Tuesday, February 05, 2008
One Laptop Per Child XO

Perhaps you've heard of the One Laptop Per Child program, or seen it on the news. It's a program meant to provide laptops to children in third world countries. Originally they claimed they would make a $100 laptop. It actually turned out to be $200. The software is open source (Linux) to save costs and the computer can be charged without electricity. Wi-Fi is built in. Recently OLPC ran a program where you could buy one in the U.S. if you bought a second one for a third world child. A friend of mine got one. She wanted to use it for checking email and surfing the internet while traveling. Once she got it she found out that it wouldn't do what she wanted so easily. It surfs the internet just fine, but she couldn't figure out how to save or print anything. She loaned it to me in hopes I'd figure these problems out for her.

I played with it for a while. My assessment is that it's a great computer for kids. First of all, the keyboard is for small hands and it's not touch typing. Secondly, it's built to network easily with other XO's, especially in a classroom environment. It has lots of learning tools built in. The problem is that it's not easily compatible with any formats most people are already using. While I was able to transfer files back and forth on a thumb drive, it wouldn't open a .jpg and it wasn't compatible with .doc. That will slow most adults down to a halt. There are ways around these problems and I referred my friend to a good forum for adults who are using these machines, OLPC News Forum. I'm hoping she'll spend the time to sort it all out. The worst case scenario is she gives it back for them to ship to the third world.
Written at 7:30 PM by Highlandgal.
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