OLPC Launches Buy One, Give One Free Program 282
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."
Other options? (Score:5, Insightful)
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With so many other options for low cost linux based laptops coming up, how many would lap up the XOs? Yeah some geeks & some philanthropists ... the tech loving & God fearing maybe ... but will it sell like the Dells?
I think their going for the philanthropist geeks. If they sell a thousand at this price they can move towards lowering the price.
Do they say how much of the money is shipping to the third world country? I would think if they picked one Costal City for the initial recipients, it would be cheap to ship the laptops via ship and have a local volunteer or two distribute them to the children.
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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.
Re:Other options? (Score:5, Informative)
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Second, are only the God-fearing allowed to help others? only tech-loving people should play with gadgets? You wouldn't bother helping others unless there was some strong incentive to do so? Your curiosity is only limited to that which you are familiar with? I don't wish to judge you from the few words you have typed in the comment, but the world-view presented within them seems to be extremely narro
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I run a group which implements Edubuntu and other FOSS at poorer schools in India for free. So, am naturally interested in XO & all its alternatives out there to better utilize the meager funds (so far zilch) we have.
And I have a vested interested in the success of this buy one donate one concept as it will help groups like ours & many more.
I only put up an honest query and not any rhetoric.
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Nevertheless, your original comment suggest that you think that the "average Joes" are only charitable if they are God-fearing? That it takes some "special" people to do good for others?
Would you be interested in the success of the OLPC project if it has absolutely zero bearing on your group?
It is not the aim of OLPC to sell like Dells in developed countries, in case you haven't noticed already. Its hardware and software specifications are far
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And I thought 'God fearing' actually means 'God loving'? English is not my native language neither is Christianity my religion, so I might have erred.
And the reason why I wondered if it will sell like Dells is because I inherently want more XOs to sell. And it doesn't matter if my group benefits out of it, heck our group is not for personal benefits in the first place!
And yeah
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Generally, one is not supposed to change the actual words used.
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By the way, people who give out of love for their fellow man are God loving. Those who are God fearing send money to the Christian Coalition and try to legislate everyone else's behavior.
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And I'm someone who spends a lot of time in the countries where these will be distributed. I expect to be able to trade into one relatively cheap, but I'm also happy to support the cause.
Re:Other options? (Score:5, Informative)
"It's an education project, not a laptop project." -- Nicholas Negroponte
If you want a cheap laptop, buy the Asus or Dell for $400+. If you want an educational computer designed for kids, buy the OLPC.
Re:Other options? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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Re:Other options? (Score:5, Informative)
As an adult, I prefer the Eee though, mostly because I do not like the XO rubberized keyboard.
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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
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It allows techers to send notes home to illiterate parents, and parents to respond back (camera/microphone). It allows for reading off of the internet, an ebook, or teachers notes.
The cost of text books can be crippling, event he cost of printing could allow one of these to pay for itself with enough use. Simply as a monochrome e-book reader with a pull cord for pow
Nice Chance for a Donation (Score:2, Interesting)
Nice way to help a worthy cause and not a bad deal for a years t-mobile service.
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I also don't see where to buy one... I went to laptop.org, but can only find the 'donate money' area, not somewhere I can buy 2 to get one. (It occurs to me that this might make a good present for my niece.)
Re:Nice Chance for a Donation (Score:5, Informative)
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I don't see any link for actually placing an order though. I suppose i could try calling the number at the bottom during lunch though.
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As for T-Mobile, they are giving one year of free Wi-Fi access, so you can use your XO, or any WiFi device, at Starbucks, Borders, several US airports, etc. It's not free mobile phone service.
North America has poor folks too! (Score:2, Insightful)
I will agree that what America has is what I could call "material prosperity". There appears to be infrastructure everywhere but people are hurting in the pockets. These days, the American dollar has also taken a hit, so everyday stuff is expensive.
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I would rather give a computer to someone I don't know (and enable them to learn), than give nothing.
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But for a better long-term return (think decades down the line), give globally. There is no long-term benefit in keeping people uneducated globally.
Re:North America has poor folks too! (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, is there a statement from the OLPC people where they say that everyone in NA can afford one? It seems to me that they only said that individuals in NA can buy one, if they want. There is no comment about the "material prosperity" of everyone on this continent.
