One Laptop Per Child before Christmas

Sep 4, 2006 12:55 GMT  ·  By

Almost 2 years have passed since it was born, in the depths of MIT. The 100$ Laptop. The parents were Nicholas and Elaine Negroponte, founders of Media Lab. It all started with the idea of an affordable portable PC, available for poor children from Africa, Asia or South America. This initiative was officially announced at the World Economic Forum, held in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2005. But until the autumn of 2005, things seemed to quiet down. No news, no additional information. Nothing. As soon as the leaves started to fall, a prototype was unveiled and presented to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

At that time, the MIT team also announced it wanted to include a hand-crank in this notebook, to ensure the power supplying in the areas with no access to the power network. Intel chairman Craig Barrett stated then that ?potential computer users from developing countries would not want a laptop that uses a crank for generating power and will also be available for millions of persons.? Also, during a conference in Sri Lanka, he said that "Mr. Negroponte has called it a 100 USD laptop - I think a more realistic title should be 'the 100 USD gadget?. The problem is that gadgets have not been successful.? Later, Reuters quoted Gates declaring at the Microsoft Government Leaders Forum that ?the last thing you want to do for a shared use computer is have it be something without a disk... and with a tiny little screen. If you are going to go have people share the computer, get a broadband connection, and have somebody there who can help support the user, geez, get a decent computer where you can actually read the text and you're not sitting there cranking the thing while you're trying to type". I will explain later what's the matter with these ?attacks? from Intel and Microsoft. On the other hand, Kofi Annan agreed with the development of these devices that use a crank for power supply and can create their own wireless networks, especially in areas where no electricity source is present.

Back then, Brazil, Thailand, Nigeria, Egypt and Argentina expressed their interest towards acquiring the laptop, and even the State of Massachusetts (USA), wanted to spend over $54.000.000 in order to give a laptop to every middle and high school student in the state. The governments of these countries should also be in charge of the correct and efficient distribution of the laptops. Negroponte, which also started the non profit group OLPC (One Laptop Per Child), said that the laptops will be available for the governments during ?next year? (as in 2006), for 100 USD price each. OLPC stated in a press release that the first notebooks are ?awaited on the market until the last quarter of the next year and they are expecting orders from 5 millions pieces to 15 millions. Also, the prices for the new laptops will drop.? I will also analyze this pricing matter later on.

In the winter of 2005, OLPC also found a producer, represented by Quanta Computers. The Taiwan based company has announced on August 31, 2006 that the goal is to ship 10.000.000 $100 laptops in 12 months, starting end of Quarter 1, 2007. Michael Wang, president of Quanta, presented additional features of the laptop that will be produced in the city of Changshu (the Jiangsu province of China). The machines are ?designed to be shock proof, water proof and sand proof - so it's basically designed to be kid proof?. In addition, Wang claimed that rumors about Quanta buying BenQ's manufacturing division, or merging with Foxconn, are both untrue. (However, Wang pointed out that Foxconn has been a key partner of Quanta, by providing most of Quanta's PC components such as chassis, connectors and heat-sink modules.) Mass production starts in November, and Negroponte added that field trials are also scheduled to start then. ?Visual models and developer board demos will be sent to Nigeria in September and to Thailand in October. Trials start everywhere at the same time," insisted Negroponte, adding that ?some journalists have erred by writing about a single country's involvement and touting it as the first deployment?. At the end of last month, Brazil, Nigeria, Argentina and Thailand announced they have already signed contracts with One Laptop per Child Group for a million-unit shipment each, but Negroponte denies the closing of the deals: ?we have not signed any agreements for orders, but we are in communication with the countries mentioned. OLPC has asked that all interested parties wait to see a working machine before placing their orders?.

Now, let's take a look at the price variations, as well as at some motives behind the attacks made during the laptop?s development.

Regarding Bill Gates? statements, Negroponte said that it?s not about a weak computer, but a slim, thin and fast one, and that these kinds of declarations only hinder the laptop?s distribution program. Another extremely interesting thing made public by Nicholas Negroponte was that his organization was already working at that time with Microsoft to make a version of the laptop that would run a stripped-down version of Windows. So, Gates is working on two fronts. He tries to minimize an eventual failure, and to maximize gains for Microsoft if things turn out to be fine in the end. On the other side of the coin stands Linux, so here it is what they had to say about all this: ?At Red Hat, we believe that open source technology can change the world, and is still in its infancy. It's a guiding principle that is embodied in everything we do?, said Matthew Szulik, chairman, president and CEO of Red Hat. ?Beyond a founding corporate sponsorship, we've put engineering and other strategic resources behind the OLPC initiative to add our expertise, global reach and focus to the project.? As for Craig Barrett's attacks, the matter is even simpler: OLPC's choice was the cost-effective AMD.

Similar campaigns of helping developing countries to increase their economic and technological level have failed. In 2001, Simputer started a project which proposed the distribution of hand-held devices with a price of 220 USD, produced in India. These systems were finalized last year, but the sales are disappointing. Why should it be different here? Because the OLPC group has been offered support by companies like Advanced Micro Devices, Google, Rupert Murdoch?s company, Brightstar and News Corporation. With such allies, it could succeed in achieving at least a part of the project. After Google, AMD and Red Hat (and Microsoft more or less) gave a helping hand in the development of this laptop, Apple tried to offer its help as well, but the MIT people were not interested. Apple wanted to give free copies of Mac OS X for use in the laptop, but the company's proposition was rejected, due to claims that their OS is not open source. It seems that the laptop will use Linux Red Hat, but the designers also said that the notebook will run any operating system that supports AMD processors. The software that comes with it will include a word processor, a Web browser, an e-mail client and software development tools.

