   #copyright

Children's Machine

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Computing hardware and
infrastructure

                     The Children's Machine
   The latest prototype of the device, named the 2B1
     Manufacturer   Quanta Computers
         Type       Laptop
     Connectivity   802.11b/g  /s wireless LAN
                    3 USB 2.0 ports
   Operating System Fedora Core-based
        Camera      built-in video camera (640×480; 30 FPS)
        Media       512 MiB – 1 GiB flash memory
        Input       Keyboard
                    Touchpad
                    microphone
        Power       NiMH battery pack
         CPU        AMD Geode GX500@1.0W + 5536
        Memory      128 MiB DRAM
       Display      dual-mode 19.3 cm diagonal TFT LCD 1200×900

   The Children's Machine, or 2B1, is a proposed inexpensive laptop
   computer intended to provide every child in the world access to
   knowledge and modern forms of education. It was previously known as the
   $100 Laptop. The laptop is being developed by the One Laptop per Child
   (OLPC) trade association. OLPC is a U.S. based, non-profit organization
   created by faculty members of the MIT Media Lab to design, manufacture,
   and distribute the laptops.

   The computers will be rugged and use Linux for their operating system .
   Mobile ad-hoc networking may be used to allow many machines Internet
   access from one connection over the OLSR wireless protocol. The pricing
   goal is currently expected to start at around US$135-140 and reach the
   US$100 mark in 2008. The laptops will be sold to governments and issued
   to children by schools on a basis of one laptop per child.

One Laptop per Child association

   The One Laptop per Child association (OLPC) is a Delaware based,
   non-profit organization set up to oversee The Children's Machine
   project and the construction of the 2B1 "$100 laptop". Both the project
   and the organization were announced at the World Economic Forum in
   Davos, Switzerland in January 2005.

   OLPC is funded by a number of sponsor organizations. These include AMD,
   Brightstar Corporation, eBay, Google, Marvell, News Corporation, SES
   Global, Nortel Networks, and Red Hat. Each company has donated two
   million dollars.

   The organization is chaired by Nicholas Negroponte and its CTO is Mary
   Lou Jepsen. Other principals of the company include former MIT Media
   Lab director Walter Bender, who is President of OLPC Software and
   Content, and Jim Gettys, Vice-President of Software Engineering.

History

   Mary Lou Jepsen, Alan Kay and Nicholas Negroponte unveil the $100
   laptop
   Enlarge
   Mary Lou Jepsen, Alan Kay and Nicholas Negroponte unveil the $100
   laptop

   OLPC is based on constructionist learning theories pioneered by Seymour
   Papert, Alan Kay, and also on the principles expressed in Nicholas
   Negroponte’s book Being Digital. The founding corporate members are
   Google, News Corp, AMD, Red Hat, Brightstar and Nortel, each of whom
   donated two million dollars to the project. All three individuals and
   six companies are active participants in OLPC.

   The organization gained much attention when Nicholas Negroponte and
   Kofi Annan unveiled a working prototype of the CM1 on November 16, 2005
   at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis,
   Tunisia. Negroponte showed two prototypes of the laptop at the second
   phase of the World Summit: a non working physical model and a tethered
   version using an external board and separate keyboard. The device shown
   was a rough prototype using a standard development board. Negroponte
   estimated that the screen alone required three more months of
   development. The first working prototype was demonstrated at the
   project's Country Task Force Meeting on May 23, 2006. The production
   version is expected to have a larger display screen in the same size
   package. The laptops are scheduled to be available by the end of 2006
   or early 2007.

