One Laptop Per Child Orders Surge As Negroponte Claims Momentum Growing

The One Laptop Per Child Foundation has just secured an order for 260,000 of the low cost machines from the government of Peru. Despite a lower than expected take up from foreign governments, Nicholas Negroponte claims that this latest success could mean the momentum will now build.

Negroponte is the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) professor who set up the foundation in 2005 to provide affordable laptops to schoolchildren around the world. In an interview on Friday, he revealed news of the Peru order, as well as saying that Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim had purchased 50,000 of the machines for distribution in his country.
The not for profit organisation wants to eventually offer laptops for $100 or less, with the current price $188. The idea behind the whole project is to convince governments of developing countries to buy the machines, and distribute them to poor schoolchildren to enable them to have access to technology normally unavailable due to costs.

Just last week, the education minister of Nigeria, Dr Igwe Aja-Nwachuku claimed that the project was senseless until the basic facilities such as seats and uniforms were put in place.
There has also been intense competition to the idea of an affordable for all laptop from the commercial sector in the form of Microsoft and Intel.

Due to the lack of uptake of the original plan, OLPC introduced the Give One, Get One program, with participants buying two of the laptops for $400: one for themselves; and one for a child in the developing country.

According to The Boston Globe, Robert Fadel, the OLPC Foundation’s director of finance and operations, claims that since the Give One Get One program began on November 12th, the foundation has received about $2 million in orders every day. That equated to 190,000 laptops in total, with at least 95,000 of those going to kids in developing countries.

I hope the OLPC’s mission succeeds, as there’s no doubt it’s a great aim to enable children in less well off countries to be able to have access to this technology that we all take for granted.

Source: tech.blorge.com

Nicholas Negroponte (One Laptop Per Child) Sued for Patent Infringement

Among its other problems - like failing to get orders from third-world governments, competing against Intel and Microsoft, and the seeing the price of its Holy Grail rise from $100 to $200 - One Laptop Per Child and its do-gooder-in-chief Nicholas Negroponte are now being sued for patent infringement in Nigeria on a Nigerian patent (RD8489) by a US-based Nigerian-owned outfit called Lagos Analysis Corporation.

Lagos claims the non-profit reversed engineered its Shift2 keyboard driver source codes.
Lagos says it developed advanced multi-lingual keyboard technology using four shift keys and characters which when pressed while typing normally produce language-critical accents, symbols and diacritical marks. The widgetry appears in Lagos' region-specific Konyin Multilingual Keyboards.

Lancor claims OLPC bought two of the keyboards and ripped the technology off even though the OLPC and the Konyin keyboards are different.

Lancor, which intends to file suit elsewhere, claims OLPC put the functionality in another key.
Last we heard OLTP hadn't seen the suit.

Nigeria initially agreed to buy a million XO laptops from OLPC but reneged on the deal in part because of the higher price and in part because - according to what its education minister Dr Igwe Aja-Nwachuku told the BBC the other day - "What is the sense of introducing One Laptop Per Child when they don't have seats to sit down and learn; when they don't have uniforms to go to school in; when they don't have facilities."

So, failing Nigeria, the first 300,000 AMD-based XOs are in production and some of them are bound for Rwanda, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Haiti and Mongolia. The rest are bound for upscale American homes under OLPC's $399 Give One, Get One scheme, which started November 12 and was only supposed to run for two weeks but has been extended to December 31.
Oh, yes, and Intel is giving 3,000 of its competing Classmates to Nigeria.

Source: wireless.sys-con.com

World marks World AIDS Day

Tens of thousands of people filed into a Johannesburg stadium for a 10-hour music extravaganza beamed to millions around the globe to mark World AIDS Day.

The concert at the 50,000-seater Ellis Park stadium featured 30 local and international artists performing, ranging from Ludacris to Peter Gabriel.

The event was organised by the 89-year-old Nelson Mandela's 46664 AIDS campaign, named after his prison number from his 27 years in jail during South Africa's apartheid regime.

Thirteen years after apartheid ended and after Mr Mandela became president in South Africa's first ever democratic elections, the country is now on the front line of the struggle against HIV.

Around 5.5 million of its 48 million people are infected - the world's worst rate, according to recent UN data.

Addressing the crowd, Mr Mandela urged people to stand up and take the fight against AIDS into their own hands.

"It is still alarming that for every person who receives treatment there are four others who are newly infected," said the Nobel laureate, after slowly walked to the podium with the aid of his wife and a walking stick.

"Here in South Africa we are making every effort to reach into communities because we believe the answer is in our hands.

"Yes, big ambitious plans are needed to deal with the epidemic. But what really matters are small acts of kindness ... such as protecting yourself," he said.

South Africa's deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka thanked the performers.

"It's about preventing the infections. It's about caring for the people who are already sick ... it's about rolling out the treatment, and ensuring we empower women who are at the frontline of the battle," she said.

Worldwide ceremonies

Earlier United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon launched the 20th World AIDS Day at a midnight ceremony at St Bartholomew's Church in New York.

Mr Ban has called on governments around the world to allow universal access to HIV prevention and treatment.

He says the stigma associated with the disease is the biggest barrier towards combating AIDS.

"For AIDS is a disease unlike any other," he said.

"AIDS is a social issue, a human rights issue, an economic issue.

"It targets young adults, just as they should be contributing to economic development, intellectual growth and bringing up the children."

Growing complacency

Activists are trying to keep the battle against HIV in the public eye on in the face of growing complacency amid progress in treating and slowing the spread of the disease.

Even the Miss World beauty pageant on the Chinese holiday island of Sanya was enlisted to get out the message that the disease daily kills some 6,000 people.

Chinese President Hu Jintao appeared on the front page of major state-controlled newspapers shaking the hand of a woman HIV carrier, a day after the UN warned that as many as 50 million Chinese are at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS.

December 1 has become a time of grim stocktaking as AIDS campaigners worldwide sound the alarm over the disease's rampage through Africa, the threat it poses to Asia and former Soviet republics, and the risks to vulnerable communities such as sex workers, drug users and gay men.

In Australia, campaigners have warned that complacency after earlier success in fighting HIV/AIDS risks giving rise to a new wave of infections.

AIDS awareness educator Vince Lovegrove is calling for a new campaign aimed at a new generation.

"This is the moment it all could go astray. This is the moment when it can become a pandemic," he said.

Australian government figures show that by the end of 2006, 26,267 Australians had been diagnosed with HIV and 10,l25 people had been diagnosed with AIDS, with 6,723 having died.

- AFP/BBC/ABC