Quite some years ago, we brought the #OLPC AKA the 100$ laptop to Rwanda [1].
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Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:replied to Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange: last edited by [email protected]
Going through my archives, I notice I might have been confused. This goes back even further. This happened 2006-08 in the pilot in Ethiopia. Rwanda was 2014. At that time the LED was already long gone. My apologies. I have corrected the original toot. 5/8
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Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:replied to Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange: last edited by [email protected]
(Thank you all for being kind and respectful in the comments thus far. The OLPC was (and is) a defining part of my private and professional life. I was only involved on the sidelines but I met people that were so deeply invested into the ideas. Developers. Children. Teachers. But also aggressive opponents, lobbyists that did everything possible to kill the project. It teached me a lot. And I still feel sad it never lived up to its potential. Maybe it will. I'm still a believer) Me, 2007 6/8
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Other than the Briar Project, I know of nothing that addresses handset to handset direct comms. And no one I know is even vaguely interested in it and few, other than activisty tech types, even think the idea has value.
It's maddening. castoff phones on thrift stores, wifi only even, no sim, have more computing power than most people had in 1990. And no interest in them except as commodity platforms for whatever it is we do.
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Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:replied to tom jennings last edited by
@tomjennings The totally weird thing is that Apple implemented such a thing with Airdrop. It was used in the Hong Kong protests to distribute warnings and calls for demonstrations. Ultimately Apple had to change its implementation after pressure by the Chinese government. @simon
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Gabriel Nreplied to Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange: last edited by
@jwildeboer I never got to see one in person. I did get to buy a knock off from HP and installed Ubuntu on it. Used it for web development.
The ideas sparked from the OLPC live on.
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Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:replied to Gabriel N last edited by
@wtrmt Whenever you're in Munich, happy to meet and bring one or two along for you to fiddle with
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kattekrabreplied to Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange: last edited by
@jwildeboer we gave away OLPC machines at linux.conf.au 2008 in Melbourne.
I was also a huge fan of the program and sorry it did not reach its full potential. But I believe it changed computing. Cheaper laptops made it more accessible to more people. The eepc and chromebooks came after.
Iβve lost track of whatβs happening with sugar. I should revisit it all.
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Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:replied to kattekrab last edited by [email protected]
@kattekrab "The little machine that could" will always come to mind whenever I see one
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Moto :rainbowinfinity:replied to Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange: last edited by
@jwildeboer @tomjennings @simon Did not know about Apple changing implementation - now I wonder how long Iβve been assuming Bluetooth where there was actually an internet involved.
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Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:replied to Moto :rainbowinfinity: last edited by [email protected]
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RealGene β£οΈreplied to Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange: last edited by
@jwildeboer
Y'all abandoned the hand crank. -
Blacklight447replied to Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange: last edited by
@jwildeboer What DE/OS combo was running on these? I don't recognize the UI.
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Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:replied to Blacklight447 last edited by
@blacklight447 They run Fedora with the Sugar UI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_(desktop_environment)
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But what would have been the commercial and government/regulatory incentives to make this happen?
Telcos want to be able to charge you, and governments like knowing where you are and who you talk to.
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CGdoppelpunktreplied to Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange: last edited by
What happened to the initiative later?
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Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:replied to RealGene β£οΈ last edited by
@RealGene The hand crank was never real, BTW.
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Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange:replied to CGdoppelpunkt last edited by
@CGdoppelpunkt It's still around In total around 3 million laptops have been distributed over the years. https://laptop.org/aboutolpc/
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@tomjennings @simon @jwildeboer
I agree. -
Paolo Redaellireplied to Jan Wildeboer π·:krulorange: last edited by
@jwildeboer @OLPC #meshNetwork is something we should really get as default in all #laptops and #phones. I will try to keep an eye on #IEEE802.11s
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@MonniauxD @simon @jwildeboer There are some technical reasons also. Cellular networks (and coordinated deployment) are very, very efficient and can provide stable services (and QoS).
Meshed networks and ad-hoc deployment work at a different operating point.