Results tagged “onelaptopperchild”

The Boston Book Festival is coming up on Saturday. We already talked to an organizer; now it's time for a participant. Nicholas Negroponte is perhaps most famous for founding the MIT Media Lab and One Laptop Per Child, but he's also written his share of content. We talked to him about the role of technology and the future of books. He will be on the Digital Inclusion panel Saturday at 3pm. more ›

We've been following the One Laptop Per Child project ever since it spun out of the MIT Media Lab and into its very own organization. The project has secured foreign governments and significant investment commitments to purchase the laptops and the infrastructure to support them. Launch of the project has still sits in a testing phase, reportedly the final beta test stage. Much information is available about the laptops – including the standard operating system... more ›

We've seen the design. We've seen it play doom. We've heard that it's in the production process. And now we get some sugar. The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative, spun off from the MIT Media Lab, has an operating system for the XO machines they've dubbed "Sugar." It's safe to say that the look and operation is completely different than anything we've seen before. And you thought Vista was different than what you were using. more ›

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative that was born from the mind of Nicholas Negroponte when he was heading up the MIT Media Lab is nearing a significant milestone – shipment of the first machines to their intended recipients. Back in the end of November it was reported that the prototypes had come off the production line and had already been loaded up and played Doom. The AP reports today that the program is now looking at a predicted July delivery of some of the first laptops to the children who might use them. more ›

Geeks rejoice. The One Laptop Per Child initiative (or OLPC) has some working prototypes rolling off the production line. Of course before the hand crank power supply, productivity software, or usability for children worldwide is tested someone had to figure out if could be used for the feature everyone needs in a computer – killing time. Doom, which ran like a dream on DOS machines, has been loaded up on a prototype and video evidence (thanks YouTube) has been provided to show that the device runs the game. We're still waiting to hear if NIN will be preloaded on the iTunes that comes with these machines. Not surprisingly, the news hit the geek news meme on the tubes pretty hard the past two days. We always knew something good would be coming out of the Cambridge-based nonprofit. Now the world will know the wonder of the first person shooter. more ›

The announcement came out around this time last year that MIT Media Lab Co-Founder and former Director Nicholas Negroponte and the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organization were nearing a working prototype of a $100 laptop to get to more children around the world. The OLPC would help break down the digital divide by providing the poor with access to the tools of the digital age. Our post on the matter may have set the... more ›

The UN has convened in Tunisia to begin the World Summit on the Information Society and the whole world is watching to see what happens. There are a lot of topics on the block, but only two of them are getting any press here in the US. The first is who gets to control the internet, and no one expects that to go well. The US thinks the only way to keep the internet free for everyone is not to let anyone else control it. The rest of the world disagrees, go figure. more ›

Don't get us wrong - Bostonist loves killer robots, time-traveler conventions, and throwing pianos off buildings as much as the next guy. But sometimes, we'd like our resident cadre of nerds at MIT to come out with something so obviously and immediately useful that it requires no imagination on our part to see its real-world applications. Enter Nicholas Negroponte, head of MIT's media lab (who used to appear on TV with the awesomest title ever: "Futurist"), and a non-profit called One Laptop Per Child. They have developed a super-low-budget laptop that can be manufactured and distributed for around $100 (!). The idea is that the governments of developing countries will buy these computers and distribute them to kids for free, facilitating their access to porn educational materials. The machines will have some kind of high-tech, low-cost, super-pimptronic screen, USB ports, wi-fi connectivity, Linux operating systems, and, of course, they'll be incredibly cheap and will run off a plug, batteries, or a hand crank (!). Although we can imagine lots of cool stateside, consumer applications for this technology, it's nice that Negroponte et al. are focused on charitable endeavors (also, Radio Shack has some sort of super-chintzy internet computer in the works, if you absolutely must have something like this). So let Bostonist say, "Thanks, MIT, for making us proud. You may now return to building cyborgs and breaking stuff." more ›