   At the 2006 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the United
   Nations Development Program (UNDP) announced it would back the laptop.
   UNDP released a statement saying they would work with OLPC to deliver
   “technology and resources to targeted schools in the least developed
   countries”.
   First generation prototype
   Enlarge
   First generation prototype

   The OLPC board of directors announced on December 13, 2005 that Quanta
   Computers had been chosen as the original design manufacturer (ODM) for
   the $100 laptop project. The decision was made after the board reviewed
   bids from several possible manufacturing companies. The company
   emphasized that there was a lot of work that remains to be done: “We
   still need to put a large amount of research and development into this,
   and will then hopefully be ready to make a finished product in the
   second half of next year 2006”, according to Quanta. Over the next six
   months, a team at Quanta Research Institute is going to be focusing on
   the $100 laptop.

Pricing

   The project originally aimed for a price of 100 United States dollars.
   In May 2006, Negroponte told the Red Hat's annual user summit: "It is a
   floating price. We are a nonprofit organization. We have a target of
   $100 by 2008, but probably it will be $135, maybe $140. That is a start
   price, but what we have to do is with every release make it cheaper and
   cheaper--we are promising that the price will go down."

Participating countries

   Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, with a prototype.
   Enlarge
   Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, with a prototype.

   The following states have already "committed” to the project in various
   ways, according to Negroponte’s press releases. However, the commitment
   is not binding. The laptops will be sold to governments, to be
   distributed through the ministries of education willing to adopt the
   policy of “one laptop per child”.
     * Brazil
     * Thailand, although Thailand's participation was cancelled after a
       military coup.
     * Egypt
     * United States (specifically the states of Massachusetts and Maine)
     * Cambodia
     * Dominican Republic
     * Costa Rica
     * Tunisia
     * Argentina
     * Venezuela
     * Nigeria
     * Libya

   Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has submitted a bill to the
   legislature to deliver $100 laptops to all children in the state.
   Nigeria is the first country to order one million laptop computers.

   On October 11, 2006 The New York Times reported that OLPC had reached
   an agreement with the government of Libya to supply laptops to all of
   its 1.2 million school children. The $250 million deal includes
   satellite Internet access, one server per school and technical support.

   India has rejected the initiative, saying "it would be impossible to
   justify an expenditure of this scale on a debatable scheme when public
   funds continue to be in inadequate supply for well-established needs
   listed in different policy documents".

   While the OLPC originally planned to make the laptop available only
   through governments, Negroponte has indicated that they may partner
   with well known brand-name manufacturers to create a commercial
   version. Selling for about $225, this would subsidize units in the
   developing world.

Technology

   2B1 will be a Linux-based, full-colour, full-screen laptop. It will
   initially have a flat LCD screen, but in later generations may use
   electronic paper such as e-ink. The laptop will be rugged, use
   innovative power (possibly a pedal), be Wi-Fi- and VoIP-enabled and a
   touch screen (including a separate writing pad).

Design requirements

   Mary Lou Jepsen stated the hardware design goals of this device as:
     * minimal power consumption, with a design target of 2–3  W total
       power consumption
     * minimal production cost, with a target of $100 per laptop for
       production runs of one million units;
     * a ‘cool’ look, implying innovative styling in its physical
       appearance
     * e-book functionality with extremely low power consumption
     * the software provided with the laptop be open source and free
       software

   The software design requirements and the educational objectives have
   not been described publicly.

   Various use models are currently being explored by the MIT Media Lab
   with the help of Design Continuum and Fuseproject, including: laptop,
   e-book, theatre, simulation, tote, and tablet architectures.

Hardware

   Second generation prototype
   Enlarge
   Second generation prototype

   The hardware specifications as of May 2006 are:

Features

     * CPU: AMD Geode GX2-500 at 1.1W, with integrated graphics controller
     * CPU clock speed: 366 Mhz
     * SVGA 7.5" diagonal transmissive and reflective liquid crystal
       display used in one of two modes:
          + Reflective “sunlight readable” monochrome mode with 1200 by
            900 screen resolution (for e-book reading outdoors—this is
            200dpi)
          + Transmissive Colour mode with approximately 800x600 pixel
            resolution with backlighting (for laptop use)

