One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) — The Horrible "Give One Get One" Campaign

Nicholas Negroponte is an architect and computer scientist best known as the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab. Negroponte is also known as the founder of the One Laptop per Child association (OLPC). The main point of OLPC is to fund, develop and distribute tough little wireless Linux laptops to children in developing countries. It's a laudable goal. The technical accomplishment for OLPC was to design and build such a laptop at the lowest and therefore most obviously affordable price. That much was done.

The next phase in the evolution of OLPC was the launch of a campaign last August (2007) called "Give One Get One." Seems self-explanatory doesn't it? Log on to the OLPC web site, donate a laptop to a child in a developing country and buy one for yourself (ostensibly for a child near to you) at the same price. Total price? US$433.95 including shipping. That's a fine deal. Some needy kid in some far off place gets a great little laptop for learning, Internet connectivity and a thousand other things, while some kid you know near home gets a cool birthday present.

The problem is only that the OLPC laptops aren't showing up. I placed an order on December 8, 2007 and as I write this on March 16, 2008, the only notification I've received from OLPC is an email sent in the middle of January telling me there'd soon be another email containing good news about my order "next Wednesday." Well folks, next Wednesday has come and gone seven times and still no word from OLPC.

Sorry kid — whoever you are — no laptop donation from me. A couple of niece and nephew birthdays have also come and gone since I placed the Give One Get One order last year, so the occasion to give away the one I was getting has also passed. I could give it to the kids anyway if it ever arrives, but the parents of the niece and nephew are tired of waiting for the OLPC too, so they called Dell and ordered a laptop (which was delivered within a week as usual for Dell).

What is wrong with the OLPC association? Is it that they failed to anticipate the volume of Give One Get One orders? Did they bring the OLPC laptop to market too soon or before it was ready for mass production? Are the managers at OLPC just a bunch of Vegan stoners who'll get it all done as they sort of, like, um, get around to it without stress man?

Are these questions out of line or needlessly insulting? Not really, and here's why. Intel and Acer are each coming out with their own take on OLPC-type laptops. That is, ridiculously inexpensive and reasonably rugged and usably featured Linux-based wireless laptops. So in the absence of any word from OLPC, I can only guess that the newer, reportedly better OLPC-type laptops from Intel and Acer will show up long before my OLPC order arrives. Why should I let OLPC keep my money when I'll be shortly be able to do my own Give One Get One?

Some people will read this and shake their heads at what is really a negative attitude on my part. Phooey on them. I no longer have any confidence that OLPC can deliver on its promises and plans. OLPC has demonstrated no ability to communicate effectively, it can't build its laptops in a timely manner, and I am by far not the only one complaining. By the way too, there's absolutely no indication from OLPC that the donated laptop has been delivered either. From where I'm sitting, OLPC appears to take in lots of money and then gradually, over a period of many months, doles out a few laptops here and there.

OLPC? I want my money back. Now.

Dell To Ship Laptops Sans OS

For a few years now there have been a number of users who would have like to purchase a Computer without the OS. The main reason being that they already own a license for XP or they want to install Linux. Dell are soon to begin shipping the Latitude n-Series Laptops in the States, to be followed with other models and in other territories.

Stolen Laptops, Identity Theft And Other Evils

In recent months a number of laptop thefts have left some high profile organisations particularly vulnerable. Laptops are amongst the most easy and also highly targeted hardware items. So why when this is the case do we still find individuals who insist on storing sensitive data on these devices. Especially when we can get easy access to secure network protocols and fast internet connectivity. The kinds of organizations that hold sensitive private data should be able to afford the kind of protection that current security measures and technologies provide. It should be illegal for these companies and organizations to allow such potential breaches and dangerous storage of private and sensitive information. Is your data safe?

NVidia Announces GeForce 8 for Laptops

Although rumours have been circulating the net for a while, NVidia plans to ship the new-and-improved hardware in time for the launch of Intel's upcoming Centrino Pro. This may actually be the first DirectX 10 laptop graphics hardware available. In time for great HD support and extreme res gaming as well as loads of cash from the public. Power graphics and processors for power players...

Blu-ray Laptops On The March

A few manufacturers have been recently showcasing Laptops outfitted with Blu-ray drives, Samsung have announced the M505, a 17" with a 1920x1200 resolution, a 120GB hard disk and 2GB of RAM, 256MB of GeForce Go 7600 graphics, Bluetooth 2.0 and 802.11a/b/g WiFi, and HDMI.

Sony have the Vaio VGN-AR11S which comes with an Intel Core Duo T2500 processor, which is a dual-core processor running each core at 2GHz, 1 GB of DDR2 memory, though to be honest you should upgrade it to 2GB, before you even think of picking it up. There are even two 100GB hard drives so storage shouldn't be a big issue.

Dell announced the XPS M1710 with a 1920x1200 screen, Nvidia's hypersonic GeForce Go 7950 GTX video card, 2GB of RAM, a 100GB hard drive, and a T7600 CPU it however only features a DVI-D (HDMI should have been used instead).