The XO Laptop

Oh thanks, I was going to open something about this.

So much looks so cool!

I'm definitely thinking about this for sozlet. (Buy one for her, get one for another kid, all for $400.)

There was a great article about it in the NYT, let me get that...

Here we go:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/technology/circuits/04pogue.html

I love this:



and this:



That's more about the usage for the other kid than us, but I think that's great stuff.

Oh cool! Yes, I'm planning to get one for sure, maybe two if we have some extra money, and I love the idea that each one I buy for my kids provides one for a kid in the developing world.

The durability described in the article is also very cool. I remember when we had Duckie (no Ducklet yet) and he was still a baby, I kept thinking how cool it would be to make a child proof laptop (in terms of durability not keeping them out). This seems like what I was thinking of.

I'm curious about the Mesh network as I've never heard of it. I get that each laptop is a router, but not much else. Definitely will have to do some more research there. Glad I'm not alone in thinking this is cool.

And the price, even at $400 is a great deal. Two laptops for the price of an iPhone.

On this -- OpenOffice does run on Linux. I wonder what impact installing it would have on performance. I'm starting to get impatient to get my hands on one just to play with it.

Me too. I just signed up for the reminder email.

One thing I'm not clear about is how it works for regular internet uses. Example -- the kid loves to play on Webkinz.com. Sounds like it wouldn't really work for that. More for educational uses (word processing) and music and general experimentation-type stuff, all of which I approve of. But the main reason she hovers over me and whines about wanting to use the computer when I'm trying to get work done is Webkinz-type stuff (or Nick.com, or...), and I'm not sure it'd be worth it to get one and then still have her want to use my computer anyway.

Do you have a feel for that?

I think it does support regular internet usage, but the mesh networking is to create local peer to peer networks in the case where there is no internet access. If one computer has internet access then others can access that automatically since the one acts as a router. So, the only thing holding sozlet back from using the internet would be a browser. I haven't seen specs on whether one is included, and the standard browsers available are resource heavy making them not ideal for this application. I'll dig and see what I can find out.

Ah, found it.

(Duh to self, the browser bit was in the article. I skipped right over it.)

Seems like it has its own web browser:



(From the Pogue article.)

Jinx...!

OK, so that's answered.

I don't speak Computer well enough to make sense of this:



I think both Webkinz and Nick.com are pretty bloaty -- but not sure how to determine that.

Yeah, I know for sure Nick.com is bloaty (lots of flash and client-side memory usage), even for my iBook, so there will probably be an issue there. It's something to keep in mind.

Another bit that has me interested and that I can see at least one of my kids (and myself) taking advantage of:

Yeah, that's so great. I can't see myself doing it... maybe... but I bet sozlet would love it. She's a major experimenter (take stuff apart, put it back together. She keeps doing stuff on my computer that puts me into a panic, then she fixes it with a patronizing roll of her eyes. Kids today, I tell ya...)

Whippersnappers.

I ordered two and the kids got them yesterday (we don't really celebrate Christmas, so we didn't wait). They LOVE them. I am so impressed. They're playing with them right now, as a matter of fact, and played with them last night for almost 4 hours. I'll try to summarize my awe.

Collaboration -- the reviews I've read that involved children evaluating the XO were interesting, but I don't think you grasp the full power until you have two or more kids collaborating. Every activity on the XO can be shared. One of my kids invites the other (they're automagically on the same mesh network) to chat or play the memory game or any of the other activities and everything is suddenly twice as much fun. I'm thinking that this is where kids in educational environments will get the most value.

Intuitive interface -- my daughter, who is almost 6, seems to almost instinctively know where to go and just discovers things spontaneously. This makes me think it will be a hit with the not-quite-yet-reading crowd.

The cool activities -- I can't name them all, but my current favorite is the acoustic tape measure. Two collaborating kids stand a distance apart and their laptops measure the distance between them by sending sound bursts to each other. There's also a built in camera that does video. The kids had a blast taking video of themselves and each other.

It's not really that slow -- not to a kid and not really to me, either. There's a small delay when starting programs, but it's not much worse than a slightly delayed web page. As long as you shut down activities when you're done with them, the performance is fine.

The OLPC library -- is included as a tool bar that hangs on the left of the browser. It has world maps, an encyclopedia, dictionary, and lots of other interesting bits.

It's idiot proof -- that's right, mom broke Ducklet's laptop this morning while poking around in the command line interface (it's Linux underneath) and almost broke down in tears before finding out that these things ship with a backup install image that you can boot from in case of emergencies. Whew!

Overall, these things are way better than I thought they'd be. I'm really, really glad I got them for my kids and even more happy that two kids somewhere in Afghanistan or Indonesia got them too. And that last bit made my kids feel pretty good.

This is so cool FreeDuck. Thanks for all of the info. We got ours in yesterday also and it's sitting under the Christmas tree. We haven't decided just how to donate it yet. Through a school, church or a program for underpriviledged kids. I just want to make sure that it gets to a child who will truly appreciate and benefit from it.

Awesome, I didn't know you'd ordered one too. I don't know how to go about finding a child to donate to in the U.S., but I hope you find someone to give it to who will get the most from it.

When I told my son that two kids in another country got these because we donated them he said "I hope it isn't a country we're at war with, because then they'll just get burned up." The kid kills me.