Google Apps no longer in beta, Google OS on the way

Google Apps no longer in beta, Google OS on the way


Alas, poor Microsoft. First Google dominates the search engine 
> market. Then
> Google enters the Web-based e-mail market. Android invades Windows 
> Mobile's
> turf. And then Google jumps into the browser market with Chrome. 
> Tonight
> Google announced that it has upped the ante yet again, and will 
> release a
> new operating system based on Google Chrome.
>
> The new operating system, aptly named Google Chrome OS, will be an
> open-source operating system initially geared toward netbooks, Google
> announced in a press release this evening.

Google Apps no longer in beta, Google OS on the way

CrunchPad: The Launch Prototype - about $300

CrunchPad: The Launch Prototype

Sugar on a Stick: Download the OLPC OS

Sugar on a Stick: Download the OLPC OS

$100 OLPC becomes $5 USB stick - TechSpot News

$100 OLPC becomes $5 USB stick - TechSpot News

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XO Laptop Refresh - Gen 1.5: with VIA C7-M 1GHz Performance!! - OLPC News

XO Laptop Gen 1.5: with VIA C7-M 1GHz Performance!!
OLPC is excited to announce that a refresh of the XO-1 laptop is in progress.
In our continued effort to maintain a low price point, OLPC is refreshing the hardware to take advantage of the latest component technologies.This refresh (Generation 1.5) is separate from the Generation 2.0 project, and will continue using the same industrial design and batteries as Gen 1. The design goal is to provide an overall update of the system within the same ID and external appearance

XO Laptop Gen 1.5: with VIA C7-M 1GHz Performance!! - OLPC News

Sugar v0.84: Sugar on a Stick Review - OLPC News

Sugar v0.84: Sugar on a Stick Review2 Apr 2009So the new Sugar on a Stick v0.84 is out and I gave it a try on the XO, installing the suggested Windows XP version.

~Nicholas’s announcement on the upcoming changes:

Sugar v0.84: Sugar on a Stick Review - OLPC News

Nicholas Negroponte: he first generation is a laptop that can be a book; the next generation will a book that can be a laptop

Nicholas Negroponte: the Sugar daddy for future generations | Technology | The Guardian

OLPC is distributing more than 1m XO-1 laptops, and they're robust enough to survive in the most remote parts of the world. He happily performs his party trick, and pitches the little green laptop across the hotel room floor. It still works.

Although the OLPC idea was discussed at MIT, it didn't become widely known until January 2005, when Negroponte announced the project at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It got a further boost that November, when Negroponte and the UN's Kofi Annan showed a prototype of the machine at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis.

With the XO-1 now being deployed in the field, interest is turning to a follow-on project: the XO-2. This will be a $75 dual-screen device that's held like a book. You can also turn it around and use one of the screens as the keyboard.

"The first generation is a laptop that can be a book; the next generation will a book that can be a laptop," he says. "That's the switch.

"One important thing about the XO-2 is that we're going to do it as an open source hardware programme. The XO-1 was really designed as if we were Apple. The XO-2 will be designed as if we were Google - we'll want people to copy it. We'll make the constituent parts available. We'll try and get it out there using the exact opposite approach that we did with the XO-1.

"We had to do the XO this way because everybody said it couldn't be done. We purposely designed a special-purpose, award-winning museum of modern art piece. The next one will be different: everything from the dual display to the touch-sensitive, force-feedback, haptic keyboard will be available."

One Laptop per Child Foundation @ Amazon.com

One Laptop per Child Foundation @ Amazon.com

Europeans will soon be able to buy their own XO laptop. Nov 17 2008

Europeans will soon be able to buy their own XO laptop.

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organisation is planning to sell the devices via online store Amazon's European outlets from 17 November.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7728881.stm

Upgrade to the new Release 8.2.0

Release notes/8.2.0

Do you own an XO laptop? Want to upgrade it to the new Release 8.2.0 - the new software build that will roll out with G1G1 2008?
The new XO manual is also available   here.
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/The_OLPC_Wiki

PC World - Business Center: Amazon to Sell OLPC XO Laptops From November

Amazon.com will start selling One Laptop Per Child's low-cost XO notebook computer as part of the Give One, Get One program OLPC developed last year, according to an official from OLPC.

