Hopefully the superior screen technology of the OLPC will start trickling down to other consumer devices. The specs on the black and white OLPC screen are better than the kindle.
Yeah, as far as I'm concerned, the OLPC XO is a far better device than the Kindle.
Sure it doesn't have "free" EV-DO for buying ebooks from Amazon, but it runs Linux so you can use any ebook format you want (without paying Amazon). Plus full web browsing and other (basic) desktop apps that you would expect from a low end laptop.
...For the same price as a Kindle (including a donation of a laptop to a child in a developing nation)
That comparison with the C64 is not adjusted for inflation and changes in consumer purchasing power. Besides, the US dollar is weak and getting weaker. As time goes on, it'll get even more affordable by developing nations.
I thought that the XO was a neat piece of hardware, something that would be cool to have but is not world-shaking, disruptive technology. About a month ago, I actually went onto their site to look at how the software was put together with the hardware. I then extrapolated what that would do to young impressionable minds.
And yeah, the OLPC XO is disruptive technology disguised as an educational tool. It was designed to be used by a group and not an individual. It is the kind of device you would give to a group of US kids to give them an educational edge, and it was originally intended to be exclusively distributed to developing nations.
If the device ever reaches the tipping point, there will be a generation of kids who thinks us adults are crazy to be using our current software setup, much the same way the Facebook generation thinks email users are nuts ... or how we laugh at the IBM execs who thought that the PC is a really smart mainframe terminal.
It is something that when I have kids, I will follow the genetic imperative to pass advantageous traits and buy/import/smuggle whatever latest model in order to give them at age 7, as a rite-of-passage gift.
By the way, everyone, I'm quite aware of how inflation works. The point is: The C64 was roughly as good as any home computer of the day. The OLPC is bottom of the heap, and I can pick up a used computer for 20 dollars that would shred it.
PJ@Groklaw: "The Classmate looks to me to be just another laptop, only smaller and cheesier looking, with a too small screen (it has a resizing feature, so you can cram a normal amount of a page on it, which I'm guessing people leave on all the time) and nothing a child would particularly enjoy by my reckoning, other than the fact that any laptop is better than none, except the digital pen, which is an optional addon, and I'm guessing those pens disappear or get lost in no time. And indeed Intel doesn't market Classmate as something kids will love. They market it as a laptop teachers and parents will find reassuring, because it gives them the illusion of control. Now that's significant. I just learned something about marketing. It's about dreams, not about reality."
That was what bothered me about the criticisms of lack of teacher training for the XO. It was not meant to be used by the teachers.
What's the deal with the second chart showing the search term 'Classmates' vs a bunch of computer related terms. Surely nothing can be determined from that chart given that classmate means something to non-nerds.
