[Robotgroup] FW: [Robotics] Low-cost laptop update

Tue Jan 2 06:13:50 PST 2007

Betty,

Who are you?  I love this concept of kids making things. Our push in the RG 
(one of many this year) is to involve children in the learning and creating 
of "art and technology) projects and robotics.  Tell us about yourself.  
Happy New Year to you as well.

Denise

>From: "Betty" <bettydingus at austin.rr.com>
>Reply-To: Austin Robotgroup Mailing List <robotgroup at puremagic.com>
>To: <robotgroup at puremagic.com>
>Subject: [Robotgroup] FW: [Robotics] Low-cost laptop update
>Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 11:15:22 -0600
>
>I like the part where he says kids should be using computers for "making
>things" not learning boring office uses.
>
>Happy New Year,
>Betty
>
>-----Original Message-----
>
>CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Forget windows, folders and boxes that pop up with
>text. When students in Thailand, Libya and other developing countries
>get their $150 computers from the One Laptop Per Child project in 2007,
>their experience will be unlike anything on standard PCs.
>
>For most of these children the XO machine, as it's called, likely will
>be the first computer they've ever used. Because the students have no
>expectations for what PCs should be like, the laptop's creators started
>from scratch in designing a user interface they figured would be
>intuitive for children.
>
>The result is as unusual as - but possibly even riskier than - other
>much-debated aspects of the machine, such as its economics and
>distinctive hand-pulled mechanism for charging its battery. (XO has been
>known as the $100 laptop because of the ultra-low cost its creators
>eventually hope to achieve through mass production.)
>
>
>But the main design motive was the project's goal of stimulating
>education better than previous computer endeavors have. Nicholas
>Negroponte, who launched the project at the Massachusetts Institute of
>Technology's Media Lab two years ago before spinning One Laptop into a
>separate nonprofit, said he deliberately wanted to avoid giving children
>computers they might someday use in an office.
>
>"In fact, one of the saddest but most common conditions in elementary
>school computer labs (when they exist in the developing world), is the
>children are being trained to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint,"
>Negroponte wrote in an e-mail interview. "I consider that criminal,
>because children should be making things, communicating, exploring,
>sharing, not running office automation tools."
>
>To that end, folders are not the organizing metaphor on these machines,
>unlike most computers since Apple Computer Inc. launched the first Mac
>in 1984. The knock on folders is that they force users to remember where
>they stored their information rather than what they used it for.
>
>Instead, the XO machines are organized around a "journal," an
>automatically generated log of everything the user has done on the
>laptop. Students can review their journals to see their work and
>retrieve files created or altered in those sessions.
>
>Despite these school-focused frameworks, its creators bristle at any
>suggestion XO is a mere toy. A wide range of programs can run on it,
>including a Web browser, a word processor and an RSS reader - the
>software that delivers blog updates to information junkies.
>
>The computer also has features anyone would love, notably a built-in
>camera and a color display that converts to monochrome so it's easier to
>see in sunlight.
>
>"I have to laugh when people refer to XO as a weak or crippled machine
>and how kids should get a `real' one," Negroponte wrote. "Trust me, I
>will give up my real one very soon and use only XO. It will be far
>better, in many new and important ways."
>
>Wayan Vota, who launched the OLPCNews.com blog to monitor the project's
>development because he is skeptical it can achieve its aims, called
>Sugar "amazing - a beautiful redesign."
>
>"It doesn't feel like Linux. It doesn't feel like Windows. It doesn't
>feel like Apple," said Vota, who is director of Geekcorps, an
>organization that facilitates technology volunteers in developing
>countries. He emphasized that his opinions were his own and not on
>behalf of Geekcorps.
>
>"I'm just impressed they built a new (user interface) that is different
>and hopefully better than anything we have today," he said. But he
>added: "Granted, I'm not a child. I don't know if it's going to be
>intuitive to children."
>
>
>on a related side-note, Seymour Papert, who was heavily involved in the
>project has now been moved to a US facility after his accident in Hanoi.
>
>http://www.informationweek.com/industries/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=196701
>963&articleID=196701963&sa_type=&section=industries&subSection=News+By+Verti
>cal+Industry
>Seymour Papert, Injured In Vietnam, Now In Intensive Care In Massachusetts
>
>Seymour Papert, the MIT professor who was struck by a motorbike in
>Vietnam earlier this month, was in intensive care Tuesday in
>Massachusetts General Hospital after being airlifted from Hanoi.
>
>Just hours before the accident on a busy Hanoi street, Papert, 78, had
>been describing how to build a computer model of Hanoi's jammed streets.
>According to reports from colleagues attending a mathematics meeting in
>the Vietnamese capital, Papert looked at Hanoi's chaotic traffic grid as
>a possible instance of his "emergent behavior" work; the traffic
>patterns were considered an example of large groups that follow simple
>rules without a central leader, but then spontaneously evolve solutions.
>
>Papert, who co-founded the Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT, has also
>been a major figure in the One Laptop Per Child program.
>
>According to a bulletin on the MIT Media Lab's Web page, Papert was
>airlifted to the United States on Dec. 18 and has been in a stable
>condition in the intensive care unit ever since.
>
>http://english.vietnamnet.vn/social/2006/12/645110/
>
>After becoming unconscious, Professor Papert was transferred to the
>Vietnam - France Hospital for emergency aid. The professor remains in a
>dangerous situation.
>
>In the latest news, Professor Papert has been carried back to the US for
>further treatment.
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