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Intel’s agreement with the OLPC Foundation included a “non disparagement” clause, under which Intel and One Laptop promised not to criticize each other, according to Nicholas Negroponte in the latest article in the Wall Street Journal.

Still Intel tactics has violated that repeatedly to kill OLPC efforts in Nigeria, Libya, Pakistan, India, China and Intel is also still trying to pull those tactics in Mexico, Brazil.

This is simply disgracefull of Intel, scandalous. But Negroponte has signed an agreement saying that he is not allowed to criticize Intel, so he is not allowed to talk about these shameless tactics even though Intel is the one violating the agreement. So only independant voices on the Internet can get those messages of truth out about Intels tactics.

In Nigeria, Intel came and donated 3000 laptops to counter OLPC efforts, then sells 17 thousand Classmates to Nigeria at a loss. Then Microsoft corrupted Nigerian officials with 400 thousand dollars to install Windows XP on those instead of Mandriva Linux.

Anyways, the next step will be that Intel is investing hundreds of millions to develop the Diamondville x86 processor that is the Intel version of a fanless, low cost, low power processor, and alternative to the AMD Geode.

So the next step is there will have to be an Intel powered XO laptop ready for mass production. Otherwise it simply seems Intel will not allow OLPC to start the mass production. So possibly some deal will be done between OLPC, Intel and AMD, so that 50% be built with AMD processors and 50% with Intel processors. Hopefully Intel executives will let it mass produce and mass distribute with that sort of agreement.

Thankfully CMO, Quanta, AMD and all other involved have accepted to delay the up ramping of mass production, they are complying to Intel’s shameless behavior of delaying the OLPC project, since only 300 thousand AMD powered OLPC XO laptops are being produced in the first few months in Quanta’s factories. But at any time in the beginning of next year, mass production could reach a volume of over a million laptops per month.

The question is will Intel allow OLPC to start ramping up mass production to its maximum production capacity of exclusively the AMD powered version even though the Intel Diamondville integration might not be completely ready before the middle to second half of next year? Will Intel agree to stop selling its inferior and more expensive ULV powered Classmate PC? Will Intel tell Asus to stop marketing the current ULV powered version of the Asus Eee as an OLPC competitor?

Awesome video, done with his cell phone (I guess the Nokia N95) while walking around his home in the Silicon Valley:

Posted at Scobleizer.com

I hope Amazon will add these features in a future firmware update or/and in the European HSDPA+WiFi version which is hopefully planned to be released soon:

- There should be an open RSS aggregator, one that updates feeds when the user is active or that can automatically pull feeds every once in a while and certain feeds can be set to make the device beep or display an alert when there is a new item.

- One should be able to drag and drop PDF, DOC, TXT, HTML or any other such formats onto it using the USB cable, or download from other services on the Internet and it should work directly. It could offer the Amazon Kindle conversion for a fee like it does through the Kindle email, but it should be able to upload the text file from the device, store it in the cloud and pull it back on demand.

- Google Blog Search, Google News (Amazon could auto-reformat web news pages to display with ebook optimized adds in cooperation with the websites that are linked to from Google News, thus there should be an ebook optimized Google News interface), Google Reader type of RSS aggregator, Gmail and other Google apps should work on this.

- The full web browser and Wikipedia could be part of such a full Internet data plan, one where Amazon could charge money per MB or per GB packages that one wishes to use to download data over the wireless connection that isn’t content that Amazon can earn money on directly. So for example I wouldn’t mind paying 1 or a few dollars per GB over this full Internet access data plan. Thus alternative online book stores, audible.com, Google Booksearch should be accessible this way over the wireless connection and Amazon can charge reasonably priced data fees for that.

- Audiobook to ebook synchronization service, line could be highlighted on demand or maybe even the sentence or the word could be highlighted while the audiobook is playing. And a function to continue reading the book in audio mode and then resuming to reading the text and turning off the audio. Adding the audiobook version to an ebook shouldn’t be very expensive, I’d think around $2 should be a reasonable price to get the additional audiobook downloaded and synched up.

