… in 1927, Charles Lindbergh landed his Spirit of St. Louis near Paris, completing the first solo airplane flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
Wonder if he had a pilot’s licence?
Monthly Archives: May 2008
OLPC v.2.0
Nicholas Negroponte yesterday released some information on the next generation of OLPC hardware.
According to LaptopMag,
Negroponte didn’t share many details about the XO-2’s hardware, but the new system has two touch-sensitive displays. As you can see from the video and the pictures, the XO-2 will be much smaller than the original machine (half the size, according to the press release) and will have a foldable e-book form factor. “The next generation laptop should be a book,” Negroponte said.
The XO-2 will employ the dual indoor-and-sunlight displays, which was pioneered by former OLPC CTO Mary Lou Jepsen. The design will provide a right and left page in vertical format, a hinged laptop in horizontal format, and a flat, two-screen continuous surface for use in tablet mode. “Younger children will be able to use simple keyboards to get going, and older children will be able to switch between keyboards customized for applications as well as for multiple languages,” the press release reads. The XO-2 will also reduce power consumption to 1 watt.
According to Negroponte, the XO-2 is scheduled to be released in 2010.
David Talbot adds this in Tech Review:
The redesign is OLPC’s latest effort to revitalize global adoption of its machines. Last week, OLPC announced that the current version will soon have the option of running on Microsoft Windows; previously, the machines only ran on the GNU/Linux operating system, plus a custom interface called Sugar that emphasizes collaboration among children. With the addition of Windows, OLPC hopes to boost sales to countries, such as Egypt, that already use Windows software in schools.
Pixel Qi, the display-technology startup founded by former OLPC chief technology officer Mary Lou Jepsen, will collaborate in the development of the new computer. Its smaller size will make the laptops easier for children to carry than the previous, larger version, Negroponte said yesterday. And despite the smaller size, the display will be larger–when both screens are used–than the one on the current version. Because the machine will have no keypad, there will be fewer mechanical parts to break. And whereas the current XO consumes only two to four watts–one-tenth of the amount consumed by a conventional laptop–the next-generation version will use as little as one watt.
But until the new machine comes online, the existing XO will continue to be sold. Only about 600,000 hard orders have come in–a far cry from the 100 million that, two years ago, Negroponte said he was hoping to obtain by 2008. And last week’s announcement that the XO will have the option of using Windows or the existing Linux-based operating system has led to some debate among education officials. Yesterday, Oscar Becerra, a Peruvian education ministry official who directs the OLPC deployment under way there, says that he sees little value in adding Windows for computers in primary schools.
The extra cost of $10 for the Windows version is not trivial, he says: “If I have 10 dollars, I will decide what to do with it.” Right now, Becerra is scrambling to find funds to buy thousands of small solar-powered rechargers–at $20 each–for machines that he is deploying to villages that lack electricity.
Ted Kennedy has malignant brain tumor,
From MiamiHerald.com
BOSTON — (AP) — Doctors for the Massachusetts Democrat say tests conducted after Sen. Edward Kennedy suffered a seizure this weekend show a tumor in his left parietal lobe. His treatment will be decided after more tests but the usual course includes combinations of radiation and chemotherapy.
The 76-year-old senator has been hospitalized in Boston since Saturday, when he was airlifted from Cape Cod after a seizure at his home.
His wife and children have been with him each day but have made no public statements.
His doctors said in a statement released to The Associated Press that he has had no further seizures, is in good spirits and is resting comfortably.
Entropy reduction and its consequences
From Technology Review…
In technical terms, a programming error reduced the amount of entropy used to create the cryptographic keys in a piece of code called the OpenSSL library, which is used by programs like the Apache Web server, the SSH remote access program, the IPsec Virtual Private Network (VPN), secure e-mail programs, some software used for anonymously accessing the Internet, and so on.
In plainer language: after a week of analysis, we now know that two changed lines of code have created profound security vulnerabilities in at least four different open-source operating systems, 25 different application programs, and millions of individual computer systems on the Internet. And even though the vulnerability was discovered on May 13 and a patch has been distributed, installing the patch doesn’t repair the damage to the compromised systems. What’s even more alarming is that some computers may be compromised even though they aren’t running the suspect code….
On this day…
… in 1961, a white mob attacked a busload of “Freedom Riders” in Montgomery, Alalabama, prompting the federal government to send in United States marshals to restore order.
Strange to think, then, that Obama won the Alabama Primary.
May 22nd
Something overheard and uncorroborated. At a London dinner party last Saturday evening a prediction was made that if Labour loses the Crewe and Nantwich by-election on Thursday, Gordon Brown will resign. Seems unlikely, you say — and so did I. But then I am told that the party allegedly included two very senior Labour ministers.
As I say, I have no way of confirming this. Still…
McCain’s memory hole problem
As Dave Winer says, if the US press won’t scrutinise McCain, then user-generated content will.
This is the guy who believes in a hundred-year war in Iraq — if necessary.
OLPC mission control
Ivan Krstić was one of the key people on the OLPC project. He recently resigned. Here’s part of his explanation.
Not long ago, OLPC undertook a drastic internal restructuring coupled with what, despite official claims to the contrary, is a radical change in its goals and vision from those that were shared with me when I was invited to join the project. Adding insult to injury, I was asked to stop working with Walter Bender, without a doubt one of the most stunningly thoughtful and competent people I’ve ever worked with. Following Walter’s demotion from OLPC presidency, I was to report instead to a manager with no technical or engineering background who was put in charge of all OLPC technology…
What made Ivan despondent is his perception that Nicholas Negroponte sees the project as a vehicle for producing a lot of cheap laptops rather than as a primarily educational mission. According to The Register, he believes that
“Nicholas’ new OLPC is dropping those pesky education goals from the mission and turning itself into a 50-person nonprofit laptop manufacturer, competing with Lenovo, Dell, Apple, Asus, HP and Intel on their home turf, and by using the one strategy we know doesn’t work.”
Later: Actually, it’s more complicated that that quote implies. Just found a terrific, thoughtful essay by Ivan on the whole OLPC project. Lots of comments too.
Why Microsoft wanted Yahoo
From the New York Times…
It’s no secret that Microsoft’s online businesses have failed to gain leading market positions. But what is not widely appreciated, perhaps, is that the company’s online initiatives have lately been doing worse than ever.
The last year when Microsoft made a profit in its online services business was the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2005. Its MSN unit used to do a nicely profitable business providing dial-up Internet access to subscribers. When its users began to switch to broadband services provided by others, however, the earnings disappeared. Microsoft’s Web sites brought in a trickle of advertising revenue, which did not grow fast enough to offset the disappearance of the narrowband access business. AOL suffered in similar fashion.
In the 2006 fiscal year, Microsoft’s online services produced a $74 million loss after the previous year’s profit of $402 million. Since then, the numbers have become uglier, as Microsoft’s online segment has added employees and absorbed growing sales and marketing expenses. In the 2007 fiscal year, the online businesses lost $732 million. In the next nine months, through March 31 this year, they recorded a loss of $745 million, almost double the amount in the period a year earlier. With $2.39 billion in revenue for the nine months, the online segment represents only 5 percent of the company’s total revenue…
Clinton deathwatch meter
According to Slate Barack Obama is now 127.5 delegates away from the nomination (or 121.5 if you count seven pledged delegates who previously supported Edwards). Wonder what’s keeping Clinton going.