As for the price, until now, it has been known to be around $100, but Negroponte said in an interview that the countries will have to pay more if they want to benefit from the project ? between $135 and $140 for each unit. "It is a floating price. We are a non-profit organization. We have a target of $100 by 2008, but probably it will be $135, maybe $140. That is a start price, but what we have to do is with every release make it cheaper and cheaper. We are promising that the price will go down," Negroponte told attendees of the Red Hat Summit in Nashville back in June. And just to make us question the true motives of these variations, the PC will be available for purchasing at 200$ in regular stores. Was the difference too big? Is it more acceptable 60$ instead of 100$ between the prices of the same product? In any case, what started as the ?100$ Laptop? has turned out to be ?The 135$ to 200$ Laptop?. And from 1.000.000 pieces, the production jumped to 10.000.000. Let's hope the project stays non-profit.

I'm sure you are curious as to what are the specifications of the wonder-product, recently named CM1 (Children's Machine 1), so here they are:

Physical dimensions: 193mm ? 229mm ? 64mm (subject to change); weight: less than 1.5 KG (final target); convertible laptop with pivoting, reversible display; dirt and moisture resistant system enclosure. Core electronics: CPU: AMD Geode [email protected], CPU clock speed: 366 Mhz, X86/X87-compatible; chipset: AMD CS5536 South Bridge; Graphics controller: Integrated with Geode CPU; unified memory architecture; embedded controller, ENE KB3700; Image: KB3700; DRAM memory: 128MB; Data rate: Dual ? DDR266 ? 133 Mhz; BIOS: 1024KB SPI - interface flash ROM; Linux BIOS open-source BIOS; Mass storage: 512MB SLC NAND flash, high speed flash controller; Drives: No rotating media.

Display: Liquid-crystal display, 7.5? Dual-mode TFT display, Viewing area: 151.6 mm ? 113.4 mm, Resolution: 1200 (H) ? 900 (V) (200 dpi), mono display: high-resolution, reflective monochrome mode, color display: standard-resolution, quincunx-sampled, transmissive color mode, special "DCON" chip (that enables deswizzling and anti-aliasing in color mode, while enabling the display to remain live with the processor suspended; since it will always be running the frame buffer at 1200x900 resolution, the color resolution is lower, but exactly how this works out in effective resolution is complex). ChiLin of Taiwan will be the manufacturer of the OLPC display. 3M is building specialized plastic optical components being used in the design of these displays.

Integrated peripherals: Keyboard: 70+ keys, 1.2mm stroke; sealed rubber-membrane key-switch assembly; Cursor-control keys: five-key cursor-control pad; four directional keys plus Enter; Touch-pad: Dual capacitance/resistive touch-pad; supports written-input mode; Audio: Analog Devices AD1888, AC97-compatible audio codec; stereo, with dual internal speakers; monophonic, with internal microphone and using the Analog Devices SSM2211 for audio amplification; Wireless: Marvell 88W8388, 802.11b/g compatible; dual adjustable, rotating coaxial antennas; supports diversity reception; Status indicators: Power, battery, WiFi; visible lid open or closed.

External connectors: Power: 2-pin DC-input, 10 to 25 V, -23 to -10 V; Line output: Standard 3.5mm 3-pin switched stereo audio jack; Microphone: Standard 3.5mm 2-pin switched mono microphone jack; selectable sensor-input mode; Expansion: 3 Type-A USB-2.0 connectors; Maximum power: 500 mA.

Battery: Pack type: 5 Cells, 6V series configuration; Fully-enclosed ?hard? case; user removable; Capacity: 22.8 Watt-hours; Cell type: Ni-MH; Pack protection: Integrated pack-type identification; Integrated thermal sensor; Integrated polyfuse current limiter; Cycle life: Minimum 2,000 charge/ discharge cycles (to 50% capacity of new, IIRC).

Environmental specifications: Temperature: exact values have not been settled; Humidity: Similar attitude to temperature. When closed, the unit should seal well enough that children walking to and from school need not fear rainstorms or dust. Maximum altitude: -15m to 3048m (14.7 to 10.1 psia) (operating), -15m to 12192m (14.7 to 4.4 psia) (non-operating); Shock 125g, 2ms, half-sine (operating) 200g, 2ms, half-sine (non-operating); Random vibration: 0.75g zero-to-peak, 10Hz to 500Hz, 0.25 oct/ min sweep rate (operating); 1.5g zero-to-peak, 10Hz to 500Hz, 0.5 oct/ min sweep rate (non-operating); 2mm plastic walls (1.3mm is typical for most systems).

As you can see from the pictures, the future of CM1 from OLPC (formerly known as The 100$ Laptop), seems to be very optimistic. With its impressive resume, it would better deliver, or else the IT community will have a good subject for the New Year jokes.

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