Does the hand crank come with it as standard? I know they originally planned to build it in, but the last I heard, they had been planning to release the human-powered chargers after the main release of the machines - if they managed to include them as a standard accessory, that’s really great news.
I don’t quite understand why that’s obnoxious - they’ve just chosen PayPal as the shopping cart method for their site - what’s wrong with that?
If they had said we take PayPal only, that would be fine. But what they do is to say PayPal is a very good method of payment (fine). But to get around it I said I didn’t have a PayPal account (a lie, but I was away from home and didn’t have my password with me.) I made the mistake of giving the credit card I use with PayPal, which they rejected since I did have a PayPal account. I finally did a one time charge. If they said they didn’t want to pay credit card fees, fine. But I’ve never had so much trouble checking out on any other site. The attitude I got was that anyone not doing it their way was a twit.
That sounds more like a quirk of the PayPal system than anything specific to the OLPC guys.
PayPal shopping carts are about the easiest thing out there to set up if you want to start selling something online - that perhaps indicates they’re a bit less professional than they ought to be.
You could make the same argument about literacy. Computers and the internet are far more game-changing than movable type ever was, and no one would argue that children in the Third World shouldn’t have access to books and literacy because they’re of secondary importance. Computers are the emblem of our age, and their usefulness knows few bounds. Why on earth shouldn’t Third World children have access to this bounty?
The word used to describe everybody’s reaction to the OLPC despie it’s flaws is: Nerdgasm. Laporte’s guests give a good rundown of the features and problems with the OLPC.
It kind of went along with WhyNot’s comment on the poor state of the website. I didn’t have any problems navigating, actually, but I’ve seen a lot better.
Somewhere I read the prediction that having one of these things would be a badge of honor in geekdom. That of course has nothing to do with why I’m getting one. 
I’ll write a review when I get it and have had a chance to play with it. No ship date given, though.
I’ll have a listen to that later - but the word sounds pretty apt.
I’ll confess, I do actually want one of these machines (can’t get one yet as I live in England). I wonder how long until they start appearing on eBay? I wonder how long until kids in developing countries start selling them on eBay…
I know that’s a violation of the license agreement, but it’s going to happen all the same.
They really should allow anyone who wants one to buy one, as that would be a great laptop to carry on trips where you want/need a PC but have to worry that something might happen to it. One of Leo’s regulars goes to the MIT fleamarkets and buys all the NEC Mobilepro’s he can find (for about $10!) as it’s perfect for fieldwork, runs normal Windows (or Linux) programs and if something happens to it, he’s not lost a $1K laptop.
I wonder if their goals might be easier to reach if they open-sourced the whole thing - including hardware - make it so that anyone can build them - then who cares if everybody has one - without the R&D overhead, manufacturers ought to be able to crank these things out for peanuts.
I suppose the OLPC guys do have some costs to recoup at the moment, but even if they didn’t go open source, but licensed some other manufacturers at a dollar per unit, they could do that, at the same time as making the device cheap and ubiquitous.
Much of the development in cellphones is being driven by the needs of the developing world, and I have a great deal of hope that the OLPC will inspire the same thing to happen in the PC world. Already, MS and Intel are turning out competing models. So far, their prices aren’t any better than the OLPC, but as the three of them try to outdo one another, we could see some downward movement on the price.
I agree with this completely. I wish Bulgaria was participating in this program. It would be fantastic if all of my kids had internet access at home.
Just because someone lives in a poor country doesn’t mean they have no available water and are starving to death. And education is a fundamental human right, too.
Heh, no need to worry about an increase in Nigerian spam it seems, XP to debut on OLPCs next year!
So, the entire project will be brought a screeching halt as laptop after laptop falls victim to spyware, viruses, and all the other forms of malware in the world.
Why do I picture a bunch of laptops being hoarded by warlords, like Somalia?
I see small children in an enormous factory sweatshop, pressing keys to the beat of kettle drum at the back of the room.