OLPC
David Cavallo Interview on OLPC Brazil's Apparent Loss
The Brazilian auction to purchase 150,000 computers for children is on currently on hold after the end of the first round which ended on December 19th. Positivo Informática won the first round of biding with the lowest offer, 98 millions of Reais, 6 million less than OLPC had offered. No one has had access to details of each proposal but the most probable culprit were customs duties in Brazil which, along with all the maintenance and warranties, brought the total of each XO to $387,39, twenty dollars over the winning model. Positivo had by it's side decades olds tax policies that favors local assembly with lower taxes on electronics components, not ready made equipment. The model offered by…
Aquatic Sugar: The Children's Interface, Translated for Adults
The field of interaction design has been shaken in the last year as it hasn't been since the Xerox Parc, more than 20 years ago. The old metaphors of desktops and the idea that the mouse is the center of our universe are being radically changed by mainly three mainstream products: the Wii, the iPhone and – of course, since you are reading OLPCNews – the XO laptop. You probably know about the Motion Sensors on the Nintendo video game, and about all the multiTouch going on with the apple phone, but do you know why the "$100 laptop" interface experience, called sugar, is radically different from any other operating system on the market? And why not? Because you don't like the icons. They don't…