the OLPC

This page considers the OLPC - one laptop per child - program, associated with the 'Hundred Dollar Laptop' (aka XO).

It covers -

• introduction
• criticisms
• early uptake
• project drift?

Other ultra-cheap devices aimed at poor consumers, particularly in the Third World, are discussed in the following page of this profile.

     introduction

In 2005, some years after the announcement that a US$50 PDA for the third world was about to arrive, Nicholas Negroponte of the MIT Media Lab proposed development of the Hundred Dollar Laptop (HDL), aka the XO.

The proposal is associated with the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) group, with the stated goal of giving every poor child in the world a

rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning.

The proposed US$100 device was to be a "Linux-based, full-color, full-screen laptop" that would be WiFi- and mobile phone-enabled. The vision includes a 500MHz processor and use of "innovative power", with the boosters at the MIT Technology Review commenting

Since many villages in the poor world do not have electricity, the machines may be powered by either a crank or 'parasitic power' - that is, typing. Once turned on, HDLs will automatically connect to one another using a "mesh network" initially developed at MIT and the Media Lab. In the mesh network each laptop serves as an information-relaying node. Households that have HDLs will be able to communicate with each other by e-mail or voice calls.

Most importantly, Negroponte wants every mesh network to have access to the Internet. The laptops will be loaded with Skype, a communications application that provides free telephone calls. Consider: the most forlorn parts of the globe might become part of the wider world.

The device moved from a specification to a physical prototype, shedding features such as the crank along the way, but climbed to US$150 per unit.

     criticisms

Jaundiced observers might be forgiven for commenting that the initial announcement was a useful distraction from failed overseas expansion by the Media Lab and criticism that success in marketing the Lab's image has often not been reflected in substantive output.

One Australian enthusiast for all things wireless sniffed that "the strength of the $100 Laptop is in its colorful case mimicking a laptop and the powerful marketing ability of the MIT Media Lab". MacWorld's Cyrus Farivar commented "the $100 laptop is a huckster's gambit - poorly thought out, overly ambitious, and too sexy to be true".

Bill Gates, reportedly miffed because the HDL would not feature Microsoft code, called for a specially configured mobile phone that would serve as a computer when connected to a television and keyboard. (In 2008 Microsoft reached agreement with the OLPC; consumers would be able to buy a MS Office-equipped device for an extra US$30, most of the increase being attributable to extra memory rather than the licensing fee.)

Negroponte (unkindly dismissed by critics as "all icing and no cake") has characterised the HDL as "an education project" for school children rather than a cheap device for all users and as "both an electronic book and a laptop".

At a WSIS event in Tokyo in May 2005 he commented that

Sadly, most educational systems that recognize the important need for computers meet that need with a roomful of desktops to which a child might go for a few hours per week. Computing should be like a pencil, you have your own (versus community pencils) and use it for all kinds of purposes, related to school, home, work and play

and that

Bringing the laptop home engages the family. In one Cambodian village where we have been working, there is no electricity. Thus the laptop is, among other things, the brightest light source in the home.

     uptake

Negroponte's vision was that the governments of Brazil, Egypt, South Africa, China and Thailand would purchase and give away 15 million units.

Reality has proved more complicated. India dismissed the proposal. Orders to buy some 3 million units are soft. Intel supported the OLPC for six months but withdrew in January 2008, referring to a "philosophical impasse". OLPC denounced that as "shameless".

Negropone's optimism about stimulating education (with a policy of not providing children with devices and interfaces that they might ultimately use in an office) was reflected in his comment that

In fact, one of the saddest but most common conditions in elementary school computer labs (when they exist in the developing world), is the children are being trained to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint. I consider that criminal, because children should be making things, communicating, exploring, sharing, not running office automation tools.

That vision was however critiqued in a sobering post by former OLPC security director Ivan Krstiç in 2008, who stated that

I quit when Nicholas told me — and not just me — that learning was never part of the mission. The mission was, in his mind, always getting as many laptops as possible out there; to say anything about learning would be presumptuous, and so he doesn't want OLPC to have a software team, a hardware team, or a deployment team going forward.

In January 2009 the OLPC project laid off half of its staff, amid criticisms that in the third quarter of 2008 it shipped a mere 130,000 XO Laptops (far below initial projections) and that income from the 2008 'Give One Get One Free' initiative (aimed at the developed world) was down by 93% on 2007 after production delays and competition from commercial netbook devices.

Some critics suggested that the XO although visually appealing had been oversold, with US and Canadian writers damning it as slow, afflicted by unreliable wireless connectivity and a clunky browser.

The XO is tracked by Wayan Vota's OLPC News blog.

     project drift?

In May 2010 the OLPC group foreshadowed a shift in direction, with its proprietary design to be replaced with a device based on Marvell Technology Group Ltd's Moby tablet design, expected to cost around US$99. Negroponte was reported as being optimistic that the OLPC would be priced at under US$100, partly because the manufacturer expects to market its tablets widely to schools and health care institutions.

In 2005 he was reported as envisioning release of 100 million laptops within around two years. By mid-2010 some two million had gone out of the factory and costs remained higher than predicted, partly because of changes such as customising the keyboard for students who don't use a Latin alphabet.

The new OLPC tablet is reported as having "at least one, and maybe two, video cameras", wi-fi connectivity and "enough power to play high-definition and 3D video", along with ports for mice and other peripherals.






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