OLPC: what went wrong?
I've used Sugar, the Fedora based OS it's running. I kimda enjoy it. I do want to tinker with the hardware though
Too ahead of it's time.
$200 for a computer meant for poor kids in countries where they don't even have running water would be absolutely laughable today.
In actual deployment, the OLPC XO proved too fragile to withstand any use.
Test classrooms that received OLPCs would quickly stop using them because half the class would break their shiny rich people toy.
I really don't know why anyone thought this was a good idea.
These people don't even have running water, why the fuck do they need computers?
This was before the "LEARN TO CODE" movement, so it was even more baffling.
Nobody in Africa needs a shitty computer
>>52569577
It's the poster child of project failure. It's well documented so look it up. Wikipedia is sanitized but basically almost none of the computers ended up being used as intended.
It doesn't run on NiggerOS
OLPC's software has an interesting mesh networking mode.
It was lead by Stupid SJWs thinking they can change the world by teaching Javascript to poor negroes, so it was doomed from the start.
>>52569840
>not NegrOS
One job.
I didnt know it had a gamepad.
>>52569577
>wireless mesh networking
>two mode display
they were selling it to the wrong market
The problem is that poor brown people lack the brain power to use a computer and the ones that are smart enough will disassemble it and use the parts to manufacture crude explosives
android came and gave poor people cheap mobile computers.
It didn't have twitter and world star hiphop.
>>52569577
Cute design desu
Still USED PC / LAPTops are cheaper and more relaiable.
they should just send all used c2d pc and laptops and simply refubrish it.
I bought c2d dell for 50 usd in 2 world country as server.
Did you ever use one? It's slow as shit. The CPU was not enough. I haven't used every version, but judging from the specs I don't think they did much improving over time.
Couple the underperformance with the fact that this is the same period where websites went from simple to bloated as fuck and it shortly became useless to browse the web. An obvious use case.
If it were made today, it might run Android and be able to take advantage of the mobile app market. It was too underpowered for web browsing, the Linux OS that was installed, and even for its own shitty OS. Ok, the OS wasn't bad, just kinda useless and slow. Looked pretty though.
You could barely even use it for email. I mean, come on, what were they thinking? Email was the first killer Internet app, then the web.
Don't feel bad though. All those poor kids? They now have smartphones which pretty much have all the functionality the OLPCs had.
Charity foundations are always neoliberal scams and money laundering schemes.
Only socialism can lift people out of poverty.
>>52570390
Good fucking point. Why are we not just shipping old, obsolete machines over to Africa to be used rather than to China where they're improperly dismantled anyways? Why create brand new machines that are already sub-standard when the world has loads of old computers that nobody in the Western world wants anymore?
>>52570798
but africa is the largest electronics recycler in the world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd_ZttK3PuM
>>52570798
those 100$ computers were suppose to use a few watts.
>Africa
>electricity
pick one
>>52570718
>Only socialism can lift people out of poverty.
Thanks for the chuckle.
>>52570889
I choose electricity
>>52570889
>not reading about windmills one time at the library and then building wind generators out of trees and scrap
You are weak and you will not survive the winter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arD374MFk4w
people complaining about OLPC being underpowered and useless also say the same thing about rasperyberry pi.
it wasnt meant for you to watch 1080p youtube videos.
I have one sunce they first went on give ine get one sale and it's not very usable.
The display technology was a nice conceot but the technology just wasn't picked up by mainstream to make it cheaper on high volumes.
>>52569577
Giving computers to people that can barely feed themselves was never going to go well
>>52570296
SQUAAAAAAD
PUTTEMINNACOFFIN
>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 wanted an operating system that can be tinkered with: "We declined because it’s not open source." Therefore, Linux was chosen. However, after a deal with Microsoft, the laptop will now be offered with Windows XP along with an open source alternative.
>>52570974
africans reading?
africans inventing?
You are weak and you will not survive the winter?
that is true. its why i live in texas. hell im loving this global warming right now since it only hit 30 degrees once maybe twice this winter.
it was too expensive
there wasn't much you could do on it
and it was targeted at the wrong market
there are plenty of places with poor children AND electricity, the fucking solar panels and dynamo chargers and whatever were a dumb idea
they had one at my work, i spent 15 minutes trying to open it and then i gave up. i don't know how impoverished african children are supposed to do it. maybe i'm just dumb
>>52569577
It used Linux.
>>52571037
>i don't know how impoverished african children are supposed to do it.
same way people from the 70s and 80s did it.
you either dont mind the shitty specs and just learn to love it or you go outside and remain computer illiterate.
>>52571024
>Windows XP
>>52569577
questionable learning value aside, it was conceived shortly before tablets and ebook readers came around, which do all the same things and are cheaper
No hand-crank charger.
