OLPC version 2, :wub:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7411904.stm

An affordable ebook reader with a decent sized screen that I can also read manga on?!

Probably won't see commercial release in developed countries though ;

looks great ĦĦ

Well the original one still hasn't been distributed to people who used the G1G1 program. But at least they added Windows to the original OLPC1. This new OLPC2 is a bit different though; I'm not sure how well it will hold up under the rather harsh conditions in many of these developing countries.

indeed. Even though its a basic description it is a lot more ambitious than their current unit... which went way overbudget and stuff... ;

My PSP works fine as an Ebook/Manga reader \o/

Cool - hopefully be able to run Linux on the new one also instead of that MS trash ... most of my PC's run Fedora only - this one booted Win2K yesterday to test if my LCD problems were Linux driver related (they aren't) - first time out of Fedora in over 600 days
I bet 1.0 runs like a dog under XP - lol
Hey imagine putting Vista on a low MHz PC - haha.
You think this means MS will go back on their idea of dumping XP soon?
All 2.0 would need is a wireless abgn (I'd say a certainty since 1.0 already has bg wireless) and USB ports (would almost be a certainty also since 1.0 has USB) and I'd buy one (well 2 actually, as suggested) tomorrow ... just have to wait ... 2 years

Actually, a lack of Windows caused most countries NOT to buy the OLPC 1. Whatever you may say about it, Windows is the overbearingly dominant operating system on the market, and since the OLPC isn't a Mac, it will NOT run OSX which takes more resources than XP to run. Those countries are probably afraid of teaching their kids the wrong way to use a PC which is different from the "normal" way of using one since the OLPC Sugar UI is designed specifically for kids, whereas Windows is more mainstream.

Also, after looking at the OLPC1's specs, I've run Windows XP on older and weaker PC's without too much lag. There's an ancient PC at our school that our computer club is supposed to use. It originally ran Windows 98, but we installed a copy of Windows XP for the lulz. It was also networked yet ran fine, although the keyboard was loud and clackey. So if a clanky PC from the early 1990's can run XP Professional, a new low-end PC can definately run a stripped-down version of XP without too much trouble.

Actually windows XP can be installed and run on computers with only half the listed specs with no degradation of performance.

I don't doubt it - but I'd prefer the bigger screens

And aye, the likelihood of a windows OS further increases my like as I know I would be able to throw assorted file formats at it - unlike most dedicated ebook readers

True, I'd love a bigger screen...

Yep, I want one of these lappy things.

I don't doubt it - but I'd prefer the bigger screens

And aye, the likelihood of a windows OS further increases my like as I know I would be able to throw assorted file formats at it - unlike most dedicated ebook readers

OLPC V1 uses Fedora Core 7

Fedora is what I use exclusively on almost all of my PCs and I certainly have no issues with ANY file formats.
In fact my laptop specifically runs FC7 (haven't upgraded to FC8 yet)

I use a PIII 500MHz PC with 256MB RAM in my bedroom as a player for anything not on DVD (and sometimes for DVDs also when the HD-DVD player complains about not being able to play a disc) and have no performance issues with it at all - even weekly TV shows I download and watch (House at the moment - though it just finished the season) - it plays at 1024x768 (upscaled if original is smaller) coz that's what my big screen LCD PC input is and the card in the PC is old (no DVI) so I can't run HDMI - but I expect no trouble go up to full 1080p if I put a DVI output card in there and ran a DVI->HDMI cable.

The specs of this PC that I've been using for a long time already tell me that the OLPC V2 would have no issues running any media under Linux (and no format issues either)
Not only that, but using mplayer under Linux avoids all the region issues with DVD and also bypasses all the stupidity of the forced DVD rules about things like: what you can skip
e.g. many DVDs have intro stuff that you HAVE to watch coz the DVD specifies that you cannot skip it - mplayer thankfully ignores all those rules that are enforced on commercial winblows players and commercial DVD hardware players

The problem isn't the compatibility with file associations as the UI is horribly different. The Fedora that comes with the OLPC1 uses the Sugar UI for simplicity since most of these kids won't be computer whizzes or be able to use them as effortlessly as we can. It is almost mind-numbingly simplistic; it has no desktop in the sense of a base area below running applications and can only run a single program at once due to hardware limitations, mainly the lack of swap space and a meager 1GB hard drive.

The end result is a PC that may be useable for kids, but it does not teach them how to use a fully-equipped computer, which will be drastically different. A person that knows how to use a computer well can jump relatively easily between Windows, OS X, and most Linux distros but Sugar is so radically different it would teach very little about how to use a real computer. Thus, the countries that are considering buying these laptops would prefer to get a computer that would make their children able to use real computers later in life.

