(2006-06-11) Zuckerman Cheap Laptop Update

Ethan Zuckerman gives an update on the OLPC Super Cheap Laptop project. The keyboard is about 60% of the size of a conventional keyboard and has calculator-style keys... The team is working on microgenerators that produce power using really big cranks - ones you might anchor with a hole in a table, and crank using your whole upper body. (Think Oompa Loompas in Wonka's chocolate factory opening valves.) Other microgenerators use a pullcord, the sort I use to start my lawnmower, or pedal power. And other power sources, including solar panels, could plug into the input jack of the machine. The current prototype accepts voltage from -23 to +23v, which lets power hackers be very creative - and more than a little sloppy - in providing power to the device... Using the GX2 chip and the version of Fedora RedHat has been developing for the machine, many LinuxOS packages run on the laptop with almost no porting effort... In addition, the software will include three development environments: Python, JavaScript and Logo Wiki... Wiki-s are important to the architecture of the software for another reason - they're part of the Subversive strategy behind the machine. The OLPC team won't have control over what content is loaded onto the laptop in different countries - that's the decision of individual education ministries. But by using wikis as a Content Management System - rather than, say, a PDF viewer - the team manages to sneak in the idea of User Generated Content into schools. Perhaps most Text-Book pages will be protected in a wiki structure - wiki features like discussion pages will still exist, opening new possibilities for how kids interact with schoolbooks.

Jul5'2006 update - Guido Van Rossum's summary of an Alan Kay talk notes some trails of the Python use in this project.