>>52570981
You can't watch any YouTube videos with OLPC. Not powerful enough to run flash.
>>52571037
>i spent 15 minutes trying to open it and then i gave up
You flip up the wifi antennae and that unlocks the lid.
>>52571024
what the fuck would nigglets even do with source code
The only instance I've come across an OLPC was in a thrift store last year, but they wanted $50 for it, which seemed too high for something I would likely use once and completely forget about the following week.
>>52570296
SHEEEIIIT!
>>52571316
>youtube requires flash
are you sure *you're* not the nigger?
I'll tell you another fucking shitty thing about it.
They wanted Linux so kids could tinker? BULL fucking SHIT. Thing was locked down harder than an iPhone. You needed to get a special developer's code, direct from the OLPC people, to be able to root it. Even then, the hardware was so weird good luck trying to get anything to run on it save for custom shit.
I think they wanted to make it so that no matter what stupid shit a kid did to it, a teacher could reset it back to new somehow by only doing a simple reboot sequence. They sacrificed tinkering for being able to easily reset the stupid hunk of shit.
>>52569577
Too fragile. They all broke. The end.
>>52571338
the point is that they wanted free software contributors to build their software for them, instead of paying for real programmers, so it had to have source code available
>>52571368
YouTube in 2006, asswipe. Besides, good luck running h264 on an OLPC. Not gonna happen either.
>>52570088
That inspires me
>>52571338
Find a way to print more welfare checks?
Clone EBT cards?
Fuck more white women?
>>52571338
take it apart and manufacture it into explosives
>>52571460
Process it into some weird jenkem-like drug.
>>52571672
jenkem isn't real
>>52571983
For you
>>52570889
>>52570963
/pol/ please go.
>>52569577
Like every other attempt to help the third world. No one can compete with free shit. You give free food to poor countries, you ensure they never develop agriculture further. You give them free clothes, they never develop textiles. You give them free computers when they don't even have clothes or food yet, how could it be anything but a total disaster?
>>52569767
Pretty good summation. I do wish some company would bring to market a commodity laptop, rugged and expandable/repairable/upgradeable. A VW bug of computers, because they're gonna be with us forever. Focus on ability to run an OS, numerous ports USB 3 or -C, widely available power plug, etc. A fairphone type thing, but a laptop. It'd end up in use cases that the OLPC was aiming for, but many many more workhorse uses, and would sell a mint.
>>52569767
It was the "technology is the solution" movement.
Exactly the same reason why the failing schools of the county I live in are equipped with imacs at a very low ratio of PC per student and better equipment and facilities than most and yet produce no results.
That movement is still going strong with lets get kids ipads and chromebooks.
>>52570718
Naomi Klein pls.
>>52569577
Wait, was the whole idea of this "throw computers to poor people, that will make them smart."
>>52573574
Yes that was the entire fucking idea. Give cheap tech to blacks in Africa and suddenly they would be just as productive as white and Asians.
It was a dumb fucking idea.
>>52569577
It wasn't the idea of it being a cheap low-power computer. Android is actually succeeding now in bringing computers to the 3rd world.
No, the biggest problem was that it had shit "lets make everything new and kid-friendly" software, which wasn't based on anything other than adult's ideas of kids. Also they wanted them to get to program and what not.
Kids also want adult operating systems and they *certainly* can handle the modern ones, as simple as they are to operate now. They'd better just have deployed normal desktop Linux or whatever, and done.
>>52571024
>Seymour Papert
The guy did some early experiments in personal computing with children in the 1970's. He thought he could recreate the same thing wtih brown niglets in the 2000's.
I mean we all know that middle/upper class western children inside an excellent tutoring enviroment are the same as 80 iq brown people with no sanitation.
What could go wrong.
>>52569767
>These people don't even have running water, why the fuck do they need computers?
>This was before the "LEARN TO CODE" movement, so it was even more baffling.
I think the idea was that having Internet access would give them access to more and better educational materials. The Internet does make it a lot easier to learn about things, especially if you don't have a good library at your disposal. I assume that participating schools were set up with wifi, and hence those silly antennas.
>>52575190
It was a pretty cool project though.
Every application had a hotkey which took you to the source code, display had different modes, made to be run where access to electricity is scarce.
Africa is a hellhole, they need clean water, not kiddy computers
>>52569816
It doesn't surprise me desu. How could Africa niggers get OLPC (one laptop per child) while I still had to share the family pentium 4 housefire computer?
>>52576527
Arguably, having some household medical self-diagnostic book or all sorts of farming and construction and other manuals and just Wikipedia at your disposal helps a great deal.
Better yet if it's internet access, which Africa increasingly has. Slow internet access by mobile phone networks, but anyway....