Considering the hard drive sizes involved, I highly doubt media capacity was a major factor in choosing the OS to run the laptop. 1GB of memory is barely enough to hold a few anime episodes at standard 640x480 resolution, and even that file size is getting phased out in favor of larger 704x400 widescreen or even larger 1280x720 now that HDTV is becoming more mainstream.

I'd expect that switching to Gnome (instead of Sugar) would be a VERY minor change
Any GUI that runs on Linux is not in any way required to boot the computer.
All the servers that I setup/manage for clients (always Fedora Core) dont boot into any GUI simply coz it's not needed - I rarely ever go near them - I remotely manage them via ssh.
You just change one number in the /etc/inittab text file: set the init level (id) to 3 instead of 5 and they boot to a console with everything except the GUI
If I'm near one and want to run a GUI app (e.g. firefox) I can start X11 at any time with a single command (startx) or stop it with menu click (logout)

That aside, the fact that these have SD card slots and USB ports means that there is no issue with storing larger amounts of data on them. I bought a 16GB JetFlash key last week ($90) - you can fit a lot of media in 16GB ... in fact the 16GB is also setup to live boot FC8 also - used up less than 1GB of it - so it could probably boot an OLPCv1 into FC8 using a standard live CD as long as the necessary device drivers are in the kernel (already extremely likely - or not too hard to add)

However ... I'm sure Sugar is designed to minimise power usage (they do apparently run at under 2 watts!) so the default GUI (which again is easy to swap under linux) is probably restricted to help keep the power usage down. As for me: if I had one, power usage would not be my concern when near a power source, since I don't live in a 3rd world country where power is often unreliable or even unavailable
Remember, these things are designed with the ultimate (and very great) idea of providing for kids in these circumstances
Something like mplayer accessing an SD card or USB key and playing a video would definitely push that 2 watt figure up.

But v2 for under $200 (yeah you buy 2 of them: one for yourself or your kids and one that gets donated to someone who can't buy one) you are paying about the same price as a Nintendo DS - and although you can already run Linux on a DS, I'd prefer the bigger screen

Gotta say, I really would love to get my hands on an OLPC v2!
I've almost considered getting an EeePC but never felt throwing that much money at it coz I don't need it.
OLPC v2 is more compact, cheaper, and has the giving one away major incentive also included in the low price!

Well that's $90 that a kid in a developing country won't have to spend, or $90 added on to the base price of a computer that already should have been no more expensive than $100. Flash memory is indeed becoming much cheaper, but it is still one of the areas that can be reduced in order to cut costs and meet production deadlines, which have been lagging thus far.

They're only designed to do the most basic of tasks; their only virtue compared to normal computers is the simple fact that they are there and therefore more desirable than not having them at all.

The Sugar UI isn't finished yet, but distributing updates is going to be difficult in areas where real internet access is hard to come by, although considering their networking capabilities as long as one unit updates, it is possible that it could spread the update into every machine it connects with. Sugar was designed to be as minimalist as possible to save energy and processor resources, both of which are more limited than in a normal computer, so it's not going to be a powerhouse by any standards. XP is there because of its name recognition, regardless of true useability.

The kind of kids that will be getting these PC's would care less about programming them and more about using them for schoolwork. The computers aren't there to teach computer science or maintenance, they're there as learning tools to substitute textbooks and/or paper supplies while providing a standardized vehicle for teaching. Any computer knowledge comes second, to this. These kids won't be switching UI's or working with any of the commands, they'll be using it like most kids would be in elementary school. Which means that UI is less important to them than overall friendliness.

But the governments that are going to be ordering the systems have different priorities. They want "real" PC's, and to many of them, the mark of a "real" PC is some form of either Windows or OS X. Since Apple is protective of its assets in a way that makes Microsoft look loose, Windows was the only real option. Regardless of its uses, many people overlook Linux as a "true" OS due to its free and largely unregulated nature, which prevents the blame from being levied when things go wrong. Putting XP on the machines is a mark of prestige, becuase in the eyes of the government, it turns the OLPC's from just a machine into a true PC.

The design is certainly interesting, although I wonder how well the touchscreens will hold up under harsh conditions. And two screens means double the chances of one breaking and thus rendering the entire PC useless. I would also have to wonder why they're coming out with a new machine when the old one hasn't even ramped up to full production. True, the OLPC2 has many improvements, but releasing it so soon would encourage countries to boycott the current model which will be replaced in only a few years, meaning that their kids will go without the computers for several more years. Why not just incorporate some of the advances into the current model?

