One Laptop Per Child
Category OLPC
Last night I got to play with a One Laptop Per Child laptop (do I really say laptop twice?) for a few minutes. Most of the time was spent getting the laptop open as it proved to be a bit of a puzzle, there was no visible latch and no obvious indicator on the case on how to open it. After looking at it for a bit I figured the only way was to move anything that could be moved and see what happens. It turns out you need to rotate both antennas on the device to release the screen, obvious once you've done it, but not obvious at all until you've done it.
Once the screen was opened and you hit the power on button, it takes a couple of minutes to boot. The screen was clear and readable and the touchpad was responsive. The keyboard is sure to be a hit with ZX spectrum users or people that work in bars and are used to those rubberized keyboards as it feels pretty much the same. The UI is pretty sparse and i didn't find too many of the icons representing what they did particularly intuitive. I only got to play with a couple of the apps, and some of them were fairly ugly. The calculator looks like the kind of calculator people would build as their first ever VB project. But I'm sure all the software will change anyway with time. I think the mesh networking is pretty interesting and the device did pickup my wireless network, Sadly there were no other OLPCs in my neighborhood to connect with but that's not really a surprise unless hunters have started to use them.
The browser worked, and it's default page was pointing to the kids books at http://childrenslibrary.org/ a great not for profit website that is storing childrens books digitally, some 5,000 in lots of languages (41, it says). I know they work pretty hard to constantly add new books and it's not easy getting publishers to hand over their books even if they have no further plans for a book. Take a look, you get to see the books in their full scanned in glory.
It didn't come with Symphony or Sametime preinstalled, but then I don't think the flash drive in the device could handle it.
I didn't really get enough time with the device to give a really indepth assessment, but I like the idea behind the device, I like the price point and it looks like it could have a Fisher Price logo on it for kids.
Last night I got to play with a One Laptop Per Child laptop (do I really say laptop twice?) for a few minutes. Most of the time was spent getting the laptop open as it proved to be a bit of a puzzle, there was no visible latch and no obvious indicator on the case on how to open it. After looking at it for a bit I figured the only way was to move anything that could be moved and see what happens. It turns out you need to rotate both antennas on the device to release the screen, obvious once you've done it, but not obvious at all until you've done it.
Once the screen was opened and you hit the power on button, it takes a couple of minutes to boot. The screen was clear and readable and the touchpad was responsive. The keyboard is sure to be a hit with ZX spectrum users or people that work in bars and are used to those rubberized keyboards as it feels pretty much the same. The UI is pretty sparse and i didn't find too many of the icons representing what they did particularly intuitive. I only got to play with a couple of the apps, and some of them were fairly ugly. The calculator looks like the kind of calculator people would build as their first ever VB project. But I'm sure all the software will change anyway with time. I think the mesh networking is pretty interesting and the device did pickup my wireless network, Sadly there were no other OLPCs in my neighborhood to connect with but that's not really a surprise unless hunters have started to use them.
The browser worked, and it's default page was pointing to the kids books at http://childrenslibrary.org/ a great not for profit website that is storing childrens books digitally, some 5,000 in lots of languages (41, it says). I know they work pretty hard to constantly add new books and it's not easy getting publishers to hand over their books even if they have no further plans for a book. Take a look, you get to see the books in their full scanned in glory.
It didn't come with Symphony or Sametime preinstalled, but then I don't think the flash drive in the device could handle it.
I didn't really get enough time with the device to give a really indepth assessment, but I like the idea behind the device, I like the price point and it looks like it could have a Fisher Price logo on it for kids.
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Posted by Werner Novak At 01:44:06 PM On 11/06/2007 | - Website - |