I use computer every single day in my professional and personal life. I love them. But I am eternally grateful to my parents that they didn't give me unlimited access to one till High School.

I would have missed out on untold hours of playing outdoors, building things, taking things apart and generally just learning about the world if somebody had shoved a laptop at me when I was 8 or 9.

It's always irked me a bit when people try to pin low achievement in schools on lack of computers.

First, supposedly Mr. Negroponte "ended the discussion of whether computers belong in children’s hands". Umm...Does anyone remember this discussion? Because I can’t recall a time where people were saying kids shouldn’t have computers. Who exactly was making that argument?

Second, he supposedly "answered the question of whether inexpensive computers can be useful." But the very argument that’s coming up more and more lately is one that points out these computers weren’t terribly useful because they had tons of flaws. Don’t get me wrong, I believe inexpensive computers can be useful but I don’t believe that was proven by Mr. Negroponte.

Finally, note that rather than give actual accomplishments she quotes a projected figure to justify the actions of OLPC. In my life I’ve learned that people who quote projections as accomplishments are usually the ones who have no actual accomplishments to point to.

In the end, this post is nothing more than misplaced hero worship.

In any case, I think you misunderstood: this is the projected number of cheap netbook-like laptops which will be sold (that’s between several companies), not the number of XOs, and the numbers are reasonably reliable a year or two out, because they actually have to gear up to manufacturing these things at scale well in advance of making them.

I think it’s without question that OLPC and Nicholas’s pushing on the public consciousness, and as importantly on hardware vendors, has sped by at least a few years the pace of cheap laptop production. There really weren’t any sub-$400–500 laptops before Nicholas was talking about them 4–5 years ago, and now there’s an exploding market. Most hardware manufacturers (not to mention pundits and “technologists” and so forth) laughed in his face because they said the margins would be too low to make sense, and the components couldn’t be had for the price. Then at some point he convinced Quanta to jump on board, and everyone started looking really closely.

(disclaimer: I spent a year at OLPC as an intern)

Bottom Line: Defending one's accomplshments by saying they have accomplishments is circular logic

If anything I'm more weary of her for using a non-profit to develop technology she's now trying to sell while all the while selling flawed, next to useless computers to poor kids. (I suspect her intentions were good for the record all I'm saying is the facts paint a picture that is suspect)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Lou_Jepsen

Quoting from there, since it’s easier: “She co-created the first holographic video system in the world at the MIT Media Lab in 1989 [...] At OLPC, notably, Jepsen invented the laptop's sunlight-readable display technology.” You don’t get put in charge of the technology for displays at Intel (her job before OLPC) by being unaccomplished.

Here’s a (non-exhaustive, I think) list of her patents: http://www.google.com/patents?q=mary+lou+jepsen&btnG=Sea...

Several of those, like the OLPC dual-mode display, are really clever (better than anything else of the kind, feasible to manufacture on existing fabs, no more expensive than existing displays, etc.).

Also, your implication that her involvement with OLPC was “suspiciously” predatory (or for that matter the implication that OLPC on the whole is some kind of exploitative scam) is a cheap insult below the expected level of this forum. Really bright high-level engineer–executives who take out a few years of their careers to work at well below pay grade for non-profit companies trying to change the world should be lauded, in my book.

For the record, this didn't start out as an attack on Ms. Jepsen who I said probably had good intentions. My point is people like her go around thinking their good intentions mean something without end results. So they end up pushing things like the OLPC which hurt more than they help. Then they laud themselves and their partners for having been such great people and done such a great thing and shade their eyes from all the flaws.

Every reports I've heard has said the OLPCs have major hardware and software problems and my own died pretty shortly after I opened it up. Selling PCs like that to third world countries deprives those kids of actual working PCs which in my book is a bad thing

Also, I didn't mean to malign Ms. Jepsen's technical accomplishments which are impressive. But when I referred to "accomplishments" I was talking in the sense of "making products that make a difference in the word" which is exactly what I think she thinks she accomplished and which I dispute.

(I can't reply to your comment below for some reason but let me just say this. The arguments that have been made in the last few days that suggest the OLPC is flawed are perfectly valid. The only people I've seen deny them are people like you who worked for the project. So assuming those flaws are real (again, I'm living proof since mine broke 2 weeks out) imagine a country who bought 1000 OLPCs for 1000 kids rather than 500 Windows or Linux PCs. Now if those OLPCs are flawed than those kids have been deprived of computers. The fact that you can't see that just goes to show your hero worship of a project that has clearly not met it's goals)

Actually, no, you shifted the goal posts twice.

> “Your argument boils down to the OLPC is great no matter what.”

You’re putting words in my mouth. Where did I argue that?

> “hurt more than they help”

Have any evidence (or even reasoning) to back that up?

> “shade their eyes from all the flaws”

Do you have any evidence that Mary Lou has done that? Nicholas has, in public perhaps (though I’d be cautious to say that even).

