Crave

The One Laptop Per Child operating system is now available for free downloading for "any" PC or Netbook, according to its maker.

The XO-1 user interface

(Credit: Sugar Labs)

Sugar Labs, responsible for building the low-cost device's XO-1 operating system, released it online last week for loading onto any USB flash drive greater than 1GB.

Called "Sugar on a Stick v1," Sugar Labs hopes it will help spread the use of the OS in classrooms, without the need for the OLPC machine.

An IDC analyst said earlier this year that the OS would be one of the OLPC's more attractive aspects that vendors would be interested in copying for the Netbook market.

It is based on the Fedora Linux kernel and can be booted from the USB stick without needing to be installed over the hard drive's existing OS.

According to Sugar Labs, its OS is used by almost a million students ages 5 to 12 in some 40 countries. Its social-oriented interface recognizes other Sugar-based PCs around it and interacts with them without the need for Internet connection.

Sugar Labs was spun off a year ago after Walter Bender, now its executive director, left the OLPC initiative to start the nonprofit spinoff.

Victoria Ho of ZDNet Asia reported from London.

If there's a more disturbing image than a naked Wilson Tang eating a stuffed pepper and doing his taxes, it's got to be a naked Tim Geisenheimer's sockless foot stuffed into a suede moccasin. We invite Tim into the studio anyway and he surprises us with some bad news: turns out the economy ain't doing so well.

World famous weather-forecasting leg predicts spring is finally here.

(Credit: Tim Geisenheimer/CNET)

Do not attempt to adjust the white balance on your monitor: Tim Geisenheimer's legs are actually that pale. I guess he and Michael Jackson share more in common than their tastes in footwear. Anyway, for some reason Wilson felt the need to stay at home today to do his taxes, which means being a good Chinese boy and writing off everything he possibly can. Why he decided to get nakee and do said taxes is another issue entirely, and one that teases my upchuck reflex anyway, so let's move on.

If you haven't figured it out yet, 'tis I, Justin Yu--on the poop deck, handling the blogging for the day. The first half of today's show is pretty random, since it's just Jeff and I riffing on a few stories, including one about Japanese space underwear.

I feel compelled to break out Space Beer guy, but mixing beer and underwear just doesn't feel right. Leave it up to the Japanese to reinvent the last thing you should worry about in space--forget the zero gravity, space debris, and Klingon warlords. Nah, nah, let's make a pair of underwear that you never have to take off.

Next story is about a Jewish Facebook group whose name suddenly changed from "I Heart Jews" to "Hitler: Great Modern Man of History." While we disagree with that statement, Jeff Bakalar (devoutly Jewish, FYI) gives the rest of us a free pass to laugh at the prank. Hey, at the end of the day, if Mel Brooks can laugh at Hitler, I think we're all safe.

After long calls from the public, we finally decide on a date for The 404 Meetup: APRIL 16. Everyone living in the Tri-State area should definitely clear their evening hour for a night of fun with The 404. We decided that two weeks is enough time for everyone to plan ahead, and it gives Jeff, Wilson, and I ample time to exercise our wrists and buy as many sharpies as possible. Riiight. Finally, check out some of the submissions below for our running contest. Can you write a funny caption for this photo of your humble 404 host? Here are some of our current favorites:

• "Do these glasses make my eyes look less asian?" - Will Chan
• "The 404's Justin Yu was taken into custody shortly after molesting a lumberjack, a 90-year old woman, and robbing a Radio Shack in China Town last evening. Luckily there was no evidence of dicktopping at any of the crime scenes." - Andrew Teachout
• "What? I swear that printer was d**kto**ed before I got it!" - Jeff from Calgary

Send us your funniest caption to the404{at}cnet[dot]com and you could win a copy of Wheelman for XBox 360!

(Credit: Crave Asia)

This "Child Check System" introduced by Japanese company Fujitaka uses facial recognition to determine if the person buying cigarettes is over the legal age limit, which is currently 20 in Japan. A camera embedded in the vending machine takes a picture, then compares it with its database of 100,000 faces.

The system even checks for lines and skin tones to estimate a person's age. It will be installed in about half a million vending machines in Japan from July this year.

Whether this actually works in stopping underaged consumers from smoking is still too early to tell. After all, there are lots of people who look younger than their actual age, and others who appear more mature than they are.

So what's next? A vending machine that determines if you are too fat to buy a soda?

(Source: Crave Asia)

Confirmation

Thank you for participating in Give One Get One. Your donation will bring education and enlightenment to children of the developing world, and, in recognition of your gift, you will be receiving an XO laptop for the child in your life as well. If you have any questions or problems, please contact One Laptop Per Child at service@laptopgiving.org. Should your employer wish to match your donation, we are a 501(c)(3) organization and our EIN# is 20-5471780. Thanks again, and welcome to the One Laptop Per Child community!

Why two?

For all the digital ink we've spilled over the One Laptop Per Child initiative (basically a cheap, rugged laptop for kids in developing countries), you'd think the devices would be sitting in every classroom by now.

