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"People aren't thinking about small, fast, thin systems," said Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of the One Laptop Per Child nonprofit association, in a speech at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo here. "Suddenly it's like a very fat person (who) uses most of the energy to move the fat. And Linux is no exception. Linux has gotten fat, too."
The association hopes to distribute 5 million to 10 million of the systems to children in India, China, Brazil, Argentina, Thailand, Egypt, and Nigeria in the first quarter of 2007, somewhat later than the late 2006 launch Negroponte predicted at the World Economic Forum last year. He hopes the project will help supply the world's billion children with an education that undertrained teachers often can't supply. "At least 50 percent of those children don't get anything that even approximates what you and I would call an education," he said.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates criticized the initiative's products earlier this year, saying they should use more powerful machines with better displays, though Gates subsequently offered a warmer opinion. Negroponte chafed at Gates' view nonetheless.
"It's not about a weak computer. It's about a thin, slim, trim, fast computer," he said. Not only that, Microsoft is even involved in the effort. "We are also talking to Microsoft constantly. We are going to ship them development boards. They are going to make a Windows CE version (that supports the hardware). So jeez--why criticize me in public?"
System specs
The system will use a 500MHz processor from Advanced Micro Devices with 128MB of memory. It will use 512MB of flash memory and no hard drive, he said. The biggest remaining cost is the display.
The system will use a dual-mode display with a black-and-white, 1110-by-830-pixel mode in sunlight and a 640-by-480-pixel color mode otherwise.
Negroponte said one meeting with an unnamed display manufacturer spotlighted the importance of high-volume manufacturing.
"I said, 'We'd like to work with you on the display. We need a small display. It doesn't have perfect color uniformity, it can have pixel or two missing, it doesn't have to be that bright," Negroponte recounted. "The manufacturer said, 'Our strategic plan is to make big displays with perfect color uniformity, zero pixel defects and to make it very bright for the living room.'"
"I said, 'That's too bad, because I need 100 million a year.' They said, 'Well, maybe we can change our strategic plan.' That's the reason you need scale," Negroponte said.
As initially envisioned, the laptops sported a hand crank on the side to generate power, but Negroponte has scrapped that idea because the twisting forces that would be bad for the machine. Instead, some form of power generation device, likely a pedal, will be attached to the AC power adapter, he said.
"I was the longest holdout for the crank being on the laptop. I was wrong," he said, adding, "If you're a 10-year-old, maybe you can get your four-year-old to pedal for you."
The organization's goal is to sell $135 laptops in 2007, then cut the price to $100 in 2008 and $50 in 2010, he said.
The machines will consume 2 watts of power when running, 1 watt for the display, Negroponte said.
He's not worried about connecting the machines to the Internet because networking will develop on its own, he said, but later added that the vision relies on a built-in "mesh" network that links all the machines, even when the rest of the computers are shut down.
"I think between WiFi, WiMax and 3G, that's going to happen," Negroponte said. "We're heading to the point where 50 percent of the world will have a cell phone or some kind of (communication device) within 18 months. It's too voice-centric, and I could campaign to make it more data-centric, but that's going to happen, too."
The laptop's mesh networks will be anchored by data cached locally on $100 servers to be housed at schools, he added.
Once children have the laptops, they'll teach themselves, he predicted, making teacher training beside the point. "Teachers teach the kids? Give me a break," he said. "Give any kid an electronic game and the first thing they do is throw away the manual and the second thing they do is use it."
See more CNET content tagged:
OLPC, power generation, display, Bill Gates, Linux
- A wish, for something better.
- by waynemm April 5, 2006 8:43 AM PDT
- Well, they could answer emails from people who can actually help them achieve what they want to do, so I am not surprised.<br /><br />Yes, Linux can be done in 50MB, Linus was even doing a portable version for the Transmeta deal, Palm is doing Linux for smart phones, not to mention how many times it has been done on PDAs/phones before. But, an OS on the functional level of the real Windows XP (drop middleware etc) with apps, is possible under 10MB. But, the sort of GUI OO OS they need has been done before at under 1MB, maybe with a word processor included. One such OS was GEOS Ensemble, and it is an good lesson in efficiency and accuracy of coding (not that it has kept up with the times) to find out what can be done, rather than running to bloatware like Linux and Windows CE. There are so many good options out there, I'm sure they can come up with better ones, even donated, or one off fee commercial solutions. Even if it requires drivers and Apps to be written, they only require to be written for their own computer models. I also have been doing a lean optimised OS design.<br /><br />Here is some: QNX, Taos Intent, www.menuetos.org, or Java2ME.<br /><br />The power consumption is also incredible. What was that, 2 Watts, that is not really low power, but a reflection of the power hungry PC processing technology used, and display technology. Even if you look at PC technology, PSION had a laptop out in the early 90's that can do 100 hours battery life, and Poquet had a pocket computer that could do similar battery life. Why, obviously the extra processing requirements have consumed more power, but the issue is design, and there are far better processors for low power out there. ARM is a good place to start, and they are quiet hungry compared to what could be done. For displays, the design I am considering might average 100-500mw. But all together you could look at average power consumption of 10-100mw, plus display consumption, by choosing a different design. When you get to those power levels, even opening and closing the case, typing on the keyboard, or using a trackball, moving the case etc, or a small solar cell, offer significant accumulative charge levels. Also, at these power levels, a crank does not need to be used as much.<br /><br />There are already options out there to build upon, if you are willing to accept some compromises from the 'glory' of PC usage. Look at what the mobile phone industry has said, about using mobile phone platforms for third world computers, is also a valid option. Even the chip-sets, some of which are setup to run program applications, offer enough processing power. Even a $100 retail portable DVD player is also close to being a laptop. The Sony PS1 or PSP chips, and the Nintendo Gamecube based GBA2 project are also possible mass produced platforms, that could be donated, or supplied cheap. Also, if you look at a company like Psion, it has the low power and OS technology to do a cheaper low end solution.<br /><br />The options out there are many, and when they announced it was going to be PC Linux based, I am sure that a number of people in the low-cost third world computer development community expressed a bit of surprise with me. I prefer to think in terms of devices with 1000 hours battery life and $10 production costs myself. In the end of the day, that is worth much more as a use anywhere computer for the average person, in those communities, the $100 laptop can be relegated to the classroom/office desk.
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