Now that I think about it, the title of your comment is "North America has poor folks too!" yet you only reference [the United States of] America. There are a couple of other countries on this continent, too, don't forget.
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Re:North America has poor folks too! (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, OLPC is focusing their efforts on third-world countries, but also the US education system is mostly ignoring OLPC. The "why" is fairly simple: it's not because US children do not deserve a good education, and not because they wouldn't benefit from computer access. But, the fact is that the US is structured such that OLPC may not be the "best fit." For instance many libraries in the US have computers in them, and many schools do also. It would appear that in the US the effort is being put into these kinds of educational resources. Whether or not that is the best way to spend US education dollars is of course up for debate.
But it's not really fair to imply that OLPC is ignoring US education. As I said, educational institutes in the US are free to make a case for funding such projects. OLPC will gladly ship the units.
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I disagree. Nicholas Negroponte in the past had flat refused to sell the computer to US schools. Only when it was looking like he wasn't going to get enough orders to begin mass -production did he start to *consider* it. Here's a snippet from a good Ars Technica article [arstechnica.com]:
Won't make as much impact. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, I'm not saying poor folks in developed countries brought it upon themselves, or are willfully poor, but I do think that there is greater room for improvement across populations as a whole in other places.
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The other advantage is that you might be able to help more communities with it.
Even though I feel this way, I'd consider buying one of these if I had the money. I wish it was buy one get half. At $300, it's doable for me.
Re:North America has poor folks too! (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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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.
More information... (Score:4, Informative)
The two laptops will cost $399.00 USD, and shipping is $24.95 USD (for a total of $423.95 USD). Open to residents of US and Canada only. Paypal is the default payment option (credit cards are also accepted). Of that, $200 is considered a tax-deductible donation. Your contribution also gets you 1 year of free Wi-Fi [laptopgiving.org] access at T-Mobile hotspots [t-mobile.com].
The website says that they will try to deliver the laptop before the holidays, but that initial supplies are limited (TFA says 40,000 units in this first month, with 20,000 ready before Christmas), so if you're keen to get one of these things, you should order sooner rather than later.
I'm certainly curious to see how many orders get put in. If a large number of geeks buy these things as hacking toys, then they could very well become the best platform for a variety of tasks. For example, maybe this will finally be a viable e-book reader (portable, rugged, long battery life, display that can be used in ambient light, etc.). Should be interesting.
XO black market (Score:3, Funny)
I bet if they tried the freemarket approach they could get the retail price down to, oh I don't know, maybe 100USD. They could name it "the $100 laptop"
No? Oh ok, I'll just have to buy two Eee PCs for the same amount.
Definitely too little too late (Score:2, Interesting)
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Plus, those laptops had Vista on them. I assume you've had to buy two licenses of XP as well to make them usable. That runs the price up to, what, $600 each?
:)
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$399 is pricey (Score:2, Offtopic)
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Using your logic, why would I donate $100 to the Red Cross when I could just as easily get a mickey of vodka and have a good time for less!!!
Tom
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Instead, they seem to have gone the PBS, "Make a donation of X size and get a fabulous tote bag" except the tote bag in question is an expensive computer (compared to a cheaply manufactured cotton bag). The $400 hundred dollar lapt
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The XO basically revolutionize the low-end portable computer market. They where the first to talk about ultra low cost, ultra-portable, low-power computing, and as such kick-start the movement which gave us recently the Asus Eee and the Intel ClassMate. Without them, the market would have slowly converge toward cheaper and cheaper hardware, but I think we would still be a couple years
Compare it to other apples. (Score:3, Insightful)
Bad luck I'm in Scandinavia, may be you can buy one and send it to me?
I agree, but for a different reason. (Score:2)
There are hundreds of good charities to give money to where all the money goes to the cause. I haven't seen a guaranteee of that from OLPC. However I would be more than happy to buy the two OLPCs provided BOTH went to kids and that I
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Seriously - buying laptops for kids should not be P1 in terms of global humanitarian aid folks.
