In a surprise declaration, I am still trying to process, President Barack Obama has announced a massive deployment of XO laptops to every public school student in America - to both improve education and stimulate the American economy. While that's game-changing just in itself, here's the real kicker - these will be XO-1.5's made by Intel & Dell!
From his speech today at OLPC headquarters:
Obama in the classroom
We are going to rebuild American education. We are going to give hope to the children of this great land. We are going to reverse the destruction of our public education system, by harnessing our very student's ability to construct their own education, using technology.
This here is the XO-1.5 laptop, designed by MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte. It represents the American ingenuity and leadership we come to expect from our universities. We will make sure we'll have a new generation of technology leaders by putting these XO's in the hands of every public elementary school student. And this technology will be made right here in America.I am proud to announce that my Administration has brokered a groundbreaking partnership between One Laptop Per Child, the organization behind the XO, Dell Computers, a leading computer manufacturer, based in Austin, Texas, and Intel Corporation of Palo Alto, California to build the XO laptop with all-American components, in American factories, putting Americans back to work for our children's education.
Apparently, Intel and OLPC have made amends and the XO-1.5 will be based on the Intel Atom chipset. In addition, as Quanta's exclusive manufacturing license for the XO expired, OLPC has made arrangements for Dell to build XO in its just-in-time assembly plants. Hopefully this change will also mean that XO's will be for sale on Dell.com in the near future.
But while I'm not holding my breath for individual XO sales, I am still short of breath thinking about this massive change in OLPC's fortunes. Just last week, we wrote in the OLPC Overview that with the recent refocusing, there were a few too many premature program obituaries.
Now its a whole new day for OLPC and America's educational system. The first day of April, when we can all dream of a new generation of Constructivist children across our great land.
You forgot to mention that the XO-1.5 will come with a new ground-breaking operating system supplied by Apple Computer. This operating system, called Salt, will be based on the Intercal language.
OMG! You're right. How could I forget to add that the XO 1.5 will feature the wildly popular Esperanto UI, which just through the power of a common communication platform, will lead us all into world peace and planetary alignment.
Intercal is such a pleasant language; and it teaches politeness (google intercal if you are not familiar with this completely fine programming language) when asking/commanding others! It's educational -- while being educational!
My real question, though, is when will the hand crank come back? :)
The hand crank never left us. Just walk anywhere with an XO, that's what people will ask you about. It's one of the less celebrated successes of the project
Great news!!
But the article author to mention that this year OLPC will sell 20-30 million laptops, and that battery is going to last 48 hours.
...can anyone verify any of this?
I'm assuming its a joke. And I must say, if this is a joke it's not funny at all.
I can verify that Obama really spoke about ICT in education as part of the stimulus package. Past that, its the first day of April - lighten up.
Here is a link to the news conference about the article
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0
you almost got me Wayan. good one!
Hola!
Some of us know that today the President was in London, so that just proved to me the it was an April fools joke!
It sure would be nice to have the article be true! I wonder if someone could just plug an Intel Atom motherboard into the XO.
It is funny.
It is sure a beautiful image if it is ture.
lol g-d dangit. i totally fell for it.
good thing its a lie though. While I would love the project to really take off in a way that such actions would cause, the XO would be a terrible choice for american kids in terms of hardware power and keyboard.
A contact of mine in the Oval Office has confirmed that the President not only has considered this exact same idea but has also read this post on the site.
Hold your breath Wayan, you may get an interesting phone call in the next week.
OK, there has to be a collective dream first before truly awsome things can happen in the "real world" outside ourselves (though some believe there is no such thing - its all dream.) Anyway, thanks for the mime. I'm on this page because I already had this dream and am seeking collaboration. And I'm no fool. We can do this one, with or without Obama. FYI, OLPC gave birth to what's dubbed a Netbooks (category of subnotebooks). Dell's mini's including the mini 9 are candidates for low cost educational computing. They already support Ubununtu and that Linux OS has already received OLPC support as an option to Redhat Fedora. They'll be competing for that special place - laptops for young people, built for education - the next great fronteir for laptop sales.