Reposting a recent update by Jamaica’s Craig Perue

I have very good news. Just in time for the one year celebration of the launch of our XO deployments at August Town Primary and Providence Methodist Basic School, six members of the global OLPC community will be visiting us. They will be taking lots of pictures, doing interviews, workshop sessions, meeting the parents, teachers and students – all during the week of January 29 to February 5. One of the goals while they are here is to collect lots of content – National Geographic quality pictures and amazing stories that will be published later in the year along with those of five other small OLPC deployments worldwide.

This is an initiative to publicize to a worldwide audience the great OLPC work being done in Jamaica, Madagascar (Nosy Komba), Philippines, Kenya, Haiti, and Vietnam.

The team visiting Jamaica includes:

- documentary film maker, Bill Stelzer, who works with the OLPC deployments in the US Virgin Islands
- OLPC’s community support manager since 2007, Adam Holt, who splits his time between Boston and Haiti
- executive director of Ntugi Group, Mark Battley, who support OLPC implementations in Northern Kenya
- Quentin Peries Joly and Laura de Reynal, University students from OLPC France who have done extensive work with the OLPC project in Nosy Komba, Madagascar
- Nancie Severs, who envisioned and started the first OLPC deployment in a floating village, Vietnam.

Last November, Richard Smith gave a talk on potential power sources for OLPC at the Energy Harvesting USA conference.

Ars Technica recently reviewed the XO-3 and XO-1.75 with an eye towards the future implications of low-power computing, discussing power generation by hand, by bike, and by water wheel as well as through solar panels.

Of course we’re not done with the low-power revolution; phones and computers – even the latest XOs – are still too power hungry to be quickly and easily charged by ambient light (as solar calculators are) or by hand (despite the simplicity of hand cranks, legs are much better suited for generating power than arms and hands). So while alternate charging works it requires explicit attention and preparation.

But in places without electrical infrastructure that have some steady source of power, computers and computing can increasingly be part of everyday life.

Richard Smith recently answered questions about the XO-3 power requirements, with an illuminating video of the similar XO-1.75 running directly off a 10W solar panel (without a battery).  Below is his update to olpc’s devel mailing-list:

> Q: What are the XO-3 power consumption and charging requirements?

It’s still too early to lay out exact claims for this. These are A1 prototypes. This is the stage where we start finding all the things that use more power than we would like, and reduce them. The exact size of the battery is also changing as we maximize the space in the battery cavities.

We won’t make exact claims on power until it moves well into B- and C-series builds. That said, a lot of internals are almost identical to the 1.75, so things I’ve previously said about 1.75 are a good approximation of the XO-3.

• The traditional display consumes more power than the Pixel-Qi.
• The maximum runtime power draw of the 1.75 is 5W. (Not including the extra 5W you can draw from the USB port.)
• The power input front end of the XO-3 is identical to the XO-1.75 and XO-1.5: an 11V-25V input range and a maximum input rating of 25W.
• The XO-3 can also be powered by USB OTG (On-The-Go).
• The XO-3 would survive long term if you connected it directly to a car/motorcycle 12V power system (with no adapter).
  (I don’t think any other tablet made so far could say that.)

Here’s a video showing a 1.75 powered completely by our 10W PV panel.  This is a raw panel, with no power controller or internal battery; there is no battery in the XO. The laptop has suspension turned off. Chris Ball and I shot it yesterday, on a sunny winter day in Cambridge.  More notes and details below, for the power geeks.

Unlike the XO-1.5 the XO-1.75 almost never gets to the 25W maximum because its runtime power is much lower. So peak power draw only happens when charging a very low battery.

OTG has a strict 5V/7.5W power specification so charging via OTG will take longer. No, I’ve not yet measured how much longer. Sadly its not a nice linear thing that you can just do the math and figure out. There are many variables some of which will change with the next prototypes.

Having a robust, wide voltage range, high power input is an important feature when using alternative power sources. Alternative power can be very unclean and very sporadic. You must be very forgiving on what you allow and when its available you want to maximize your input.