Well that's $90 that a kid in a developing country won't have to spend, or $90 added on to the base price of a computer that already should have been no more expensive than $100. Flash memory is indeed becoming much cheaper, but it is still one of the areas that can be reduced in order to cut costs and meet production deadlines, which have been lagging thus far.

Nah - I was just referring to why I'd buy one.

Yes, as they are, with no changes, is fine for the target market.

For me, I'd love to have a v2 and then do some MINOR changes ... like the GUI.

Linux has a tool called YUM (originally "Yellowdog Update Manager") that sits on top of the standard RPM program that can literally be EASILY configured to get it's updates from wherever you like by changing a single tiny config text file.
I do this myself at home and modify the standard YUM config to point at one of my servers directories (where I download all the updates for all versions of Fedora) rather than the internet, which is the standard setup.
However, no doubt, the OLPC would have this configured by default to work in the class server setup that they describe and make it simple to do any sort of config changes/updates if wanted.

As for selling them to 'government' - I'd go with the idea of saying - why bother? Who cares?
If you aim for the main stream they are gonna want Windows and that means it will cost more due to resource requirements and Windows cost. Ignore the Windows market all together. Let the techie's who can use them buy them (and give a second one away) but aim away from people who want some resource hungry OS just coz that's what they think they need.
No one who plays any recent 'picturesque' game would buy one for that sort of game coz it's not a CPU/RAM/GFX powerhouse as required by most windows games these days.

At work (where I'm the IT department) people mainly just use Office and IE7 (on XP).
This really requires 1GB of RAM or things slow down. As soon as they add google earth (some need this for the type of work we do) I have to put in another 1GB of RAM or the computers just can't handle it.
It would seem silly to aim for this market - that would definitely destroy the original idea or making something that works and is cheap.
Again, you've also gotta add the cost of adding XP onto the silly thing also.

Or better still - just advertise them for what they are.
They can run OpenOffice (and a few other Office sets) Firefox, GIMP (way better than CS IMO) play any video/audio (better than Windows - again IMO) PDF viewer from Adobe (if you really want Adobe's instead of one of the many others) Azureus pretty much anything that most people need - but I'm wasting my time though, coz most people think that they must run an MS app rather than deciding to run a Good app
As for blaming someone for software that doesn't work - well that doesn't help with MS - but it works fine with OpenSource - 2 ways:
1) In general, open source development teams are usally happy to hear about bugs and to try to fix them - and you will usually get better service and for free
2) You can get the source code and fix it yourself if you are technically minded enough (though most people and most programmers aren't)

Wow, what a load of BS. I run Office, IE, Google Earth and Azureus (a known resource hog) all under a gig of ram with no performance problems. You need that much memory in an office enviroment for all the under apps running like the key logging programs and junk like that not because of those apps. Why would you put Azureus which as I stated before a known resource hog on a minimum computer like that anyway.
Correct someone else's soucecode??? What are you on drugs, even programmers dont like to do it because most source code looks like it was written by drunken monkeys in an alien langauge (even to other programmers).

Yeah but THESE computers will only have 256MB of RAM, or about as much as our formerly state-of-the-art desktop had back in the very early 2000's. Our next computer had 1GB as a midline, and mine came with 2GB for less than the cost of the original 256MB upgrade.

They do have a specifically designed OLPC server, so I guess if they connected that to the internet it could serve as a hub for all the rest of the computers to recieve and distribute updates. Although the whole point of having a server seems odd because the computers were specifically designed to NOT need a server, since it was reasoned that most schools that needed the computers would not have access to them, hence the networking ability.

Without Windows, the OLPC didn't sell. Negroponte predicted that it would sell 100 million units within the first year, and it barely sold 400,000. The G1G1 program didn't work as planned since it was more expensive that people anticipated, and few people wanted a computer that wouldn't run Windows. Never mind the kids, people buying the computer wanted Windows for their own machine. The techie crowd is nowhere near large enough to make up for the lost Windows market, and it doesn't exactly include the people with the loosest pocketbooks.

It's not for gaming, unless by gaming you mean a Tetris knock-off like Gnometris. For many, including many of the potential G1G1 buyers, it's not a PC unless it has Windows, so the sooner Windows is added, the sooner the PC's will sell. Adding Windows hasn't caused a change in hardware specs since the version of XP will be stripped down of any extraneous features, and the cost per unit is only $3.