PC World - Business Center: Amazon to Sell OLPC XO Laptops From November

Conceptualizations of the next-generation XO laptop 2. Source: OLPC

Conceptualizations of the next-generation XO laptop. Source: OLPC

The XO-2 will make use of displays developed by Pixel Qi which was founded by former OLPC-CTO Mary Lou Jepsen in early 2008. With regards to input methods a blog entry on guardian.co.uk it says:

"Younger children will be able to use simple keyboards to get going, and older children will be able to switch between keyboards customized for applications as well as for multiple languages."

When it comes to power-consumption the press-release (via gizmodo) mentions:

"While the first generation XO laptop already requires just one-tenth (2-4 watts versus 20-40 watts) of the electrical power necessary to run a standard laptop, the XO-2 will reduce power consumption even further to 1 watt."

Techtree.com India > News > Gadgets > Prof Negroponte Unveils the XO 2 Next!

Techtree.com India > News > Gadgets > Prof Negroponte Unveils the XO Next!

OLPC 2.0 coming; will project survive to see its launch?

OLPC Reveals XO 2.0, The Sub-$100 LaptopThe XO 2.0, which could sell for as little as $75, is a highly slimmed-down version of OLPC's current XO model and is designed for students that, in some cases, must walk miles to and from school.

OLPC Reveals XO 2.0, The Sub-$100 Laptop -- OLPC -- InformationWeek

OLPC 2.0 coming; will project survive to see its launch?

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PC World - Business Center: Bender Forms Group to Promote OLPC's Sugar UI

Former One Laptop Per Child President of software and content Walter Bender has launched Sugar Labs, an organization that will promote the development of the open-source user interface originally developed for the XO laptop.Sugar Labs Foundation will refine the development of Sugar, a UI (user interface) for the Linux OS that provides educational tools for kids. The foundation aims to create distributions of Sugar for multiple hardware and open-source platforms beyond the XO laptop.

PC World - Business Center: Bender Forms Group to Promote OLPC's Sugar UI

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One Laptop per Child Appoints Chuck Kane as President and Chief Operation Officer

One Laptop per Child Appoints Chuck Kane as President and Chief Operation OfficerCAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--One Laptop per Child, a non-profit organization focused on providing educational tools to help children in developing countries “learn learning,” announced today the appointment of Charles (“Chuck”) Kane as President and Chief Operating Officer. In this new role, Kane will be responsible for all OLPC operational matters and for negotiating agreements with third parties. OLPC Founder and Chairman Nicholas Negroponte will focus on fundraising and promoting the project to governments worldwide.“Now that global distribution deployment are underway, OLPC needs a leader with strong operational experience to ensure that the organization delivers on its commitments to numerous partners and governments,” said Nicholas Negroponte, Founder and Chairman of One Laptop per Child. “During the past year Chuck has generously helped out on a part-time basis and his counsel has been invaluable. We’re delighted that he can now join us on a full-time basis and apply his extensive experience to moving OLPC forward.”

One Laptop per Child Appoints Chuck Kane as President and Chief Operation Officer

OLPC Adds Windows XP To XO Laptop -- Microsoft -- InformationWeek, Tech2.com

"By supporting a wide variety of affordable computing solutions for education that includes OLPC's XO laptop, we aim to make technology more relevant, accessible, and affordable for students everywhere," Craig Mundie, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, said in a statement.

Microsoft will charge OLPC a highly reduced Windows XP licensing fee of $3 per unit under a program it calls Unlimited Potential. OLPC's goal is to make the XO widely available to students in poor nations for a total price of less than $100.

OLPC said it now plans to offer XO models with both the Windows XP and Linux operating systems. "Today's announcement, coupled with future plans for a dual-boot version of the XO laptop, enhances on our ability to deliver on this vision," OLPC chairman and founder Nicholas Negroponte said in a statement.

Negroponte added that OLPC would work with "third parties" to port the XO's open source Sugar user interface to Windows XP. Sugar features numerous tools and mini- applications that students can use to create content and music, interact with friends and teachers, and browse the Web.

The plan isn't without controversy....

