You'll notice that massive failures like Microsoft's ISO and EU debacles in September have cascading effects on editors and send shudders through the belief-system supporting monopoly dominance in technology.
Not only did my editor at FT come in with a late request to cover the Linux migrations in Europe, but it must be LinuxWeek at The New York Times, where we got nice graphics above the fold of Circuits yesterday and where the immortal D. Pogue (his name means "kiss" in Gaelic -- as in "Pogue mahone!") covered OLPC today -- "Laptop With a Mission Widens its Audience".
And sure enough, the bloggers and the ignorant have already begun to spit on the XO laptop. “Dude, for $400, I can buy a real Windows laptop,” they say.
Clearly, the XO’s mission has sailed over these people’s heads like a 747.
The truth is, the XO laptop, now in final testing, is absolutely amazing, and in my limited tests, a total kid magnet. Both the hardware and the software exhibit breakthrough after breakthrough — some of them not available on any other laptop, for $400 or $4,000.
There’s real brilliance in this emphasis on understanding the computer itself. Many nations in XO’s market have few natural resources, and the global need for information workers grows with every passing day.
(The founder, Nicholas Negroponte’s, response: “Nobody I know would say, ‘By the way, let’s hold off on education.’ Education happens to be a solution to all of those same problems.”)
It's about time that the first project to bring Linux to a billion people [my prediction] gets sensible & objective coverage.
Starting November 12th, go to www.xogiving.org for the $400 give-one get-one plan.
Go to The New York Times story through the link above for David's very inviting video explanation of why the OLPC XO is so great.
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