   Depending on mode, power consumption of the display is between .1 and
   one watt.
     * 128  MiB of Dual – DDR266 – 133 Mhz DRAM
     * 1024  KiB flash ROM with open-source LinuxBIOS
     * 512 MiB of SLC NAND flash memory
     * External SD card slot
     * VGA resolution (640x480) colour camera
     * Wireless networking using an “Extended Range” 802.11b/g wireless
       chipset run at a low bitrate (2 Mbit/s) to minimize power
       consumption.
     * Marvell 8388 wireless chip, chosen due to its ability to
       autonomously forward packets in the mesh even if the CPU is powered
       off.
     * Dual adjustable antennae for diversity reception.
     * Conventional layout alphanumeric keyboard localized for the country
       of use.
     * Dual five-key cursor-control pads; four directional keys plus Enter
     * Touchpad for mouse control and handwriting input
     * Built-in stereo speakers
     * Built-in microphone
     * Audio based on the AC97 codec, with jacks for external stereo
       speakers and microphones, Line-out, and Mic-in
     * 3 external USB2 ports.
     * Power sources:
          + DC input, ±10–25 V
          + 5-cell rechargeable NiMH battery pack, 22.8 watt-hour (82 KJ)
            capacity

Intentionally omitted features

   In keeping with its goals of robustness and low power consumption, the
   design of the laptop intentionally omits all motor-driven moving parts;
   it has no hard drive, no optical (CD/DVD), or floppy drives and no
   fans. An ATA interface is unnecessary due to the lack of hard drive.
   There is also no PC Card slot, although an SD slot will be available.

   Floppy disks, hard disks, CD drives, DVD drives, USB drives, and many
   other peripherals can be connected via the USB ports. Further expansion
   is available through an external SD card slot.

   A built-in hand- crank generator was part of the original design, but
   Negroponte stated at a 2006 LinuxWorld talk that it was no longer
   integrated into the laptop itself, but optionally available as a hand-
   or foot-operated generator built into a separate power unit.

Power consumption

   The power consumption design target is 4W total power consumption for
   the device in laptop mode; consumption in e-book mode is estimated to
   be 0.3 to 0.8W. By contrast, typical Apple laptops idle around 15W and
   peak at around 20W; with reduced backlight and CPU performance and
   Wifi/Bluetooth disabled, they can reach 11W; and even in sleep mode
   they consume 2W.

   In e-book mode, all hardware sub-systems are powered down except the
   monochrome display (including any display backlighting). When the user
   moves to a different page the system wakes up, draws the new page on
   the display and then goes back to sleep.

Display

   The first-generation OLPC laptops are expected to have a novel low-cost
   liquid crystal display. Later generations of the OLPC laptop are
   expected to use low-cost, low-power and high-resolution electronic
   paper displays.

   The display is the most expensive component of the OLPC Laptop. In
   April 2005, Negroponte hired Mary Lou Jepsen—who is expected to join
   the Media Arts and Sciences faculty at the MIT Media Lab in September
   2007—as OLPC Chief Technology Officer. Jepsen is developing a new
   display for the first-generation OLPC laptop, which is derived from the
   design of small LCDs used in portable DVD players, which she estimated
   would cost about $35.

   Jepsen has described the removal of the filters that colour the RGB
   subpixels as the critical design innovation in the new liquid crystal
   display. Instead of using subtractive colour filters, the display uses
   a plastic diffraction grating and lenses on the rear of the LCD to
   illuminate the colored subpixels. This grating pattern is stamped using
   the same technology used to make DVDs. The grating splits the light
   from the white backlight into a spectrum. The red, green and blue
   components are diffracted into the correct positions to illuminate the
   corresponding R, G or B subpixels. This innovation results in a much
   brighter display and a corresponding reduction in backlight
   illumination: While the colour filters in a regular display typically
   absorb 85% of the light that hits them, this display absorbs little of
   that light.