OLPC Adds Windows XP To XO Laptop -- Microsoft -- InformationWeek (read more)

Tech2.com India > '$100 Laptop' Nonprofit Teams With Microsoft > News on Software Internet & Software (read more)

ivan krstić · code culture » Sic Transit Gloria Laptopi

» In a previous life, I took a leave of absence from the academia to work as director of security architecture at One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a non-profit trying to save the world by fixing education. This means I was paid to be paranoid, which I imagine some psychiatrists might find funny. I am still thinking about what to work on next. In the meantime, I'm keeping a notebook, which is like a blog, but doesn't sound as idiotic.

ivan krstić · code culture » Sic Transit Gloria Laptopi

Nicholas Negroponte on Sugar

http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/community-news/attachments/20080423/05688667/attachment.htm


Yes, OLPC’s commitment to Sugar has changed. It is now larger, not
smaller. Contrary to inferences drawn by Walter’s departure, the press
and venerable sources such as OLPC News, we are scaling Sugar up, not
down .... For this reason, Sugar needs a wider basis, to run on more Linux
platforms and to run under Windows. We have been engaged in discussions
with Microsoft for several months, to explore a dual boot version of the
XO. Some of you have seen what Microsoft developed on their own for the
XO. It works well and now needs Sugar on top of it (so to speak).

Where is Walter? (Walter Bender)

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:22:04 -0400
From: "Walter Bender"
Subject: Where is Walter?
To: community-news@laptop.org
Cc: devel-list , sugar



After more than two years without a break at One Laptop per Child, I
have decided to take some time to reflect on how I can best contribute
going forward to the goal of giving children around the world
opportunities for a quality learning experience. The OLPC Association
is making headway getting laptops into the hands of children and it is
encouraging to see that other non-profit and for-profit organizations
are following suit. My personal interest is in helping build a
community of developers, educators, and learners dedicated to
advancing the quality of free and open source software for learning
and the sharing of pedagogical approaches in this community by
adopting the spirit and methodology of the open-source movement.

While my goal is to create a complementary effort to broaden the reach
of the software and pedagogy--a free and open framework in support of
"learning learning", I hope to continue working with the great team at
OLPC as well as the various groups that have formed around the world
in support of one-laptop-per-child deployments.

Thank you for all of your support over the past two years and for all
the feedback and encouragement you have given me.

regards.

-walter

Open Learning Exchange Nepal — Education for all by 2015

Our pilot starts in less than 10 days and I am mired in Software and Hardware testing (QA). We were supposed test 70 XO’s against our access point yesterday but early into testing we noticed that activities were crashing on startup w/ build 703.I spent 3 hours on IRC troubleshooting the problem w/ the help of Sugar gurus Tomeu Vizoso and Simon Schampijer. They were incredibly patient w/ my complete ignorance of Sugar actually works. The only thing I know about dbus is that it produces a lot of errors. I still haven’t figured out what is causing the problem and I can’t reproduce the problem.

Open Learning Exchange Nepal — Education for all by 2015

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BetaNews | HP enters the low-cost student PC market, but is $499 too much?

BetaNews | HP enters the low-cost student PC market, but is $499 too much?

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Interactive digital content development principles

April 7th, 2008 By:Saurav · 

During the teacher training, the participants spent a lot of time familiarizing themselves with our E-Paati interactive activities. As they were going through the activities, we clarified to them the basic principles we have adhered to in designing these activities. Here is a overview of what we discussed.Types of digital content

The digital content (teaching-learning materials) under development at OLE Nepal fall under three categories:

1) Interactive educational content: These are subject and grade specific interactive activities (software modules) that follow the national curriculum. The teachers and students will use these software modules as part of the regular instruction process. Using these activities, the students can learn new concepts, do practice exercises, and self-assess their progress. In short, these learning activities enhance the possibility of self-learning.

2) Electronic library (e-library): This is a digital library containing full-text materials that can be accessed by students, teachers and families. It contains six major sections: literature, course-related materials, reference materials, teaching support materials, general educational materials and newspapers/magaizines. Our E-Paati interactive materials will also be included in the course-related materials section.

3) Student/teacher creations: These are writings, interactive activites, and or creative works by prepared and uploaded by the students and teachers themselves.

Overview of the concepts behind interactive content

The development of activities at ;femf lzIff O{–kf6L is guided by a set up principles that are based on the assumption that children can learn a lot of things on their own if they are provided with an opportunity to interactively explore new concepts and review old ones in a fun way. The interaction in this context is primarily with the computer though some activities might also require interactions with other people. It is expected that the interactive activities being developed will help the teaching-learning approach in Nepal to move in the direction shown by the arrow in Figure 1 below.

