Sugar coating: The Sugar interface is designed for children. Bundled programs help users engage in reading, writing, math, painting, and game playing, and emphasize creativity and collaboration.
Sugar Labs
Putting OLPC's software on a USB drive gives old PCs a new lease on life.
The open-source education software developed for the "$100 laptop" can now be loaded onto a $5 USB stick to run aging PCs and Macs with a new interface and custom educational software.
"What we are doing is taking a bunch of old machines that barely run Windows 2000, and turning them into something interesting and useful for essentially zero cost," says Walter Bender, former president of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project. "It becomes a whole new computer running off the USB key; we can breathe new life into millions of decrepit old machines."
Bender left OLPC last year to found Sugar Labs, which promotes the open-source user interface, dubbed Sugar, and educational software originally developed at OLPC. Bender has dubbed the new effort Sugar on a Stick. The software can be downloaded for free from the Sugar Labs website as part of the new initiative, which will be announced at a conference in Berlin today.
This summer, Sugar Labs will also deploy the software at the Gardner Pilot Academy, an elementary school in Boston, under a $20,000 grant from the Gould Charitable Foundation. Sugar Labs also plans to release an improved version of the software at the end of 2009.
The Sugar interface was custom-designed for children. The new Sugar on a Stick download features 40 software programs, including core applications called Read, Write, Paint, and Etoys. Many other applications are available for download, most of which emphasize creative collaboration among children. The USB software can boot up an aging computer, or a netbook, and save data from any of the programs.
In addition, Sugar-powered machines are designed to work with server software that can also be downloaded for free. This server software can be operated by a school and used to distribute content, collect homework, back up data, and filter access to the Internet. Once Sugar and the server software have been installed, two children using different computers can work on the same document at the same time, for example.
The Sugar interface and related software have already been used by more than one million children, nearly all of them users of the original OLPC XO laptop.
Bender's departure from OLPC came after a disagreement over the organization's plans to break away from a pure open-source approach and offer a "dual-boot" version of its laptop that could also run a stripped-down version of Microsoft's Windows operating system, something Bender said he feared would make OLPC "just another laptop company." But Nicholas Negroponte, founder of OLPC and, previously, cofounder of MIT's Media Lab, said that the move was necessary to boost sales and, consequently, expand the availability of the machines to children.
Despite some large-scale deployments, such as one in Peru, the XO has fallen short of Negroponte's ambitious plans: in 2006 he was predicting sales of more than 100 million machines by 2008.Negroponte said last night that almost a million children have XO laptops, in 19 languages and 32 countries, including Haiti, Rwanda, Afghanistan and Mongolia, and that "another million are in process." But even if its own laptop sales were relatively modest, OLPC essentially pioneered the netbook concept, prodding the industry to start making small, stripped down, cheap computers, which are now a significant share of the computer market.
And now, with Sugar available to run old computers, the OLPC learning model can expand in a new direction. "Putting Sugar on a stick is absolutely the right thing to do," Negroponte added.
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The philanthropic effort dubbed the $100 Laptop has not met its grand initial goals. But its first deployment, in Peru, may turn skeptics into believers.
One laptop per child is well meaning, but is based on flawed assumptions. It's proponents naively think mere access to raw technology and information bridges the digital divide, thus elevating recipients into the promised land. Reality: most will use it to jack around, play games, look @ porn, etc. It's like giving a $100 bill to a child: they're not going to buy a book w/ it, most are going to spend it on candy and toys. For the intended recipients of OLPC, there are probably 1000 things that are cheaper that will have a more important beneficial impact on these childrens' lives. A laptop is NOT what they need.
Guest (jim gilman)
No, the children won't do what you do with your computer. They will have access to lessons, books and games. Why are you so afraid of kids?
I agree with phli...The OLPC, or similar projects, will never be the miracle solution that bring education to the 3rd world. You can educate people with a pen and a piece of paper, and that is much cheaper than any laptop. People in the "1st world" got a decent education long before computers existed - let us remember that.
One could also question why other cheap technical means of spreading information did not get adopted. Audio cassettes, and video cassettes are still in widespread use in the 3rd world, and the prices have dropped so much that they are certainly in the buying range of even the $1/day crowd. But they use them to listen to pop-music, or to watch soap operas...
The naive and romantic view is that these "knowledge hungry" poor people are being held back by lack of resources, and if we only provided them with the means of education they would lift themselves out of their predicament. That is such a naive view.
With the advent of netbooks and cloud computing, in about 5-10 years (almost) everybody will have Internet access, similarly to how everyone has a cell phone these days. Yet, you will find that in spite of having access to information, the 3rd world will still be stuck in the same place.
It think a lot of people miss, that the OLPC can be also good for developed countries. The beauty of the idea is that the whole platform tailored around education, around the school-kids needs. You can find loads of educational application for the platform, and only these kind of applications. With the decoupling of SW and HW, I think this has enormous possibilities in European schools, too.