> “deprives those kids of actual working PCs”

Can you back that up with a plausible explanation? As far as I can tell, not a single person has been “deprived” of a PC because of the OLPC project, and you’re the only one who is suggesting so.

* * *

This is a very narrow discussion, in which you insulted and maligned someone with no cause, and I called you out on it, and then you tried to make it stick rather than apologizing as would be appropriate for a reputable discussion. I haven’t made any claims about everything else being great, or anything of the kind, and I don’t even really see how you’re reading that into any of my statements.

* * *

Edit:

> “ people like her go around thinking their good intentions mean something without end results.”

I also want to push back on this point. First, good intentions + deliberate action really does mean something, even in the unlikely even that they have no result. I personally think there is nothing more important in the world than the combination of good intentions plus the willingness to back those up with action. (An only slightly joking quesion: What have you done for the children of the world recently?) But second, the whole point of Mary Lou’s post is that there has been a result. The “netbook” market is growing by leaps and bounds, and more and more children all over the place are getting their hands on various kinds of laptops, whether made by OLPC or otherwise. This was always Nicholas’s primary publicly stated goal (whether he had different private goals I have no idea), and the success on that front more than justifies the effort.

Sorry to hear that. Mine works beautifully.

The OLPC is a quirky little product -- beset by flaws, yes, but also boasting some remarkable innovations. The display is one of them but it's just one. The networking hardware, the ruggedized case, the fact that they built the motherboard and all critical electronics into the display unit, so when you open it up the hot parts are kept off your lap and you can use it as an actual laptop -- all of these little details being built into a machine of such low price make the OLPC a literally game-changing machine. (The entire netbook market owes its existence to OLPC; the EeePC got started when Asus wanted to develop a competitor.)

The flaws are mainly kinks to be worked out, save one: I really wish that they hadn't written Sugar in Python. It's too slow and memory-consuming. Maybe if they precompiled the hotspots into native code...

The whole thing really does sound rather Harold Hill, doesn't it? I admit, if I hadn't seen it for myself, I probably wouldn't have believed it. Back when it was called the "$100 laptop" I wondered, "What's that going to do for kids?"

There's a fairly active debate:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=computers+in+school

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/4032737.stm

I personally believe that computer usage in schools should be limited.

I did the buy 2 get 1 OLPC deal and feel burned today by their changing positions.

I also don't buy that it is the best solution for kids, or even that PCs are necessary for education in all cases.

(As I'm editing this someone has voted this down to 0. I wonder if that person even cares about the kids the OLPC was supposed to help and if they do why are they willing to forgive the rampant reports of flaws?)

I care about the OLPC helping the kids, and I think having these laptops is a vast improvement over (sadly, in some cases) having absolutely nothing. Would you like it better if they didn't get the laptops at all?

She is right that without Negroponte there would be no OLPC, and she is also probably correct that without the OLPC's tremendous "$100 laptop" buzz in 2006, there would be no Asus Eee in 2007, which really kicked off the netbook craze.

Regarding the discussion of whether computers belong in children's hands, I had the opposite reaction: The idea that each child should have their own laptop computer that they carry with them is still a fairly controversial one, IMHO. Negroponte hardly ended the discussion, but he did serve to legitimize/popularize Seymour Papert's earlier Dynabook proposal.

Netbooks are flourshing now because technology has gotten to the point where you can fit a full OS on them. It has nothing to do with the OLPC

But around that time, two low-cost notebook models were making waves. Last November tech guru Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child, or OLPC, program released its first batch of prototype laptops designed for children in the developing world. And Intel was getting ready to launch a competing laptop, the Classmate PC, for a similar market. So, Shih thought, why not make a small, inexpensive laptop for grown-ups?

http://members.forbes.com/global/2007/1112/024a.html

For years prior to the OLPC, we had been able to make a small laptop with a full OS... The OLPC's AMD Geode CPU was seven years old at the time they chose to use it. What none of the manufacturers realized was that there was any sort of market for a vastly underpowered, almost unusably cramped, extremely cheap laptop that attempts to run a full OS. The media buzz created by the OLPC revealed this market.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=719048

(Plus I'm really sick of disgusting pathos of next to the last sentence.)

I am fortunate enough to be able to afford to give my children laptops. For some reason, it doesn't seem important to do so. I guess I just don't get it.

Perhaps teaching children to read and giving them access to books is more worthy of effort than giving them laptops. Not as newsworthy or noteworthy though.

Anyway, enough of my quibbling. If more of us had the drive and will to make the world a better place that Negroponte has, surely the world would be a better place.

"Pixel Qi -- my new company -- is now licensing my inventions from OLPC. This isn't an OLPC employee benefit, it's a deal I created with OLPC and Pixel Qi, and the benefit will go to OLPC and to the children of the world, lowering the price of the laptops, and thus allowing more kids to get laptops."

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080107182525297

This tells us nothing about how they will be licensed. They will be available for free use by the well-connected, but certainly not to you or me.

Any of “your” donations were put directly into paying for laptops for children, at cost.

Your outrage is misplaced.