One Laptop Per Child: Vision vs. Reality. Three researchers at the University of California, Irvine evaluate the progress of the One Laptop Per Child initiative (Wikipedia). The vision is being overwhelmed by the reality of business, political, logistics, and competing interests worldwide. As of June 2009, fewer than six hundred thousand OLPCs have been shipped, while 10 million netbooks were sold in 2008 alone. From Communications of the ACM.
posted by russilwvong on Jun 20, 2009 - 68 comments

Papert, who was a professor of mathematics, education, and media technology at MIT, has devoted much of his career to learning: self-learning (he taught himself Russian) and learning about learning. He was one of the early pioneers of artificial intelligence, and he invented the computer language Logo to teach children about computers. Now he must learn something even more challenging - how to be Seymour Papert again.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Jul 15, 2008 - 18 comments

Wondering why OLPCNews.com disparages the OLPC project so much? Curious as to the site's apparent emphasis on bad news about the project? It could just be a coincidence. Or it could be because OLPCNews.com's chief contributor Wayan Vota works on a project that's partnered with Intel, a former OLPC partner turned competitor. Does Intel's back-stabbing extend beyond pre-sales and into public relations? [more inside]
posted by sdodd on Jan 12, 2008 - 29 comments

Seen any OLPC news stories for christmas??
posted by jeffburdges on Dec 24, 2007 - 77 comments

First OLPC deployment, in Uruguay.
posted by signal on Dec 8, 2007 - 44 comments

The inaugural New Yorker Conference, “2012: Stories From the Near Future,” took place on May 6 and 7, 2007. Here is an archive of videos from the event.
posted by parudox on Nov 12, 2007 - 10 comments

One Laptop Per Child - Give 1, Get 1 Started by Nicholas Negroponte, the One Laptop Per Child project aims to put inexpensive durable laptops into the hands of millions of children in developing countries with the idea that the best weapon against poverty is education. For a limited time, people in the US can buy an OLPC laptop for themselves, and send one to a child in a developing country for $399 via the Give One, Get One program.
posted by Laen on Nov 12, 2007 - 80 comments

Computers get cheap. While Microsoft has seen fit to require a whole new generation of computers to run its latest operating system, a number of manufacturers have started the creation of cheap notebook computers. The list includes the infamous Palm Foleo, mentioned here previously, and the OLPC, mentioned pretty much everywhere previously. But also coming soon is the Asus EEE, a $200-300 notebook running Linux. And Intel's alternative to the OLPC, the Classmate PC. Even as the low cost alternatives to standard computer start to come on sale, the prices for traditional laptops dip ever lower. Can the digital divide, at least hardware wise, be consigned to the dustbin of history?
posted by zabuni on Aug 19, 2007 - 86 comments

Al Jazeera have the scoop on the new name for OLPC's $100 $140 dollar laptop.<via olpcnews.com>
posted by davehat on Aug 14, 2006 - 32 comments

Problems with the $100 laptop. With the upcoming press conference about the MIT media lab's $100 laptop, this article talks about its origin and some of the problems in trying to overcoming a digital divide. [via: del.icio.us/malaclyps/oblink]
posted by gsb on Nov 16, 2005 - 50 comments