They won't even be running Office or IE. They'll most likely be using a much more basic text editor along the lines of Notepad or Wordpad, and very little internet browsing since that drains battery life horribly. Office is a major memory hog, and its "smarter-than-you" interface makes it unpopular among lawyers since it constantly tries to make "corrections" to legal documents.

They probably will be. So far, Windows is the only non-open source software that is going to be running on these computers. There is no reason why they can't be running OpenOffice or Firefox, although I doubt they'd be doing a lot of web browsing due to infrastructure problems.

Yes, but I must also point out that Microsoft's update and patch service is free as well so long as you have a legitimate copy of the product. Other things such as hardware failures in the Xbox 360 obviously cost money but it would not be free even if an "open source" console were to crash because it actually takes money and physical components to fix. Software fixes are free, although they do take a while considering the number of complaints Microsoft has to file though, then get the patch certified.

Yeah but THESE computers will only have 256MB of RAM, or about as much as our formerly state-of-the-art desktop had back in the very early 2000's. Our next computer had 1GB as a midline, and mine came with 2GB for less than the cost of the original 256MB upgrade.

Yeah - 1GB DDR2 is worth very little now-a-days for the non-3rd world pocket (I paid $800 for a 16MB SIMM about 12 years ago - now it's $60 for 2GB - lol)

JDennis - WHAT are you talking about? LOL
Of course no one at my office runs Azureus ... though I did find LimeWire running on 2 machines once that I removed immediately ... and ... well ... one was the boss - he's stopped downloading porn at work any more - the other is no longer working here

But on the 1GB issue - well then I guess you have a magic PC.
Every user at work who uses Google Earth (and yes they really do use it - not just as a play toy) who had 1GB of RAM, had regular out-of-memory errors and Office2007 playing up with weird errors. If any PC is swapping it performs like a dog. As soon as I added the extra 1GB - problems went away. BUT - just looking at the performance/resource usage told me that would be the case before hand anyway.
And no, there are no key loggers or any other spyware/virus's running on the PCs - just AVG and whatever other normal XP processes (no Norton to slow everything down )

But more on the 1GB issue: every computer that I go near that has less than 1GB I get comments about performance issues. Of course those with 1GB sometimes say that also, but there are a lot of PC's outside my office (I work part time at the office) that I look after and its common for 512MB to not be enough anymore with a fully updated XP PC (yes I do mean everyone I deal with has a real XP license so the PC's are all updated)

As for why I'd run Azureus on a 'my' OLPCv2 - well if I'm not at home and wanting to download the latest Negi RAW for the team (and get it before Jace does ) then I'd want to run some Torrent program - and I guess if Azureus couldn't run, I'd use a command line client to save RAM

Well - when I got my Waicom Bamboo Fun I had the latest FC8 kernel running on this computer (my main PC at home) and couldn't get it to work properly since the kernel module didn't include the Bamboo Fun 5x8. So I got the source code, found it was just a table of device info and added an extra element to the table for my Bamboo and recompiled and thus was able to use my graphics tablet in the GIMP ... yeah I guess that can be tough for the non-technical

Well we have a Dell Inspiron laptop downstairs that runs everything well, including Google Earth. My dad installed it for no reason that I can fathom since he's a lawyer, but it ran fine the few times I used it before getting my own computer. It only has 1GB of RAM, yet I was able to run fairly graphically taxing games on it without major trouble, although nowhere near the maximum settings. Crysis would make that machine weep, though.

The older computer we used in school had an odd 458MB of RAM, but it ran XP Pro fine, albeit slowly. We successfully installed Google Desktop and it came with Internet Explorer 5 installed, but didn't bother installing Office since the keyboard was too clackity to be useful and the HDD only have about 6GB of space, most of which was already taken up by the XP install. But it ran IE fine when it needed to, just not the new and more memory intensive version.

Office 2007 would be a bigger memory hog than any Office edition before it, so no wonder those PC's are running out of memory. Try putting something like Office 97 on them and see how much memory it takes up. That's more along the lines of what these kids'll be doing. Office 2007 has so many new memory and processor intensive features, including that new file compression scheme that while handy as it saves a lot of HDD space, is a b!tch to use to convert older files because they have to be manually opened and converted, then saved.

Meh - updated my PIII500 (256MB RAM) from fc4 to fc8 the other day and it seems that the resource requirements have gone up a bit
Nothing major - just some of the larger frame video files that worked OK before show a bit of jerkiness when played now
(though it may be the more recent mplayer that's needing more resources - not sure)
Oh well - the OLPCv2 will be > PIII500 anyway
And of course the pixel count will most likely be less on the OLPCv2 than my 1080p screen

It helps having an actual screen ...