Indeed. The irony is that most likely the so called "1st world" will benefit more from this project than the intended recipients.
Children have open minds. They are like sponges, absorbing all information. It is absolutely essential to maximize the amount of information and the complexity of information available to a child at the earliest possible age and as long as possible. This is critical because the brain chemical process of learning must be exercised thoroughly at an early age or the actual ability to think will be significantly diminished. This has been shown to be true in many experiments, both intended and unintended, where sensory deprivation leads to reduced functioning. It doesn't matter whether a child is surfing, drawing, playing a game, solving puzzles or even goofing off in general. The key is to be active mentally and this is only possible with information, complex patterns, intellectual challenges, interaction etc. Even a horrible computer that provides games, puzzles, information, and collaboration is far more valuable than no computer at all. And it is essential for each and every child to have this opportunity. And this is true for all children, not just the children in developing nations.
WiHood (www.WiHood.com) has been providing a virtual desktop from a USB bracelet for kids to developing countries for the past year.
It is good to see the developing world receive more attention and possibilities.
Thomas F. Anglero, founder
WiHood AS/LLC
It's worth re-reading the mission statement for the OLPC project at http://laptop.org/. It's about enabling children with something they don't already have...
"OLPC’s mission is to provide a means for learning, self-expression, and exploration to the nearly two billion children of the developing world with little or no access to education."
The laptop is a means to an end. Nothing is stopping you or anyone else giving them something else as well. To call OLPC "naive" is trivialising the argument.
I have a 10 year old lap that had a bad hardrive and wasn't worth fixing, that runs "free" Puppy Linux and does everything Windows does and runs off a CD. I also have the same Linux program on a USB that I can use with any PC anywhere. So open source OPC, Linux and other open source software work great on many different hardware platforms. Microsoft is like GM, an aging, bloated company that is a waste of resources, that's using it's market clout to try to continue to dominate the world's PC's. Won't work. Infromation is free to cross all borders and cheap or free Pc's make that possible. I'll keep my old lap til it's Motherboard dies.
Re: 100 laptop becomes a $5 PC
Have to agree with the GM analogy. There are more appropriate OS's for this than the "bloatware" from Redmond, and most all can run from CD's and USB sticks. Moreover, children (I have 5 and 8 grandchildren) are literally, "sponges with fresh perspectives". Since nobody is wired identically, breakthroughs will happen. Embrace them!
Re: 100 laptop becomes a $5 PC
As my mother used to say "a hit dog hollars". The technocrats that are critisizing the sugar stick are ignoring the fact that reusing is 100% more efficient than recycling. Give the kids a chance!
OLPC in a controlled environment is fairly bullet proof. Giving them to 3rd world children is wonderful. But we think we Americans are too advanced for our kids to have them. We can buy Macs for our kids, but when you go to most public schools, there is ODPTC (one desktop per thousand children). At home there might not be a computer, or one with kids stuff on it, maybe just a game box. This is why Mr. Gates can ask Congress for more green card digital workers who have grown up using computers. Our kids just don't get it (using computers to do meaningful stuff at an early age).
Sugar on a jump drive is genius, you don't have to buy special hardware, any old computer will do, second hand, third hand. This pushes the technology further down into the digital gap, which is what you want to do.
Don't forget, just because a cutting edge thing is available to the public doesn't mean everybody has access to it. And all kids start with zero and have to be taught, even American kids.
The truth to computers is that skills are transferable and we are talking about teaching kids. There is plenty of time and opportunity to learn commercial software under the guise of job training, but helping kids understand and use digital access and digital methods and general concepts does not require high priced commercial software. Open source software and not new computers is genius, pure genius.
Put Sugar on a jump drive, send it to every school admin and teacher and teacher want-to-be, tell them to chew on this and discuss the possibilities. You will find most don't even know how to incorporate computer use into teaching the 3Rs. Time for an update.
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psubbiah
3 Comments
Sugar is not sweet
I tried this FEDORA Sugar and found to be a substandard operating system. It is very primitive in this age. Even in underdeveloped countries I don't think any child will be interested in using this operating system
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Wildgorilla
4 Comments
Re: Sugar is not sweet
How would you know? Have you ever been a child in an under developed country? What readily available substitute do you suggest? What about a solution instead of criticism?
Reply
psubbiah
3 Comments
Re: Sugar is not sweet
I myself came from a developing country and still visit lot of underdeveloped and developing countries. I have seen the bright kids out there for whom the "Sugar" operating system is a real substandard product. This shows how the developed countries under-estimate the under-developed countries and create substandard products for them.
The solution is not to develop a specific product for them but to provide them access to latest technology. Every child does not need a laptop. What they need is an access to computing and networking which can be provided by schools, libraries, community centers. So effort is needed to equip these public places with latest computers with internet access.
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