Intel builds $400 laptop for school desks worldwide

By Tom Krazit
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Published: May 3, 2006, 3:18 PM PDT

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"MIT' laptop "developing countries""

AUSTIN, Texas--Intel unveiled its notebook for schools in developing countries on Wednesday, with CEO Paul Otellini calling on governments to spread technology's reach around the world.

Otellini demonstrated an Intel-developed teaching application on the Eduwise notebook here the World Congress on Information Technology, a biennial event taking place this week. The company hopes to launch the laptop for less than $400 by the first quarter of next year.

The CEO reiterated Intel's commitment to developing products that will help close the technology gap between rich nations and poor ones, one day after it announced plans to invest $1 billion in education and training as part of its World Ahead program.

"No one wants to cross the digital divide using yesterday's technology," Otellini said.

The Eduwise laptop joins low-cost PC projects such as Advanced Micro Devices' Personal Internet Communicator and MIT's Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child program.

Otellini showed off a wooden prototype of the notebook earlier this year at a conference in Brazil, and he noted Wednesday that it was the result of work by design offices in countries such as Brazil, India and China, which were set up by Intel. The Eduwise uses flash memory instead of a hard drive and runs Microsoft Windows XP.

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In addition, Intel has developed an application that enables teachers to monitor how and when students are using the Internet in a networked classroom. For example, a teacher could click a button on his or her console that starts a presentation with video on the Eduwise laptops. Students could move through the presentation at their own pace and access the Internet if they wanted to learn more about something contained in the presentation. The teachers can see where students are in the presentation and what Web sites the student is visiting--and can pull them back from checking sports scores or chatting with friends online.

Otellini demonstrated the Eduwise during a keynote speech at WCIT, a gathering of about 4,500 people from around the world, including company executives, government officials and teachers. About 2,000 of them are delegates who will vote on proposals to improve access to technology and to streamline health care services while ensuring privacy and security.

Otellini was preceded on stage by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who reiterated the software maker's commitment to the developing world, but didn't announce any new projects or initi

$100 laptop 'will boost desktop Linux'

By Andrew Donoghue
Special to CNET News.com

Published: June 2, 2006, 11:03 AM PDT

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NASHVILLE, Tenn.--The One Laptop per Child project will make Linux as popular on the desktop as it is on the server today, according to Nicholas Negroponte, head of the project and co-founder of the MIT Media Laboratory.

Speaking on the final day of Red Hat's annual user summit here, Negroponte told an audience of Linux enthusiasts and technology professionals that the OLPC project will lead to mass adoption of the operating system, if the software that powers it is efficient and usable enough.

Nicholas Negroponte

"One of the side effects is that it will boost worldwide consumption of Linux on the desktop so incredibly that it will be on par with where it is with servers," he said. "We need your support not to make it overweight and hard to use like all the others are."

The One Laptop per Child project aims to develop a portable PC for use by children in the developing world for around $100. The price has risen since the plan was first announced to about $135 to $140, according to Negroponte.

"It is a floating price. We are a nonprofit organization. We have a target of $100 by 2008, but probably it will be $135, maybe $140. That is a start price, but what we have to do is with every release make it cheaper and cheaper--we are promising that the price will go down," Negroponte said.

Currently on leave from MIT to push the OLPC message full-time, Negroponte said that though his project has received widespread support from companies such as Red Hat--which is building the operating system--and Advanced Micro Devices, not everyone in the IT industry is on his side.

"AMD is our partner, which means Intel is pissing on me. (Microsoft Chairman) Bill Gates is not pleased either, but if I am annoying Microsoft and Intel then I figure I am doing something right," he said.

Negroponte added that the project required an extremely scaled-down operating system to enable the eventual machines to run at a decent speed, while using very little power. "About 25 percent of the cost of a (Windows) laptop is there just to support XP, which is like a person that has gotten so fat that they use most of their muscle to move their fat," he said.

The philosophy behind the OLPC project is that the best way to improve the education of children in the developing world is to give them the means to educate themselves by providing them with a PC that they see as their own.

Negroponte claimed that there are about 1 billion children in the world, with half in remote rural locations where there are no real schools, and teachers themselves have little more than a basic education. "It is very primitive. In situations like that, more teachers and schools are not the solution--it can take decades that way. A much quicker solution is to engage the children themselves in their own education," he said.

Past attempts to give children in developing countries access to PCs have failed because the children did not see the computers as their own, and as a result did not engage with them as expected. "People say we just gave 100,000 PCs to schools, and they're still sitting in their boxes. The problem is that you gave them to the wrong people--the kids don't think they are theirs, and see them as government property, or they are locked up after school."

The key to making computing projects work in education is scale, according to the OLPC boss. He claimed that the sheer number of machines the group is planning to build means that it can not only buy cheaper components, but it also has the ability to change corporate strategies. Negroponte related an anecdote about meeting the head of a PC display company who claimed that he could not build the kind of display OLPC needed--until he found out that the order would be for 100 million units.

Andrew Donoghue of ZDNet UK reported from Nashville, Tenn.

