2006.

I'd think the biggest "clue" might be the datestamp on the article (January 2, 2007 at 09:08 PM). No need to guess.

Believe

[Udo Schmitz]

"never believe anything on-line"? As opposed to believing anything that is printed on dead trees? Just apply the same rule to the internet as to books or newspapers: Use your own brain.

This is just bad, Slashdot!

[robteix]

The title of this story is just wrong. Nowhere -- other than at Slashdot itself, that is -- the "Intel employee" is even remotely identified as an Intel employee. This is just cheap -- is there another kind? -- sensationalism.

I know Slashdotters love conspiracy theories, but this one is not only far-fetched, but the title is purely misleading.

For the record, I work at Intel, although I have nothing to do with Classmate PC or OLPC. I just searched for the guy's name on our directory and he's either not an Intel employee or he uses another name (oh, here's another Slashdot theory!)

Or I'm just lousy at searching for names ;-)

Re:plastic colors

[Anonymous Coward]

The red and yellow machines were prototypes. Models beginning with the letter C are green and white, as are the MP (mass production) machines. More here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Pictures [laptop.org]

Re:This is just bad, Slashdot!

[canuck57]

Nope, I don't think the story is wrong:

US Dept of State [state.gov]

He is a member of the Intel Corporation NGO Advisory Board and writes for several publications specializing on the role of technology in development.

Re:So...... what?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Intel employee is paid by Intel for working on a rival product. He chose to hide this fact in his attack on the rival product. It doesn't come more blatant than that.

Re:Not the $100 laptop

[hedu]

When they get it down to $100 and stop charging wildly different prices based on order quantity (a scam since all the tooling is done, and they won't be placing individual orders with their manufacturers), you can call it the $100 laptop.

The tooling may be done, but it still has to be paid for. Charging different prices for different order quantities just makes those who place larger orders contribute less per unit to the cost of tooling. A common practice in any field of manufacturing.

Re:I can't say I care.

[Cato]

Sure, it's not pretending 'not to have a bias' apart from the bold-italic part at the top of every page that goes:

'Your independent source for news, information, commentary, and discussion of One Laptop Per Child's "$100 laptop" computer, the OLPC Children's Machine XO, developed by MIT Media Lab co-founder Nicholas Negroponte.'

See the 2nd word there? Sure he can say what he likes, but he needs to disclose this blatant conflict of interest, which renders him very biased indeed.

Re:Funny thing about conspiracies

[Richard_at_work]

Dunno about anyone else, and I'm not explicitly defending this guy, but many webhosts give away Google AdWords vouchers for free - in the past year Ive personally used about $200 worth of adwords placements without paying a penny.

Re:The real story

[WaZiX]

Geekcorps has partnered with Intel Emerging Markets Group in Intel's "Discover the PC" initiative focused on delivering products and technologies that are specifically designed to meet the unique needs of people in emerging markets.
http://www.geekcorps.org/partners/ [geekcorps.org]

Still confused?

Today is Vota's wedding day

[fang2415]

Just in case anybody's wondering why Vota hasn't posted anything to explain this... I think he might be a little busy at the moment, since he's getting married today [bellybuttonwindow.com].

Not that that affects any conflict of interest either way, but he is a private citizen who's been running the blog in his spare time for at least a year. Sucks for him that this hits Slashdot today.

For my part, I've been reading olpcnews for a while and I think it's a serious stretch to call it "highly critical" of OLPC. Vota seems to love OLPC in general and has started a forum for Give-One-Get-One donors (like himself) to post hacks, guides, and help for the machines. He's pretty critical of Negroponte, but it seems that that's mostly because he (reasonably) believes that Negroponte's utopian rhetoric harms the project.

I'm not sure I've seen him weigh in strongly either way on Intel, but he's certainly very against seeing Windows on the OLPC [olpcnews.com], and has posted articles from other authors [olpcnews.com] that are quite critical of Intel. So IMO: pro-Intel bias, maybe. Anti-OLPC bias, no way.

Re:And

[SanityInAnarchy]

Generally, any story they do directly about OSTG/SourceForge/etc includes that disclaimer.

They tend to be good stories anyway.

I've been following this conspiracy

[Gordo_1]

for a while now. Does anyone realize the linked article is A YEAR OLD? It was written Jan 2, 2007. Subsequently, you can see a little back and forth with the accused (Wayan Vota) in the comments section through Jan 4, 2007. Then no one comments on the damn thing for *AN ENTIRE YEAR*. Then someone makes a comment on Jan 4, 2008, and the accusations fly again. Jan 12, 2008? Slashdot picks it up as if it's news. Problem is, Wayan quit Geekcorps a long time ago, so the article is no longer valid except that at one point in the past, there was an undisclosed conflict interest that no longer exists. At its height, you could say this was a bit shady and Wayan has most certainly continued to be an open critic of OLPC, but come on now, can we at least check the year before posting out-of-date crap like this in the future?