   The remainder of the LCD uses existing display technology and can be
   made using existing manufacturing equipment. Even the masks can be made
   using combinations of existing materials and processes.

   The display is transmissive with backlighting when used in colour/DVD
   mode. The conventional cold cathode fluorescent lamp backlighting,
   which accounts for 30% of the cost of a conventional LCD, has been
   replaced with a lower-power, less fragile alternative such as white
   LEDs for use at low light levels. This form of backlighting should also
   improve the colour gamut of the display. The display is a reflective
   display (with no backlighting) when used in monochrome mode for
   displaying e-book pages. Mode change occurs with a change in use of the
   device. The landscape format colour display is used in laptop mode,
   whereas the portrait format monochrome display is used in e-book mode,
   so the displayed pages can be “read vertically like a book”. This is
   the so-called “curl-up-in-bed mode” to enable reading of e-books for an
   extended time in bright light such as sunlight. Negroponte has said at
   the Technology Review’s Fifth Annual Emerging Technologies Conference
   that the monochrome display has four times the resolution of the colour
   display.

   The dual-mode display was not operational in the WSIS prototype. The
   prototypes were shown with conventional transmission TFT LCDs.

Wireless networking

   IEEE 802.11b support will be provided using a Wi-Fi “Extended Range”
   chipset. Jepsen has said the wireless chipset will be run at a low
   bitrate, 2 Mbit/s maximum rather than the usual higher speed 5.5Mbit/s
   or 11Mbit/s to minimize power consumption.

   Whenever the laptop is powered on it will participate in a mobile
   ad-hoc network with each node operating in a peer-to-peer fashion with
   other laptops it can hear and forwarding packets across the cloud. If a
   computer in the cloud has access to the Internet (either directly or
   indirectly) then all computers in the cloud will be able to access the
   net. The data rate across this network will not be high but similar
   networks like the store and forward Motoman project have supported
   email services to 1000 schoolchildren in Cambodia, according to
   Negroponte. The data rate should be sufficient for asynchronous network
   applications such as email to communicate outside the cloud rather than
   interactive uses, like web browsing, or high-bandwidth applications,
   such as video streaming. Interactive network communication should be
   possible inside the cloud.

   The conventional IEEE 802.11b system only handles traffic within a
   local cloud of wireless devices in a manner similar to an Ethernet
   network. Each node transmits and receives its own data but does not
   route packets between two nodes that cannot communicate directly. The
   OLPC laptop will use IEEE 802.11s to form the wireless mesh network.

Keyboard and touchpad

   Negroponte and Jepsen have said the keyboard will be changed to suit
   local needs to match the standard keyboard for the country in which it
   is used. Some versions of prototype were shown at World Summit on the
   Information Society (WSIS) with a detachable keyboard (tethered by a
   cord); however, the working prototype demonstrated in May 2006 had a
   conventional built-in keyboard.

   Negroponte has demanded that the keyboard will not contain a caps lock
   key, which frees up keyboard real estate for new keys such as a "view
   source" key.

   Beneath the keyboard is a large area that resembles a very wide
   touchpad that Jepsen referred to as the “mousepad”. Negroponte has said
   that this device can be used for “calligraphy” presumably to support
   languages that use ideograms. This also implies that it will support
   both fingers and pen-like devices. The trackpad was not operational in
   the WSIS prototype.

Enclosure

   The enclosure is dirt- and moisture-resistant and is constructed with
   2mm-thick plastic—thicker than typical laptops. It features a pivoting,
   reversible display, movable WiFi antennas, and a sealed rubber-membrane
   keyboard.

Software

   Children in a remote Cambodian school where a pilot laptop program has
   been in place since 2001.
   Enlarge
   Children in a remote Cambodian school where a pilot laptop program has
   been in place since 2001.