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of One Laptop per Child, answers questions on the initiative.
What is the $100 Laptop, really?
The proposed $100 machine will be a Linux-based, with a dual-mode display—both a full-color, transmissive DVD mode, and a second display option that is black and white reflective and sunlight-readable at 3× the resolution. The laptop will have a 500MHz processor and 128MB of DRAM, with 500MB of Flash memory; it will not have a hard disk, but it will have four USB ports. The laptops will have wireless broadband that, among other things, allows them to work as a mesh network; each laptop will be able to talk to its nearest neighbors, creating an ad hoc, local area network. The laptops will use innovative power (including wind-up) and will be able to do most everything except store huge amounts of data.
Why do children in developing nations need laptops?
Laptops are both a window and a tool: a window into the world and a tool with which to think. They are a wonderful way for all children to learn learning through independent interaction and exploration.
Why not a desktop computer, or—even better—a recycled desktop machine?
Desktops are cheaper, but mobility is important, especially with regard to taking the computer home at night. Kids in the developing world need the newest technology, especially really rugged hardware and innovative software. Recent work with schools in Maine has shown the huge value of using a laptop across all of one's studies, as well as for play. Bringing the laptop home engages the family. In one Cambodian village where we have been working, there is no electricity, thus the laptop is, among other things, the brightest light source in the home.
Finally, regarding recycled machines: if we estimate 100 million available used desktops, and each one requires only one hour of human attention to refurbish, reload, and handle, that is forty-five thousand work years. Thus, while we definitely encourage the recycling of used computers, it is not the solution for One Laptop per Child.
How is it possible to get the cost so low?
* First, by dramatically lowering the cost of the display. The first-generation machine will have a novel, dual-mode display that represents improvements to the LCD displays commonly found in inexpensive DVD players. These displays can be used in high-resolution black and white in bright sunlight—all at a cost of approximately $35.
* Second, we will get the fat out of the systems. Today's laptops have become obese. Two-thirds of their software is used to manage the other third, which mostly does the same functions nine different ways.
* Third, we will market the laptops in very large numbers (millions), directly to ministries of education, which can distribute them like textbooks.
Why is it important for each child to have a computer? What's wrong with community-access centers?
One does not think of community pencils—kids have their own. They are tools to think with, sufficiently inexpensive to be used for work and play, drawing, writing, and mathematics. A computer can be the same, but far more powerful. Furthermore, there are many reasons it is important for a child to own something—like a football, doll, or book—not the least of which being that these belongings will be well-maintained through love and care.
What about connectivity? Aren't telecommunications services expensive in the developing world?
When these machines pop out of the box, they will make a mesh network of their own, peer-to-peer. This is something initially developed at MIT and the Media Lab. We are also exploring ways to connect them to the backbone of the Internet at very low cost.
What can a $1000 laptop do that the $100 version can't?
Not much. The plan is for the $100 Laptop to do almost everything. What it will not do is store a massive amount of data.
How will these be marketed?
The laptops will be sold to governments and issued to children by schools on a basis of one laptop per child. Initial discussions have been held with China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria, and Thailand. An additional, modest allocation of machines will be used to seed developer communities in a number of other countries. A commercial version of the machine will be explored in parallel.
When do you anticipate these laptops reaching the market? What do you see as the biggest hurdles?
Our preliminary schedule is to have units ready for shipment by the end of 2006 or early 2007. Manufacturing will begin when 5 to 10 million machines have been ordered and paid for in advance.
The biggest hurdle will be manufacturing 100 million of anything. This is not just a supply-chain problem, but also a design problem. The scale is daunting, but I find myself amazed at what some companies are proposing to us. It feels as though at least half the problems are being solved by mere resolve.
Who is the original design manufacturer (ODM) of the $100 laptop?
Quanta Computer Inc. of Taiwan has been chosen as the original design manufacturer (ODM) for the $100 laptop project. The decision was made after the board reviewed bids from several possible manufacturing companies.
Quanta Computer Inc. was founded in 1988 in Taiwan. With over US $10 billion in sales, Quanta is the world's largest manufacturer of laptop PCs; the company also manufactures mobile phones, LCD TVs, and servers and storage products. In addition, Quanta recently opened a new US $200 million R&D center, Quanta R&D Complex (QRDC), in Taiwan. The facility, which opened in Q3 of 2005, has 2.2 million square feet of floor space, and a capacity to house up to 7,000 engineers.
How will this initiative be structured?
The $100 laptop is being developed by One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a Delaware-based, non-profit organization created by faculty members from the MIT Media Lab to design, manufacture, and distribute laptops that are sufficiently inexpensive to provide every child in the world access to knowledge and modern forms of education. OLPC is based on constructionist theories of learning pioneered by Seymour Papert and later Alan Kay, as well as the principles expressed in Nicholas Negroponte's book Being Digital. The founding corporate members are Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Brightstar, Google, Marvell, News Corporation, Nortel, and Red Hat.
Nicholas Negroponte is chairman of One Laptop per Child and Mary Lou Jepsen serves as chief technology officer. Other principals involved in developing the $100 Laptop are: Walter Bender, Michail Bletsas, V. Michael Bove, Jr., David Cavallo, Jim Gettys, Benjamin Mako Hill, Joseph Jacobson, Alan Kay, Khaled Hassounah, Tod Machover, Seymour Papert, Mitchel Resnick, and Ted Selker.
Fuse Project and Design Continuum have collaborated on the laptop design.
February 2006

The Green Wifi Prototype
This prototype #2 was assembled using a PVC frame. The testing is underway on the roof of Bruce's home's roof in San Francisco, California. During the month of March 2006, we had record rain of 27 out of 30 days, so was a good test for weak sun levels and cloudy days.

The Green WiFi node/hotspot prototype #3 will utilizes more advanced power control connected between the 10 watt solar panel to the wifi network router using TCP/IP networking protocol via an interface to the network router Ethernet interface. The system also comprises power control module software running on wifi router, communicating via the Ethernet port. Based on the output of the solar panel(s) and the charge state of the battery backup, the control module and software can interact with the network router to regulate power usage of the wifi router, via software control of the RF output level, time of day, number of DHCP clients attached, and strength of link to a associated node point on a wireless grid network or point to point wireless.