Wayan doesn't carry a intel blue badge

[MaryLouJepsen]

All Intel employees have to carry a blue badge. It's the only way to get into Intel buildings. I know: I used to work there.

I also took money from Intel in 2004: they paid my salary for the entire year. Then, when my division was closed, I joined with Nicholas Negroponte to start OLPC. Calling Wayan an Intel employee is like calling me one.

OLPCnews is a great forum for commentary on the OLPC project, they are sometimes critical of OLPC, and like all of us sometimes get things wrong, but they are mostly amazed by and very supportive of OLPC. OLPCnews is certainly helping build the OLPC community that has expanded as a result of OLPC's "Give One, Get One" program.

I think Wayan is doing a terrific job.

- Mary Lou Jepsen

(former Chief Technology Officer of OLPC)

Re:I am going to go out on a limb here

[A Numinous Cohort]

The Eee is by Asus, not Intel. I guess you mean the Classmate.

In either case, the PC is not exactly the best one to run Engineering/Math or even a compiler on. The Eee is intended for browsing, light word-processing, etc. The Classmate is intended for use by grade school kids.

Unfair

[Czmyt]

I am a frequent reader of the OLPC News site and it seems to me that Wayan Vota loves the OLPC project, loves the XO hardware, and is NOT some Intel-funded slimeball whose purpose is to disparage the OLPC project. What is Wayan's biggest disagreement with Mr. Negroponte? He thinks that kids need more help to learn how to use their laptops than is envisoned by Mr. Negroponte. So do I! My first thought upon running the XO software was, "Where's the freakin' F1 key or the question-mark help icon?" Do I need to trawl the OLPC Wiki for the most basic details about how the software works? Guess so. Anyway, this has to the be the most unfair sliming that I have ever seen in the five plus years that I have been reading Slashdot articles. It's especially got to hurt coming on his wedding day.

Soory cmd taco but this is bullshit

[alexandre van de san]

I write of OLPC News. I am not Wayan Vota, but have known him form some months now as we exchange constant emails about subjects. This is a case of real bad reporting on slashdot.

1- Wayan Vota is NOT an 'Intel Employee'. Ok, in some point his company did business with intel, but to call him a paid blogger by intel is a long conspiracy stride by an uninformed net echochamber. He is getting married today, and I think this is not the wedding gift he was expecting.

2 - OLPCnews is not "anti-olpc" or "pro-intel". You have clearly never read o line of that blog. Some headlines:
"Classmate PC: Intel's Two Hour-Long Joke" [olpcnews.com]
"Intel Can't Take the (Low) Heat & Power of OLPC XO" [olpcnews.com]
"Halloween Horror Story: Nigeria Buys Windows XP Classmates" [olpcnews.com]
I challenge anyone to find a post truly complimenting Intel for it's classmate. There are posts criticizing OLPC, but mainly criticizing some negroponte's statements, some of the foundations failures or something that was left unaswered, after all we are an independent news source. But never a post was written against the fundamental idea of one laptop per child and most posts on the XO are clearly praising it.

3 - there is no number 3. Unfortunatley, althought I write for the blog in question [olpcnews.com] my low /. ratings won't allow me to be heard here.

Alexandre van de sande
blog.wanderingabout.com [wanderingabout.com]

Re:astroturf

[pallmall1]

The fact remains that OLPCNews has not been forthcoming with disclosing the connection between Intel and the blog founder. Burying the association between Intel in obscure link trails that first lead off-site, and then back onsite to a post in a comment [olpcnews.com] section is hardly full disclosure of the fact that Wayan Vota, the founder of the OLPCNews blog was not just "an employee" of Geekcorps, he was the Director.

Here's a quick summary of Geekcorps -- IESC Geekcorps, a $10.5 million portfolio of technology-focused international development programs operating in nine countries, for the International Executive Service Corps. [wayan.com] And, "Geekcorps has partnered with Intel Emerging Markets Group in Intels Discover the PC initiative focused on delivering products and technologies that are specifically designed to meet the unique needs of people in emerging markets." [geekcorps.org]

Geekcorps (with Wayan as the Director) was promoting the Intel Classmate PC to developing countries at the same time that Wayan was operating the ostensibly independent "OLPCNews" blog. The Intel Classmate PC is a competitor to the OLPC XO device, and Intel has been accused of using it's market presence to undermine the efforts and goals of the OLPC foundation. The manner in which this association has been hidden may give new meaning to the term, "security through obscurity."