A key ingredient in any interactive educational activity is the “fun” element. If students do not see any fun in doing these activities, then they will probably view the computer activities as nothing more than digitized versions of routine textbooks. Hence a core principle of activity design is that learning can and should be fun. “Fun”, of course, is a relative concept. We would be hard pressed to claim that any of our activities are more fun than say playing in the rain, rolling in the mud, or jumping around in puddles. When we say fun, we mean fun compared to some of the traditional approaches to teaching and learning. We should, therefore, try to inject a healthy dose of the fun element in all activities.

Before detailing the principles of activity design, it is worth clarifying the general teaching-learning objectives of these activities. Broadly speaking all interactive activities aim to do one or more of the following:

(1) teaching new concepts,

(2) providing practice to help absorb learned concepts,

(3) providing opportunities for evaluating one’s understanding of a concept, and

(4) providing opportunities for correcting errors in understanding.

So when designing activities, it is also important to clarify which of these goals are being met by each activity. This clarification will be crucial in conceptualizing how an activity will be used in the classroom by teachers and students, and at home by students.

Fundamental principles of E-Paati interactive activity design

The following principles guide the development of all activities. In order to maximize the teaching-learning effectiveness of this project, each activity must be:

1. Consistent with CDC curriculum objectives:

· The activity must be designed to meet specific learning objectives laid out by the curriculum development center.

2. Interactive:

· The activity should be designed to maximize student interaction with the computer.

· In some cases, there might also be interaction with other students and teachers

3. Child-centric:

· Children should be able to relate to the activity.

4. Localized:

· The activity should be consistent with the Nepal context. In particular, the images, text, audio, and “story” should be “Nepali” in the broad sense of the term.

· The activities should try to reflect the diversity present in the Nepali context.

5. Multimedia oriented:

· To the extent possible, the material should stimulate the different senses of the learner. This will make the material more interesting and understandable.

· So the activity should be designed to integrate text, images, audio, and animation where relevant and possible.

6. Self-learning/self-assessment oriented:

· The activity should enable the user to learn the material on her own.

· Where relevant, the activity should allow the learner to correct mistakes as she proceeds.

· Where relevant, the activity should also enable the user to evaluate how well she has performed. For example, most of the match activities display the total number of question and the total number of correct answers.

7. FUN:

· The fun dimension is extremely important. The goal is to capture the interest of the student even when the teacher is not there to prod her.

· There are, however, different degrees of fun. Enhancing the fun dimension can be thought of as

i. Moving from simple academic exercises è to games.

ii. Moving from isolated exercises è to stories or challenges that will take the student to an exciting “finish-line” (e.g., reaching the top of a mountain, or discovering a hidden treasure).

iii. Moving from less multimedia è to more multimedia.

Interactive digital content development principles

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Teachers led Constructivist Lessons Using XO

We are glad to be selected as the pilot school for the ‘One Laptop Per Child’ programme.

The OLE Nepal team led four days of teacher training for 24 teachers,
two community members, two school principals, and the School
Supervisor for Bashuki and Bishwamitra Schools. Trainers Bipul Gautam,
Kamana Regmi, and Dr. Saurav Dev Bhatta led many sessions on how the
Constructivist theories of Piaget, Vygotsky, and Papert and the XO can
be used to fully engage children in creating, exploring, and
expressing. On the final day of training, the teachers led
Constructivist lessons using that XO laptops that they themselves
designed. See http://blog.olenepal.org

Sugar redesign

Sugar: Tomeu Visozo, Eben Eliason, Marco Presenti Gritti, and
Simon Schampijer have been working tirelessly on the Sugar redesign
(See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Designs). The first phase has landed in
the last Joyride build (1825). It is far from complete, but please to
try it and provide feedback.

Simon reviewed, polished and fixed numerous bugs. Marco has taught him
how to build all the relevant sugar packages as part of a transiating
process?Marco is only be part-time on the Sugar project and thus
cannot be the primary maintainer any longer. Simon built the packages
currently in joyride. He also released a new terminal activity that
autoscrolls to the bottom when there is input.