It was supposed to be the laptop that saved the world.
In late 2005, tech visionary and MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte pulled the cloth cover off a small green computer with a bright yellow crank. The device was the first working prototype for Negroponte’s new nonprofit One Laptop Per Child, dubbed “the green machine” or simply “the $100 laptop”. And it was like nothing that Negroponte’s audience – at either his panel at a UN-sponsored tech summit in Tunis, or around the globe – had ever seen.
The OLPC was all the rage and hype for a few years back then, but it never materialised. Still, while not nearly the same thing, cheap mobile phones and smartphones have played a somewhat similar role.
Um… YES IT DID! I had one from their “buy one, get one” program, where you paid for two and one was donated on your behalf. It was an interesting little machine, but I ended up selling it.
It never materialized? They shipped 1.4 million XO-1 units to Peru and Uruguay alone. I mean, that’s pretty incredible numbers.
That is what I thought too, at least she says it wasn’t a failure:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXxCKpREeqA&t=20m29s
One Laptop per child never materialized. She says in the interview that 100 million children used it while only 1.4 million were shipped so that would be 1 laptop per 70 children.
The device that shipped also wasn’t 100 dollars but over 200 dollars years after it should have become 100 dollars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Laptop_per_Child#Cost
The interviewer asked the right question “phones/tablets” took over the OLPC, but was it because of OLPC that these devices reached such low prices or was it something the market would have done by itself. That question wasn’t answered but I don’t think OLPC had much to do with it.
Also, nobody mentions the software (and training) part that was part of OLPC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Laptop_per_Child#Software
My experience with the target market for OLPC (poor children) has mostly been in Asia where I have never seen any OLPC-machine. Maybe it was used in South/Central-America, but I hadn’t heard about it from there either before reading this topic.
In 2005, when the OLPC idea was announced in Davos, world wide mobile phone subscriptions hit 2 billion already. From 1 million in 2001 to 2 billion 4 years later making it the fastest growing technology ever. Hardly surprising it did not stop there. OLPC was irrelevant already in 2005.
https://phys.org/news/2005-09-global-mobile-phone-subscribers-2b.htm…
Edited 2018-04-19 20:19 UTC
Considering the size of potential audience and initial ambitions of the project, 1.4 million is not incredible. 50 to 100 million over the course of decade+ would be perhaps something to brag about; “incredible” would be, say, few hundred million over that time…
That’s the impression I had back them. They seemed to be only interested in the technology part.
It’s a third the price (less if you count inflation), and does more things better.
No, the Raspberry Pi comes with no screen and no keyboard.
I’d say google for “7 inch android netbook” to get the idea of what the OLPROFL should have been, something like https://www.amazon.com/Craig-Wireless-Netbook-Powered-Sandwich/dp/B0…
Sure, it’s cheaper as a unit, but include a hand-crank, screen, clamshell case, keyboard and pointing device, and i bet you couldn’t build it for less than $150.
Also, good luck getting a raspberry pi working once you’ve dropped it in mud.
Not to mention unique sunlight resistant screen technology.
I wonder why that PixelQi screen tech haven’t become popular…
The base unit doesn’t include a display and keyboard though, so if you add the price of that it becomes more or less the same. Still good, of course.
Not without a built-in screen, keyboard, and WiFi. It’s more fair to say that the PocketCHIP ( https://getchip.com/pages/pocketchip ) picked up the torch as it has all those features and was still under $100, but now they’re impossible to get, too.
Yeah, the chip isn’t a good comparison, the next thing company is for all intents and purposes out of business
See here:
https://bbs.nextthing.co/t/class-action-lawsuit-against-next-thing/2…
Edited 2018-04-18 16:23 UTC
https://hackaday.com/2018/04/03/is-this-the-end-for-the-c-h-i-p/
https://bbs.nextthing.co/t/confirmation-ntc-is-dead/20349/19
Edited 2018-04-18 17:28 UTC
It never really was about the machine but about a system of distribution of cheap or even free basic technology and that’s what failed.
Considering the photo from Ghana that turned viral few weeks ago of the teacher teaching MS word on a blackboard it is obvious that the problems of easily accessible technology still exist.
But let’s drop the naiveties and call butcher’s name.
It’s capitalism, stupid.
Nope Capitalism is awesome. The reason we have such good stuff for next to nothing in the West is because of capitalism.
Here is some arguments against your position. This guy argues them well and much better than myself. So please watch his vids before you reply.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPSMqzT_HPo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoLlIHSDHE4
In fact I think the initiative of OLPC would have hurt Poor countries more.
Edited 2018-04-18 21:23 UTC
The real reason “we have such good stuff for next to nothing in the West” is because we don’t pay all externalities of resource/energy consumption, consume way more global hectares per capita than is sustainable…
And of course virtually all those nice toys are made in People’s Republic of China.
Was that the person that predicted first that it would flop because smart phones would fill the niche better was Bill Gates.
and in the end Android accomplished to a large degree what OLPC didn’t.
I believe there was a mini OS war around the XO laptop with Windows being rejected and then added last minute in dual boot mode. Interesting that it is not LibreOffice the teacher was drawing on his blackboard in Ghana. I wonder if a more “commercial” OS from the start might have helped to mainstream the device. Anti Wintel sentiment was substantial at the time among volunteer tech folks, I suspect. And maybe windows was not the best choice for a low resource device.
No, it’s not interesting, because no employer is going to accept Libreoffice. It has half the capabilities of Microsoft Office at a third of the performance and, considering how bloated and slow Office is, that’s saying something!
I doubt Ghana is a corporate hellhole like America. If you’re your own employer, you simply use whatever works.
I have some experience in this arena. Third world countries typically use donated, old refurbished computers with older versions of office. Its not because libreoffice has problems, but because office is already there and effectively free for the same reasons that windows is. Its not a dig at libre office. employers would definitely hire someone that just had libre office skills. Assuming that they understood what libre office was.
“Half the capabilities of Office”…
Considering I write all my legal letters on the classic XP Wordpad (because it is far enough, lightweight, features a ruler bar, and most importantly a correct WYSIWYG preview, just lack spell check) imagine what Libre Office already provides more than Wordpad.
If you really, really (have I said really ?) needs Microsoft Office’s “advanced” features to legitimate a buy, then go for it. But for 98% people out there, Libre Office is faaaaaaaaaar enough. By far. Far far away.