Wisdom is the prime thing

I read a fascinating article about the “One Laptop Per Child” laptops that are available now. For a limited time, anyone from the US or Canada can purchase them. This program has been extended to December 31, 2007.

I’m incredibly impressed with these laptops. Here’s why.

I suggest you:

• Take a look at this great overview
• Take a closer look at the laptop’s features
• Watch a video of Sugar in action
• Download the Linux-based OS that the OLPC runs and emulate it locally

The Sugar UI, built specifically for OLPC, is really amazing. I downloaded the image and played with it in Virtualbox a bit. The mesh networking features were really amazing. But what blew me away the most was the journal:

The developers have reworked the filesystem model to make it more child-friendly. Instead of the typical filesystem we’ve grown accustomed to (folders, directories, etc.), this approach uses the concept of a journal. Instead of looking through your home directory and drilling down into subdirectories to find content, you instead go to your journal and see the activities you’ve been involved in in a chronological format. You can search based on activity type, keywords (tags), or date. What an great example of thinking outside the box!

I was really impressed with what I read. This is truly a unique laptop: you can charge it with a pull-string, it charges itself in sunlight, and it’s child-proof!

If that amazes you, definitely take a look at a round-up of some of its other fascinating features, the demo video and some of the other links above.