No thanks (Score:2)
Just like the Asus Eee PC detractors... (Score:2)
I own an Asus Eee, and it's a near-perfect little sub-kilo device. But if I had a kid in the 3-8 age group, I'd pounce on this OLPC deal so fast my keyboard would smoke. For the same price as the Eee I can get something way more kid-friendly AND support some third-world future 1337 h4ckz0r?! I can't think of a more noble place for my nerd-donation to go. But my altruism only extends so far. I
Guaranteed? (Score:4, Interesting)
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You mean by guaranteeing something like ...
... from the Terms and Conditions [laptopgiving.org] of the Give One Get One [laptopgiving.org] program.
I ordered one. (Score:3, Interesting)
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specs? (Score:2)
I'm interested in this deal, but would like more technical specs. In part because I have specific ideas about how I'd like to use one and would like to know if it will work for what I want. Is there a page somewhere (I don't see one quickly) detailing what is and is not in the machine?
Re:I ordered one. (Score:4, Informative)
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Give_One_Get_One [laptop.org]
Will the North American Laptops include any human-power system?
no.
Re:I ordered one. (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately you'll have to join the mailing list (http://www.potenco.com/contact-us) to find out about availability since they are focusing on the kids (away from the grid) first.
Forget the North Americans - sell to Europe! (Score:3, Funny)
I wish it was available in the UK (Score:3, Informative)
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Re:Forget the North Americans - sell to Europe! (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a pointer [olpcnews.com] to a method for ordering one if you are located outside the USA and Canada.
There are also reports [olpcnews.com] that folks in Europe have been able to place orders by phone. This would only work for phone orders - the web site (PayPal) only allows USA and Canadian shipping addresses.
Flash support? (Score:2)
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Looks like a great first computer to me (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Tax Exemption in Canada? (Score:2)
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Currency From: CAD
Currency To: USD
Exchange Rate: 1.03014
"Generally, you cannot claim donations made to U.S. charities on your Canadian income tax."
I'll take that 3 cents on the dollar though!
(If you have US Income, you can use the donation to off-set that...)
Dawson
Only in America (Score:2)
(America in the geographical sense, of course...)
I'd love to buy one. It looks great; not only would I find it useful as well as being a really cool toy, but I think this is a cause highly worth supporting. Alas, the offer is only valid for people in continental North America (plus island states of the USA). Since I live in the UK, I'm stuffed.
Hopefully at some stage they'll run a European G1G1 programme.
(Actually, maybe the G1G1 programme will show enough demand that some budding entrepeneur will ord
bash shell? (Score:2)
The question is: what is the procedure for getting into a bash shell?
A related question is w
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The underlying window manager is Matchbox.
There is a Developer Console [laptop.org] activity which provides a shell, log viewer, X resource meter, and memory usage meter.
If you want a more adult interface than Sugar, you might be more interested in PepperPad. They are providing an OLPC compatible pre-release containing both a 1.5 JVM and a more adult-oriented environment.
Here's the scoop (Score:2)
$423 including shipping.
Yes, some child in a developing nation will definitely get one if you order the buy one give one package. You get one too. I have a 4 year old daughter who currently borrows our laptops to play the flash games on PBSKIDS.ORG. I am hoping this will be easy for her to use.
It runs Linux. Good battery life. Interesting screen. Modest CPU and graphics horsepower.
There is no crank.
Order soon, supplies are limited.
Yes, I ordered one.
Limited quantities? (Score:2)
I'd like to know why there will only be limited quantities available for the NA market. Is there some reason for that? Don't they want to accept as many donations as possible?
I strongly considered getting an XO laptop for myself. (Screw the kids, why should they have all the coolest stuff. :-)) I ended up going with the Asus Eee PC because it has a more traditional LCD screen, more RAM, more storage and a built-in SD card slot. Battery life isn't nearly as good with the Asus, and it is only about a
I got my order in this morning ... (Score:2, Informative)
One thing I'd like this for is to take on my next (very infrequent) plane flight -- the cheapo laptops I have right now have both terrible battery life and more heft than airline trays like. (Oh, and don't open well in that tiny space the airlines call enough room for a passenger.) With the T-Mobile deal, it also
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OK, when I get tired of it, it will probably go to my nephew (whose second birthday happens to be today).
