One week left to….

[sandbox]

QUOTE

There is just one week left to participate. For a donation of just $399 ($200 of which is tax-deductible), you will be giving the gift of education to a deserving child in the developing world, and also receiving an XO laptop in recognition of your donation. Once "Give One Get One" ends, the XO laptop will no longer be available to the general public.

T-Mobile is generously offering everyone who participates in "Give One Get One" one year of complimentary access to T-Mobile HotSpot broadband Internet service, available at more than 8,500 locations throughout the United States. This complimentary year of service is valued at over $350! Just use any Wi-Fi enabled device, such as the XO, your laptop computer, or a Wi-Fi enabled mobile phone, and you can connect and communicate your way. Find out more at www.laptopgiving.org/en/t-mobile-hotspot.php.

To donate, or to find out more about the XO laptop, please visit www.laptopgiving.org. You can also donate by calling toll-free
1-877-70-LAPTOP (1-877-705-2786). We hope you'll join us in our mission to bring education and connection to children in even the most remote regions of the globe.

Thank you.

QUOTE

Steve Jobs had offered Mac OS X free of charge for use in the laptop, but according to Seymour Papert, a professor emeritus at MIT who is one of the initiative's founders, the designers want an operating system that can be tinkered with: “We declined because it’s not open source.”[23] Therefore Linux was chosen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC_XO-1

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Software for the XO http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activities#Docum...2C_and_Share.29

QUOTE

"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."

Jimbo Wales, Founder of Wikipedia

[kimmer]

I read about this in the Washington Post. I noticed that there are several concerns with this program.

QUOTE

Whether it succeeds, One Laptop Per Child is likely to go down in philanthropic history as a case study in the formidable challenges facing anyone trying to use technology to help the developing world.
   
Wayan Vota, a technology missionary who runs a Web site devoted to news about the group, said it has "a great dream and amazing technology but not much of an implementation plan." He worries that the outcome could resemble an ill-fated tractor program in Africa decades ago, which provided lots of tractors but little supporting infrastructure.

"You can't just drop in technology and leave," Vota said. "And every successful technology project in the developing world has shown you have to start at the grass roots. You need buy-in from end users and work up the change from the bottom. You get students and parents and teachers to support it, so they influence the education bureaucracy."

Another concern is that the laptops are hand crank? I had problems getting the web pages to load, so I didn't really explore all that much. I think it's a nice idea, I'm just not sure how practical and useable it all is.

QUOTE(sandbox @ Nov 27 2007, 10:38 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

QUOTE

There is just one week left to participate. For a donation of just $399 ($200 of which is tax-deductible), you will be giving the gift of education to a deserving child in the developing world, and also receiving an XO laptop in recognition of your donation. Once "Give One Get One" ends, the XO laptop will no longer be available to the general public.

T-Mobile is generously offering everyone who participates in "Give One Get One" one year of complimentary access to T-Mobile HotSpot broadband Internet service, available at more than 8,500 locations throughout the United States. This complimentary year of service is valued at over $350! Just use any Wi-Fi enabled device, such as the XO, your laptop computer, or a Wi-Fi enabled mobile phone, and you can connect and communicate your way. Find out more at www.laptopgiving.org/en/t-mobile-hotspot.php.

To donate, or to find out more about the XO laptop, please visit www.laptopgiving.org. You can also donate by calling toll-free
1-877-70-LAPTOP (1-877-705-2786). We hope you'll join us in our mission to bring education and connection to children in even the most remote regions of the globe.

Thank you.

QUOTE

Steve Jobs had offered Mac OS X free of charge for use in the laptop, but according to Seymour Papert, a professor emeritus at MIT who is one of the initiative's founders, the designers want an operating system that can be tinkered with: “We declined because it’s not open source.”[23] Therefore Linux was chosen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC_XO-1

[Gregg]

Wish I'd heard of this sooner. I'm tapped out on donations! Oh, the phone calls!!!!

Time will tell about the one laptop per child effort. One solution, tell them all to sit down.

[krissel]

This has been extended to the end of the year.

http://laptopgiving.org/en/index.php

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60 minutes does a piece on the XO1 and one-laptop
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/ma...layer3415.shtml
you have to start the full movie view on the right side menu, to get past the ads and intro.

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OEM software and UI (user interface) http://laptopgiving.org/en/software-and-interface.php#Home

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Peru signs up for 260,000 OLPC laptops

http://www.news.com/Peru-signs-up-for-260,..._3-6221061.html

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Microsoft wants One Laptop Per Child system to run Windows XP


The XO-1 currently runs on a Red Hat (fedora distro) OS.

http://itnews.com.au/News/66442,microsoft-...windows-xp.aspx

Now....now they want to get in on the project.....before it was below them, a toy...waste of resources.

Years of work and M$ just wants to drop in like a sponge and claim that they have something to offer. NO

It's an open source project and will stay that way.

Peru just purchased 240,000...Mexico's first purchase 50,000 XO-1's

I'm tickled to be getting one to play with....