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December 28, 2007

Tax deduction: One Laptop Per Child -- and one for you, too

Through the Give One Get One program, which runs through Dec. 31 at Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop per Child (Laptop.org), you can get a XO laptop for a child you know and send one to a child in in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Haiti, Mongolia or Rwanda. The price for both: $399, up to $200 which may be tax-deductible,

They're bright and child-sized (7 1/2-inch screens), heatproof, sealed against dust, chargeable in all sorts of ways; they run on the Linux-based Sugar operating system, and come with impressive collaboration software and apps with which to Paint, Write, Chat, compose music, play games and read RSS feeds. Each contains an 802.11b/g wireless card.

It looks like a nifty little thing -- but it's clearly not a cheapo substitute for the Windows laptop Santa didn't bring you. Blogger Aaron Landry reviews the production model -- the one you would get -- that he received Dec. 15 (One Laptop per Child - XO Laptop), and notes at the end,

I think it’s possible that when I’m done telling everyone I know about the project in the next few months I’ll donate it to an organization that will have more use for it than I will.

Aaron's review begins, "I got my XO Laptop shipped via FedEx this morning. In the box was..." and, along the way, he offers an overview of his first hours with it that's worth reading if you want a quick overview of the little Linux computer: (Here's the link again)

David Pogue, reviewing an earlier, beta version of the tool in the Times in October, notes that its keys are too small to let adults easily touch-type. And,

Power users will snort at the specs of this machine. It has only one gigabyte of storage — all flash memory — with 20 percent of that occupied by the XO’s system software. And the processor is feeble by conventional standards. Starting up takes two minutes, and switching between programs is poky.

Once in a program, though, the speed is fine; it turns out that a light processor is plenty if the software is written compactly and smartly. (O.L.P.C. points out that despite gigantic leaps in processing power, today’s business laptops don’t feel any faster than they did a few years ago. The operating systems and programs have added so much bloat that they absorb the speed gains.)

The built-in programs are equally clever. There’s a word processor, Web browser, calculator, PDF textbook reader, some games (clones of Tetris and Connect 4), three music programs, a painting application, a chat program and so on. The camera module permits teachers, for the first time, to send messages home to illiterate parents.

There are also three programming environments of different degrees of sophistication. Incredibly, one keystroke reveals the underlying code of almost any XO program or any Web page. Students can not only study how their favorite programs have been written, but even experiment by making changes. (If they make a mess of things, they can restore the original.)

Several tech bloggers noted that this could be a first programming environment similar to their own experiences with the Commodore 64 of the early '80s.

Laptop Magazine offered a walkthrough review in September (Hands-On with One Laptop Per Child's XO Laptop) of the slower pre-production model, useful for its rundown on features and potential and many photos.

Because of the built-in networking and sharing of these little machines, it might not make sense to buy (and give) just one if you know little folks who could use these. They would use them -- together -- in different ways from the tech-savvy folks who review them.

If you like the concept but have no need to own one, you can also simply donate one or many for $200 each, and your entire contribution will be tax-deductible.

Related: Laptop Project Enlivens Peruvian Hamlet, AP, Dec. 24, 2007

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:30 AM | Permalink