   All of the software on the laptop will be open source. The projected
   software as of November 2006 is:
     * a pared-down version of Fedora Core as the operating system, with
       students receiving root access.
     * a web browser based upon the Gecko engine used by Firefox;
     * a word processor based upon Abiword;
     * email, chat, and VOIP programs;
     * several interpreted programming languages, including Logo,
       JavaScript, Python, Csound, and the eToys version of Squeak;
     * music and multimedia software, such as Jean Piché's TamTam, and
       Mplayer or Helix.

   Steve Jobs had offered Mac OS X free of charge for use in the laptop,
   but according to Seymour Papert, a professor emeritus at MIT who is one
   of the initiative's founders, the designers want an operating system
   that can be tinkered with: “We declined because it’s not open source.”
   Therefore Linux was chosen.

   Jim Gettys, responsible for the laptops' system software, has called
   for a re-education of programmers, saying that many applications use
   too much memory or even leak memory. "There seems to be a common
   fallacy among programmers that using memory is good: on current
   hardware it is often much faster to recompute values than to have to
   reference memory to get a precomputed value. A full cache miss can be
   hundreds of cycles, and hundreds of times the power consumption of an
   instruction that hits in the first level cache."

   On 4 August 2006, the Wikimedia Foundation announced that static copies
   of selected Wikipedia articles would be included on the laptops. Jimmy
   Wales, chair of the Wikimedia Foundation, said that "OLPC's mission
   goes hand in hand with our goal of distributing encyclopedic knowledge,
   free of charge, to every person in the world. Not everybody in the
   world has access to a broadband connection." Negroponte had earlier
   suggested he would like to see Wikipedia on the laptop. Wales feels
   that Wikipedia is one of the " killer apps" for this device.

   The laptop will use the Sugar graphical user interface, written in
   Python, on top of the X Window System.

Criticism

   Third generation prototype
   Enlarge
   Third generation prototype

   Though generally well received at early stages, the project has been
   criticized as unrealistic.

Technological aspects

   On November 10, 2005, Lee Felsenstein criticized the centralized,
   top-down, imperialistic design and distribution of the OLPC. Lee
   Felsenstein, currently of the Fonly Institute, draws upon his previous
   experience with distributed collaboration and open source hardware in
   the Homebrew Computer Club.

   On December 9, 2005 Intel Chairman Craig Barrett criticised the project
   for being a "$100 gadget": "... The problem is that gadgets have not
   been successful... It turns out what people are looking for is
   something that has the full functionality of a PC. Reprogrammable to
   run all the applications of a grown-up PC .... not dependent on servers
   in the sky to deliver content and capability to them, not dependent for
   hand cranks for power." On March 15, 2006, after having introduced the
   Ultra Mobile PC, Bill Gates mocked the project, saying “If you are
   going to go have people share the computer, get a broadband connection
   and have somebody there who can help support the user, geez, get a
   decent computer where you can actually read the text and you're not
   sitting there cranking the thing while you're trying to type.”

Good use of money

   At the UN conference in Tunisia, several African officials, most
   notably Marthe Dansokho of Cameroon and Mohammed Diop of Mali were
   suspicious of the motives of the project, and claimed that the project
   was using an overly American mindset that presented solutions not
   applicable to specifically African problems. Dansokho said the project
   demonstrated misplaced priorities, stating that clean water and schools
   were more important for African women, who he stated would not have
   time to use the computers to research new crops to grow, and Diop
   specifically attacked the project as an attempt to exploit the
   governments of poor nations by making them pay for hundreds of millions
   of machines.

   One criticism has been that the money of purchasing the laptops could
   be more favorably spent on libraries and schools. John Wood, founder of
   Room to Read, has emphasized what is affordable and can scale over
   high-tech solutions. While in favour of the One Laptop Per Child
   initative for providing education to children in the developing world
   at a cheaper rate, he has pointed out that a $2000 library can serve
   400 children, costing just $5 a child to bring access to a wide range
   of books in the local languages (such as Khmer or Nepali) and English;
   also a $10,000 school can serve 400-500 children ($20–$25 a child).
   According to Wood, these are more appropriate solutions for education
   in the dense forests of Vietnam or rural Cambodia.