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Re:Too late (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Is this really a good idea? (Score:5, Informative)
First, it should be noted that OLPC is targeting developing nations where there is some momentum to improve things, but where access to technological resources and information are limiting growth. They are not focusing on the "desperately poor" countries where starvation is the overriding concern (take a look at the participating countries [wikipedia.org]). Second, the XO laptops are meant to work side-by-side with other forms of relief, aid, education, and infrastructure improvement.
Saying "why bother with OLPC when people are starving?" is like saying "why bother sponsoring a local child to go to a swimming competition when people are starving?" We can simultaneously be philanthropic in different ways to different groups. Moreover, focusing only on the "most dire" problems (and ignoring everything else) is not a good way to help the world as a whole develop into a safer, more equitable place. So, I view OLPC as a part of the overall puzzle: a positive step that can be implemented in some countries, and which will help stimulate those countries to become more prosperous and independent.
Re:Is this really a good idea? (Score:5, Informative)
I sponsor a teacher in a school in South Eastern Madagascar. By this, I mean that I pay for her board & lodgings. The government pays her salay (approx $500/year) I have done this for the past 4 years.
The village where she teaches is 4 hours by 4WD vehicle to the nearest tarmaced road. They have plenty of food, clean fresh water etc. What they lack is the rest of the things that connect them with the outside world. There is 1 TV in the village. I supplied it alone with a solar panel, some car batteries and an inverter. They have a pirated Satellite encoder and can now stay in touch with the outside world. The thirst for knowledge of the children is fantastic. If I were in the US I would buy several of these units for the village.
The lack of infrastructure(ie no Electricity) is irrelevant for the OLPC. That said, next year I'm hoping to get a small water turbine installed and connected up to a generator. They will have electric light for the first time. Then we can start to make changes to the houses so that the epidemic of lung diseases can be tackled. This is due to the houses not having chimneys and all cooking is done over an open charcoal fire.
I visited the village again in October. I took supplied of pencils and paper (bought in-country) I also took pictures of the children and printed them out in front of them. They took them home to very proud parents.
The OLPC concept will help bridge the gap between the 1st world and the bottom parts of the 3rd world.
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How did you get involved this way? Is there a particular philanthropic/volunteering group you started out with, and then took on this village on your own? Or did you somehow get in contact with them yourself?
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"And ye shall know them by their works..."
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As an old and wise person once said:
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish, and he can starve because while he's been overfishing the lake to exhaustion to supply Kwik-E-Mart, nobody has
Re:USA? Black Friday... (Score:5, Insightful)
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As evil as they are, MS is the de facto standard. If you don't know windows you're missing a key skill to join the technology work force. Giving a bunch of kids a one-off linux based laptop leaves out critical skills.
And the way to change the landscape is to get people used to using something different in a place where there isn't a de facto standard.
Or $diety forbid teach them to think and learn so that they can make the choice themselves as to what OS to use when their country becomes less technology challenged.
Or is education of the end-user not the ultimate goal here?
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Education of the end user IS the ultimate goal, but not education in computer skills. The XO laptop is a learning tool, and is likened by its creators to a "pencil". Their goal is to give each child in the developing world their own "pencil" to create with. No one will be reconfiguring their kernels on these things.
Nobody said they would. What was said was that because these things are not Microsoft then they are wrong.
To go with your pencil analogy here it doesn't matter if you use a Ticonderoga or a Rotring mechanical - it's still a tool to learn with.
When you've learned more and you can make a choice then pick the pencil that suits you. But until then the "pencils" being handed out will suffice in these cases - because the students have no "pencil" at all.
Your sig (Score:2)
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Third, not everyone is a crook.
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did access to computers increase us students math/language scores? of course not.
No, because we had textbooks. That's the difference.
its books and teachers and basic infrastructure that matter but thats not sexy so gadgets are sold as miracle cures, and geek bazillionaires think they are saving the world.
These laptops are intended as (among other things) a replacement for books. Consider the number of e-books that can fit on the XO's flash-based storage. Now consider the costs of buying that many textbooks, which the child has to lug around with them. As new editions are written, a laptop can be updated with a download over the Internet or a CD-ROM distribution, and you don't have to replace all those textbooks.
its fine if you give them away, slightly dodgy if you ask their poor governments to pay for this toy.
This article is about the "Give One, G