> Has it been demonstrated to be chargeable by “solar panels,
> hand cranks cranks and other alternative power sources?”
> [Sources] not requiring systems that cost more than the laptop,
> nor someone with XO-green skin color to crank?

The claim of being chargeable by alternate power sources isn’t new.  Every XO generation we have made to date matches this claim, and in each generation we make an improvement.

It’s always been possible to charge an XO from alternative power sources. Sites in Rwanda, Peru, Haiti and the Solomon Islands (just to name a few) are powered entirely by solar. These use XO-1′s and XO-1.5′s. Some use a commercial-type solar system and some are just solar panels that connect directly to the XOs.  Read more:

The XO-1 and XO-1.5 had maximum runtime peak power draws in the 10W range. Running things like the camera activity which keep the system busy would draw that power continuously. If you didn’t have 10W of input you’d go backwards. Most people don’t really realize how much work 10W of continuous power is. The physical size of a 10W solar panel isn’t huge but its still pretty large and you need perfect solar conditions for that 10W. So what you really need is a larger solar panel that so a wide range of solar conditions still work.

The XO-1.75 and the XO-3 tablet have a runtime peak power draw in the 5W range and they idle even lower. So power sources with peak production in the 5-7W range can fully power the new XO devices in a variety of conditions. A 10W panel would almost certainly have no net power draw unless the solar conditions were really terrible.

Via @ErikFerkak on Twitter:

This is a must have for any zombie apocalypse survivor. Who cares if the electricity is down! #olpc #zombie #apocalypse

A new batch of photos of the XO-3 in use is up on the posted on the OLPC wiki, along with images of the alpha test boards and schematics.

Nothing like a little transparency to start the week off right…  This is still not the final ID, there are still changes being made to the ports and cover, but we’re getting verrry close.

One question from a CBS News poll of 951 adults nationwide:

Over 1/4 of Americans polled estimated the national population at 1 billion

Updated Wednesday with more tech and design coverage.

A quick summary of the latest 250 articles about the XO-3 launch (updating regularly; links welcome in comments):

The Verge – XO 3.0 tablet photos and video
Gizmodo – Hands on with the $100 wonder tablet
Ars Technica – Charging by crank, bicycle, and waterwheel

Gadgets/computing:
OLPC.TV – xo-3 unveiled
Liliputing – olpc to introduce
Engadget – xo 3.0 hands on
Slashdot – xo-3 but not for
Slashgear – xo-3 hands on
Mashable – olpc tablet
T3 – xo3 tablet
Gizmodo – first images
Wired gadget – olpt finally (video)
PCMag – article
LaptopMag – 6 min of hand crank
CNET – tablet to launch
Digital Trends – show off tablet
GigaOm – offgrid clean power solar Education:
Education Week – low-cost tablet debuts
Tech 4 Teachers – xo-3 tablet
Edudemic – replace ipad in classroom
New Scientist – one percent: OLPC

Design:
FastCo Design – fuseproject third-gen olpc
Dexigner – yves behar unveils
Design Week – behar tablet

Other blogs and mags:
Venture mag – ARM fuels
Market 2 Phones - olpc tablet

Italy:
indipedia.it
atcasa – il nuovo tablet per bambini

Portugal:
lerebooks.wordpress.com

Germany:
heise.de – gallery
computerbild.de

Uruguay has now deployed over 500,000 XOs to students from 1st to 9th grade, since 2007. This includes a nationwide laptop deployment, a nationwide wifi rollout, teacher training, material development, and maintenance & repairs.

They note a number of beneficial side effects:
* 15,000 unregistered students were registered
* roughly 1/4 of parents are getting connected through their students laptops

From a recent presentation by Miguel Brechner of Plan Ceibal, at the September meeting of the Association of Learning Technology.

Brian Barrett at Gizmodo, which has followed the XO-3 development quite closely, published a detailed hands-on review of the first prototype from CES.