Starting as a $100 laptop that governments, corporations, or charitable groups were going to sponsor, the OLPC group recently adjusted its strategy (and price). At closer to $200 dollars, the latest plan was for the general public to buy one for themselves and sponsor one for a child in a developing nation. After what seems like years of waiting for hardware to start coming off the production line, the buy two, get one program was scheduled to kick off in November.

Today, we hear of another wrinkle in the long journey of the OLPC from well-meaning idea to reality. Reuters reports that the OLPC XO laptop was scheduled to already be in production at a Chinese factory by this month, but unexplained problems have forced the manufacturing date back to mid-November. That will make it harder for the two countries that already have placed large orders, Peru and Uruguay, to get the systems in hand in time for the end of the school term, even if everything goes according to plan from here on out (which, given the track record, seems unlikely).

We love the OLPC in theory, but the more time passes, the more competition it faces from other low-cost laptops such as the Intel Classmate and the Asus Eee, both of which have generated a lot of buzz of late, and seem closer to getting systems into people's hands.

I woke up Monday to the announcement that starting September 24, the XO laptop (famous as the little laptop that could) will be made available to buyers in so-called first-world countries, in quantities less than 100,000 units. In fact, for less than $400 you can give one and receive another--an excellent solution to an age-old moral dilemma.

Like the GPS-enabled school uniforms we wrote about earlier this month, the notion of bulletproof backpacks for students is sure to provoke mixed reaction.

Some people will call the invention an overreaction, while others will view it as a wise protective gadget. It's sad--and sobering--to think that a bulletproof backpack could prove a practical back-to-school purchase, but it's not so far-fetched an idea in these days of campus violence.

These backpacks contain a 20-ounce bulletproof panel.

(Credit: MJ Safety Solutions)

MJ Safety Solutions, a Massachusetts company run by three dads, has developed what it says is the first full-size, lightweight ballistic protection backpack that's affordable and practical for kids. The $175 My Child's Pack contains a 20-ounce bulletproof panel that the creators say can ward off 97 percent of bullets. The packs can be used to offer upper torso coverage on the back or as a shield for frontal protection of the head and upper body.

A video ad on YouTube shows the bags undergoing tests at the shooting range--to the tune of Neil Young's "Four Dead in Ohio."

The One Laptop Per Child organization's XO computer, aka the $100 laptop, has just started mass production. And while Crave is happy that thousands of underprivileged African children will reap the benefits of a PC and the Internet, we can't help but feel a little jealous--and even embarrassed.

(Credit: One Laptop Per Child)

Here we are, extolling the virtues of laptops such as the $4,000+ Sony Vaio TZ, when for most users the $100 XO would be just as effective. Sure, it doesn't have a premium badge on the lid, and its 433MHz AMD CPU won't win any speed records, but it'll let you surf the Web, send email, enjoy audio and video, and even, as some Nigerian children have discovered, allow you to browse for porn.

Think about your own PC usage--does it honestly include anything more demanding than Facebook stalking, laughing at idiots on YouTube or hitting the digg button underneath the latest lolcat? Can you justify spending $4,000 when a machine costing $100 pounds will do exactly the same thing? Crave thinks the world can learn a lot from the XO, the ClassMate PC and its ilk. These devices could change the computing world as we know it. And despite its makers saying it's exclusive to the developing world, the XO absolutely should be brought to the West.

Since 1965, the tech world has obsessed about keeping pace with Moore's Law--an empirical observation that computing performance will double every 24 months. Concurrently, consumers have lusted after the latest and greatest computing hardware, encouraged in part by newer, fatter, ever more demanding operating systems and applications.

Moore's law is great for making tech faster, and for making slower, existing tech cheaper, but when consumers realise their personal lust for faster hardware makes almost zero financial sense, and hurts the environment with greater demands for power, will they start to demand cheaper, more efficient 'third-world' computers that are just as effective?

We think so. The amount of interest generated by the XO, the ClassMate PC, and more recently the £200 Asus Eee PC is phenomenal. Most people in the Crave office are astounded by their low price and relatively high functionality, and are finding it difficult to justify buying anything else. If you want to play the latest games, well, the latest games consoles, while power-hogs, are relatively cheap and graphically very impressive.

It's almost poetic that the poorest nations in the world have the potential to push the Western tech industry in a new direction. Don't get us wrong--we love fast, outlandish laptops and PCs as much as the next blog, but we'd be idiots not to show you the alternative. And what a fantastic alternative it is. We predict some very interesting, and money-saving times ahead.

(Source: Crave UK)

(Credit: One Laptop Per Child)

The $100 laptop project for children in emerging nations is headed toward the finish line.

The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) non-profit organization Monday announced its final beta version for the XO laptop.

Beta-4 (B4) will undergo final testing over the next few weeks, then enter mass production in October. The OLPC expects to ship 3 million XO laptops to more than three emerging nations, as part of this initial order, an OLPC spokesman said.

The OLPC has been particularly busy these past few weeks, gearing up for its final beta version, as well as striking a peace accord with Intel. Intel is joining the OLPC board and may serve as a potential supplier to the project.

Currently, AMD is supplying its Geode LX-700 chips to the XO laptop. Other components include 256MB of memory and 1GB of NAND flash, as well as a system designed to offer a fully readable display in bright sunlight, and durability to withstand water, dust clouds and a drop from as high as 5 feet.