   According to the OLPC wiki:


   Children's Machine

     It should be mentioned that a common criticism of the project is to
     say, "What poor people need is food and shelter, not laptops." This
     comment, however, is ignorant of conditions in impoverished nations
    around the world. While it is true there are many people in the world
    who definitely need food and shelter, there are multitudes of people
       who live in rural or sub-urban areas and have plenty to eat and
     reasonable accommodations. What these people don't have is a decent
                          shot at a good education.


   Children's Machine

Other criticisms

   Another criticism is that developed countries are giving poorer
   children laptops before they give their own children laptops. It is
   claimed that many children in the United States and other developed
   countries would benefit much more from the use of a laptop than
   children in undeveloped countries. In fact, some states in the U.S.
   (e.g. Maine and Georgia) are providing commercial laptops to pupils and
   the OLPC FAQ responds to the question: "Will the laptop be available
   for relatively developed nations?" by stating "We are exploring the
   possibility of developing a commercial version and we are in
   discussions with representatives from these nations about distribution
   of the non-commercial version. However, our priority is to make the
   laptop available first where there is the greatest need." The
   Commonwealth of Massachusetts is one of the initial participants in
   OLPC.

   The project has also received criticism due to the environmental and
   health impacts of hazardous materials found in computers. Many nations
   and organizations are working towards the development of “ Green
   Electronics” (e.g. European Union with Waste Electrical and Electronic
   Equipment Directive). While any project on this scale will have
   environmental impact, OLPC has asserted that it is aiming to use as
   environmentally friendly materials as they can; also that the laptop
   and all OLPC-supplied accessories will be fully RoHS compliant; and
   that the laptop will use an order of magnitude less power than the
   typical consumer laptops available today (as of 2006), reducing the
   environmental burden of power generation..

   Some people are criticizing the idea of not selling 2B1 on the open
   market. One concern is the possibility of arbitrage. If 2B1 is only
   made available in certain areas and to certain parties, a parallel
   black market for the laptops may develop. An arbitrageur could find a
   way to obtain the laptops for the going rate and resell them in the
   black market for a higher price. The presence of a black market could
   also encourage the intended owners to sell their laptops. Nicholas
   Negroponte addressed this concern during his presentation in the
   Emerging technologies Conference in September 2005:


   Children's Machine

   The grey market is a very serious issue. I don't want to be dismissive
     of it for a moment, and there are three ways of addressing it. Way
    number one is to have no market at all for it. I mean you can't sell
   it, who could buy it, and that isn't bullet proof. That's a little bit
      dreaming, but it's part of the equation. The second is to put the
       technologies into the device that help stop that. [The laptops
   distributed to middle schoolers in Maine are Apple iBooks] so they are
   not only great stuff to steal and we don't necessarily have corruption
     of that kind, but it's pretty transferable technology. They've put
   little things so the machine disables itself after a while if it hasn't
    connected to the school. You can put GPS in it, you can put all sorts
   of stuff. But then the third one, which I'm doing and I like is to make
   this machine so distinctive that it is socially a stigma to be carrying
   one if you are not a child or a teacher. Now you can obviously take it
    down to your basement, but I hope your spouse will even say: "Oh God!
   Honey! What did you do?" OK? you stole from the church. It's like a red
      cross on something. So I'm hoping that the distinctiveness of the
    product will be the third one that maybe isn't thought of that often.
   So those three combined will I hope at least limit this to one percent
          or two percent. It's not going to be just going into it.


   Children's Machine

   A project functionally similar to 2B1, the OpenBook Project, aims to
   create and maintain open hardware and software specifications to enable
   production of convenient "tablet" in high volumes at a price "under
   $500." Unlike the OLPC initiative, the project is aimed at the open
   market.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Machine"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