It is a lovely review, well worth the read.  His crew also took some fantastic photographs of the tablet in action:

Joanna Stern, who has reviewed many OLPC models in the past, takes an in-depth look at the XO-3 prototype at CES, in a detailed review for The Verge. In addition to an excellent writeup, she interviews Ed McNierney while exploring the laptop in person, in what looks like Max Headroom’s office. They talk about everything from hardware and power to software and deployment.

They also took the best set of photos of the XO-3 and solar-cover to date!

A great stories from Eshibinga, Kenya, last year:

In April Mr. Juma came to Eshibinga to teach us on how to use an xo laptop. His teaching is helping us now. We got two new computers today. Then our teacher Mr. Peter told us to remember some of the things we were taught.

I just remembered one word. Sugar. We were told that sugar is the operating system for the XO. It organizes the systems that run the clock, activates the Activities, and store the Journal entries. The Terminal Activity runs text-based commands for your XO instead of the Sugar graphical commands.

What nobody has told us is , why did they name it sugar? Why not give it a name like coffee, or milk or water?

Please tell me?
Mary, Eshibinga Primary

As foreshadowed 18 months ago, an XO-3 prototype is debuting at CES this weekend, and will be shown off next week at the Marvell booth. Here is a sneak peek at what it looks like:

If you are heading to CES, you can stop by and see it yourself! Ping Giulia to set up an appointment, or drop by the Marvell booth. Charbax of olpc.tv will be on site as always, recording some video and interviews.

The XO-3 will sport a 1024×768 Pixel Qi screen, half-gig of RAM, and a Marvell Armada PXA618 chip. Some of the soft cover designs proposed so far include a built-in solar panel. More updates coming over the next week; for now, here is our CES press release.

The XO-3 is still planned to enter production at the end of this year.

For four years, OLPC has had fruitful collaboration with the indefatigable Sameer Verma and others at SFSU, on hardware, Sugar activity design, and community building. Now at last we have a formal MOU between the University and OLPC[A]. This may be just the first of many MOUs with universities in the US, as we develop a network of supporting organizations working with OLPC on international projects.

Sameer and his students and colleagues have already worked with grassroots OLPC projects in Tuva, India, Armenia, Jamaica, and North Africa. Thanks to you all for your support and great ideas so far; we look forward to working more actively together, and perhaps drawing in new departments as well

There’s a lovely and unflinching personal recollection by Sameer of the development of his XO addiction, on SFSU’s opensource blog. A few highlights:

OLPC came into my professional [and personal] life in July 2007 when I signed up for the Developers Program and got an OLPC XO-1 B2 machine. How excited was I? I slept with it under my pillow. Seriously.

The hype and novelty factor diminished in six months and the question arose: “Why bother spending a Saturday for this?” Then came the answer in the form of actual projects… work, not just advocacy. We started with four projects and now have a list of fourteen.

You can read the text of the MOU as well.

Also: The first Marvell ARMADA-powered XO 1.75 laptop will begin shipping in March to school children in Uruguay and Nicaragua

SANTA CLARA, Calif. / LAS VEGAS (Jan. 9, 2012) – Marvell Semiconductor (Nasdaq: MRVL), a worldwide leader in integrated silicon solutions, and One Laptop per Child, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping every child in the world gain access to a modern education, demonstrated a version of the much-anticipated XO 3.0 – a low-cost, low-power, rugged tablet computer designed for classrooms around the globe – at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show.

“We’re proud to introduce the XO 3.0 tablet, showcasing the design, durability and performance features that make it a natural successor for our current laptops, which have been distributed to more than 2.4 million children in 42 countries and in 25 languages,” said Ed McNierney, Chief Technology Officer of One Laptop per Child. “The XO 3.0 builds on many of the technology breakthroughs we made with the XO 1.75, including the use of the Marvell® ARMADA® PXA618 processor, resulting in a significant decrease in power consumption-a critical issue for students in the developing world.”

