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Written on 29th December 2008
1 COMMENT 
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Those of you who live in the States have probably seen tons of OLPC ads lately. The charity organization is looking for new money streams to bring more laptops to developing countries. After trying to get people’s attention with a rather controversial – yet effective – ad in which children’s learning skills are projected on warfare and prostitution, OLPC now brings a dead Beatle back to life.
Yoko Ono has helped the laptop pioneers to create a digitally enhanced advertisement of Mr. Lennon. One of his most famous phrases, “imagine”, is used to convince you to donate some dollars for a good cause.
“Imagine every child no matter where in the world they were could access a universe of knowledge. You can give a child a laptop and more than imagine, you can change the world,” he states.”
I think the result is rather scary, yet it sure attracts a lot of attention.
Written on 14th November 2008
2 COMMENTS
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
At the World of Health IT Conference in Copenhagen, founder Nicholas Negroponte announced the launch of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organisation in Europe.
From November 17th the OLPC will be selling their laptops online via Amazon across 27 European countries, including Switzerland, Russia and Turkey.
The laptops will be sold under the Give One, Get One scheme which has been running in the US for some time already. Buyers purchase one for themselves and the second laptop is donated to a child in a developing country.
The Give One, Get One programme was first run in the US in December 2007, selling approximately 190,000 machines. The organisation however has recieved many complaints from buyers who never actually recieved their product, and this is what has lead to the partnership with Amazon. Additionally, the organisation has faced competition via Intel and their Classmate PC which has seen considerable uptake, particularly across South America.
The XO laptop is expected to price at approximately £268 (313 euros).
Written on 4th November 2008
2 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
You might not realize it when you’re playing around with a fancy Macbook, but the laptop has been around for forty years now. It all started with the Dynabook, a conceptual system proposed by Xerox PARC in 1968. Credits for this innovation that inspired computer makers to work on laptops and tablet pc’s go to researcher Alan Kay.
Like every tech inventor, he isn’t satisfied with the recent developments. Kay doesn’t like the fact that small mobile devices are capable of the same things as laptops.
When Kay designed the prototypes of the Dynabook, he aimed for children. Of course, adults could have their way with the small computers, but the main focus was on developing educational applications for kids. So I guess it’s not a coincidence that Kay currently works for the One Laptop Per Child Project (OLPC).
To honor Kay’s achievements, Mountain View’s Computer History Museum on Wednesday will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the legendary Dynabook.
Here’s a video of Alan Kay’s recent Ted Talk.
[Hat tip: Bright]
Written on 6th September 2008
0 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
THe OLPC laptop, developed for people from third-world countries, isn’t very popular in the blogosphere. Despite it’s noble goal, bloggers hate the facts that the development goes so slow and that its price is still higher than $100. Apart from some funny news – people paying €500 for a graffiti version -, there’s hardly any positive news surrounding the green laptop.
Well, there is now. Paris-based video service Dailymotion has decided to take on another problem of the OLPC. The $100 laptop is unfortunately not compatible with the Adobe Flash player that Dailymotion and other video sharing sites rely on. So the enormous video site has decided to start a project which will make a large amount of videos accessible for people browsing on the OLPC computer.
The project consists of a special group where users can upload videos that are in fact compatible with the toylike-looking laptop. These videos are encoded in free standards, provided by the Xiph.Org Foundation: Ogg (container), Vorbis (audio) and Theora (compression).
Although Flash-compatibility would be the ultimate solution – like they say on ReadWriteWeb: “that’s just how it goes” – I like the fact Dailymotion is actually doing something to turn the OLPC laptop in a success. Because a project with such an ambitious and world-improving goal can use some respect. So that, in a while, (flash-based) videos of people kicking around with the laptop (believe it or not, there’s actually a man who did such a pathetic thing) will become absolutely intolerable and unheard of.
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