“Marvell is committed to improving education–and the human condition-around the world through innovative technology for Smartphones, tablets and a myriad of new cloud-delivered services. Partnering with One Laptop Per Child is one way we can deliver a revolution where it matters most-to benefit children in some of the poorest places on the planet,” said Tom Hayes, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Marvell, and a member of the OLPC advisory board. “Marvell has been with One Laptop per Child from the start, and we’re doing whatever it takes to help the organization realize its mission of providing meaningful educational opportunities to the 500 million school-aged children around the world.”

Marvell and One Laptop per Child also announced today that the XO -1.75 laptop will begin shipping to customers in March 2012. Over 75,000 units of the XO 1.75 have already been ordered by OLPC projects in Uruguay and Nicaragua. Both models use the Marvell ARMADA PXA618 SOC processor, which doubles the performance of the earlier XO 1 while using only half the power. The XO 1.75 features a sunlight-readable screen, and all other features and design characteristics of the two previous versions of the XO laptop.

The XO 3.0 tablet will also feature the Avastar Wi-Fi system-on-chip.
It is also the only tablet that can be charged directly by solar panels, hand cranks and other alternative power sources

Other features include:

• Updated Pixel Qi sunlight-readable display
• Choice of Android or Linux operating systems
• Unique charging circuitry to support alternate power sources
• Choice of laptop covers, including one with built-in solar panel

Last November, President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia gave the annual speech presenting the country’s National Competitiveness Report (pdf) – presented by the national Private Council for Competitiveness.

In his speech, he spends some time discussing his national plans for education, and recalls one of the great OLPC stories — the first OLPC program in Colombia in 2008, involving delivery by helicopter, no less, when Santos was Minister of National Defense. This took place in the town of Vista Hermosa, which at the time had recently been captured by government forces from the FARC.

Vista Hermosa students receive XOs in Dec. 2008

Here is the story in his own words. It is worth watching the original video; Santos is a good speaker. (The whole talk is fascinating; education starts at 26:25, the Vista Hermosa story is at 28:55.)

Excerpts after the jump.

On Education:

Entonces el tema de la educación, el tema de medir la educación, en eso estamos con la Ministra de Educación.

Capacitar a los maestros –que entre otras cosas muchos de ellos no han tenido acceso a la tecnología- entonces hay que capacitarlos para que le puedan enseñar a los niños.

Translation:

On the subject of education, the issue of measuring education, here we are with the Minister of Education.

Much of the reform that some students complain about – really I say why protest if there’s nothing to protest here? – has to do with improving the quality of higher education. But we must also make a great effort to improve the quality of basic education and secondary education, because in general the whole chain of education in Colombia is backward.

This is a very important effort that has to do with the preparation of teachers, training more teachers, to bring them – and this is very important – the technical tools to make a quantum leap in education.

Hence the importance we are placing on the program we call ‘Digital Lives’, which is to quadruple the number of broadband connections, from 2.2 million to 8.8 million, and bring it to over 900 municipalities.

Broadband. We have 200-plus municipalities, and we will make it 900. They say these targets are too high, that we promised what we can not fulfill. Well, we are going to meet them with a vengeance.

Tomorrow we will award the tender for these municipalities to have broadband within four years.

What does that mean?

You can not quite imagine – those who have not had the experience – the difference between a third or fourth grade primary class, with access to the Internet or technology, compared to a class without access. That makes the difference between heaven and earth.

So what do we want?

To train teachers; among other things many do not have access to technology, and you have to train them so they can teach the children.

On bringing OLPC to Vista Hermosa:

Yo cuento con gran satisfacción una anécdota que me sucedió cuando estaba en el Ministerio de Defensa. Acabábamos de recuperar un pueblo allá en La Macarena (Meta), Vistahermosa – cuarenta años bajo la férula de al Farc – allá no circulaba el peso colombiano, circulaba la coca; allá no tenían célula de ciudadanía, tenían una tarjeta de identidad de las Farc.

Simplemente para resaltar lo que significa poder darles a unos colegios muy remotos, acceso a la tecnología con unos docentes bien capacitados.

Translation:

I recall with great satisfaction a story that happened when I was the Minister of Defence. We had just recovered a village in La Macarena (Meta), called Vista Hermosa – forty years under the thumb of the FARC – there they did not circulate the Colombian peso (for currency), but coca, there they had no national IDs, but an identity card of the FARC.

We recovered that town, which had no mobile signal or TV signal, and Mr. Nicholas Negroponte, whom I met long ago at MIT, said to me, ‘Well, why not bring some of these Laptops?’.

‘How many children are there?’ I asked.

‘There are 400 children’ (they said).

‘But if you do not even have a cell phone signal how they connect? Do you have military antennas?’.

‘Yes I have military antennas’.

Then we set up a military antenna so children could connect to the Internet, connect the computers to the Internet. And they brought in three or four teachers to teach children the basics.

I went with Negroponte two months later, and we went and found a really admirable situation.

It turns out that the children had taken the town, each of them with their own computer, and their fathers were following behind and learning from them. It was an impressive transformation.

This just highlights what it means to give very remote schools access to technology with a few well-trained teachers.

As we prepare for 2012, here is a quick look back at the past year of OLPC. We distributed our two millionth laptop (now 2.5M), and our largest programs in Latin America (Peru) and Africa (Rwanda) grew steadily. Austria’s Julieta Rudich and Journeyman Pictures produced a fine documentary about Plan Ceibal in Uruguay (the world’s first complete olpc program), and Peru provided XOs and compatible robotics kits to all of their urban schools.

In East Africa, we expanded our work with African nations and donors to improve education for children across the continent. We were invited by both the African Union and the UN to open an OLPC office in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Addis is a major hub for African diplomacy, and the support there for our mission has been stunning. We have become a full partner of the East African Community in Tanzania, and our recent country report on Rwanda has driven further interest in the region.

A Rwandan student workshop in Kigali

In the Middle East, we continued working with the Palestinian Authority, Israel and the UN to provide thousands of Palestinian children with XO laptops, integrating them into schools. It took ten months to work the laptops through customs in Gaza. But at a forum in Ramallah in June, teachers from Bethlehem and Gaza showed how OLPC was helping to end isolation and to excite learning for their children. Third grade girls in refugee camps are teaching others and writing computer programs. The testimony of these women to the power of persistence was extraordinary.

In Afghanistan, we founded a regional OLPC Afghanistan office, and briefed General Petraeus on the project. We believe that one laptop per child and connectivity, across the country, will transform this generation and their communities. Today we are working with the Education Ministry to support four thousand children in 10 schools, and are looking into expanding in Herat Province.

On the technical side, we focused on driving down laptop power needs by switching over to ARM chips in the XO-1.75 and upcoming XO-3 tablet. The tablet should be chargable by a solar panel that could serve as its carrying-case. We are studying new ways to help children learn to read, including where there are no schools at all.

In society, the idea that every child should have access to their own computer and to the Web – as a basic part of learning, whatever their family income – continued to spread. In addition to ongoing national programs in Argentina, Portugal, and Venezuela (for secondary students), two full-saturation laptop programs for older students are developing in India – an inexpensive tablet is being distributed to university students, and in Tamil Nadu dual-boot laptops from six different manufacturers are being provided to secondary students.

Reaching the least-developed countries in the world remains our goal and our most difficult challenge. While our largest deployments are funded directly by implementing governments, rural successes may be driven by foundations, NGOs, and individual donations. OLPC Rwanda, today one of the largest educational technology projects in Africa and part of a ten-year government plan, was seeded with ten thousand laptops given by Give One, Get One donors.

So to our supporters: thank you for your development, contributions, and collaboration, your feedback from the field, and your encouragement! This is all possible thanks to you.

Happy New Year to all — may 2012 bring you inspiration and discovery. We have some excellent surprises planned for the new year. And we would love to hear your reflections as well — please share stories from your own school projects in 2011.

Jeff Shear composed a thoughtful retrospective on OLPC.