- One should be somehow able to get ones personal book collection digitized. Although there are rights restrictions to this currently, and one cannot provide bills for all ones book collection. Possibly there should be a service where one would send in the used books to Amazon, who then adds the titles to ones Kindle account manually and Amazon can then recycle those used paperback books on their website. That is until regulation changes in this area so that one will in the future have unlimited access to old books for a flat culture licence fee.

- An external USB keyboard is better to type long texts on this then the thumb keyboard. So unless the hardware does not make it possible, I think there should be somekind of way to put the device on the table with a kickstand or using a kickstand with the leathercase, and then unfold a full sized keyboard to enter text rapidly.

Otherwise the Amazon Kindle is awesome and it will kick-start the electronic reading revolution in my view.

I posted this at the Amazon Customer Discussions about the Kindle and at the MobileRead.com forum.

Built-in EVDO sounds cool. As long as the EVDO access is very reasonably priced, like somekind of very affordable per MB cost with no monthly payment or something like that.

I wish the wireless was HSDPA and compatible with wireless data around the world, even built-in WiFi would have been nice.

As it loads New York Times and Washington Post every morning, it should also be able to load ones Google Reader feeds in the morning.

Touch-screen and smart keyboard will be awesome. There should be somekind of browser in there.

The Electronic Books should be sold for very reasonable prices, since so many intermediaries including the printing of the paper back version are skipped. There should also be somekind of way to let people get the taste of a book for free before buying, something like a few chapters should be free, and payment is confirmed at that point.

Getting access to Google apps on e-paper will be awesome. Such things as search, blog search, Google maps, Gmail, Google News, all that should be working over the EVDO, using Google Gears to speed up the process and provide offline functionality to save battery power.

Taking notes with a foldable USB keyboard, and thus post to blogs, emails, reviews and more directly using the device, without the need to have a computer.

I think it’s great that Microsoft is investing millions of dollars in making a thin version of Windows XP for the XO-1 laptop. That is just really great of Microsoft.

What is really sad, is that Nigeria and Libya are getting relatively low volumes of bloated Classmate laptops. They chose to get a few tens of thousands of bloated Classmate laptops instead of going for the much more sustainable and future proof XO design.

All in terms of power consumption, usabillity, wireless, screen readabillity, software optimization for unbloatedness (both Linux Sugar and whatever “XP Lite” that Microsoft can do).

Classmate and Eee on the other hand are nothing else then totally regular laptops with the regular unoptimized structure of a bloatware-laptop with a totally conventionnal DVD player 7″ LCD and Flash memory instead of the HDD. On top of that there is no way Classmate and Eee are going to be sold at $200 in quantities of millions. Intel is working on a AMD Geode alternative, and that is GREAT and I hope Intel and AMD push the limits of low power and cheap price for a X86 processor, but Intel should really not insist with the ULV based Classmate and Eee.

So what for Intel if they are not part of XO-1, Intel can be part of XO-2 and can “catch up” within the next few months with Menlow and Diamondville.

But the basic thing is will Intel and others in the PC industry such as Asus and Dell stop thinking they should keep PCs and Laptops expensive and bloated forever. The cheap laptop revolution cannot be stopped now, this society is too open for that to happen now. So Intel should stop delaying OLPC, cause every day that goes by, millions of kids are missing out on being part of the information society and learning about everything.

Actually I do think Microsoft will open-source Windows XP at some point within the next couple of years at one point or another and give licences for it away for free, and that will be cool. At least there will be no other way for Microsoft to compete with Linux for cheap laptops.

Microsoft will keep Vista closed and expensive, but XP should become open and free.

That would bring so much good PR to Microsoft and they can still invest in Vista for business and for the expensive laptops and PCs, Microsoft has to get onto other businesses such as online applications, online advertising, video games, portable and wearable computers.

The One Laptop Per Child is the most awesome technological revolution in the works and its mass production is just about to start in China.

There is the Buy 1, Get 1 program and the Give Many programs that are also just about to launch while OLPC will deliver the laptops in priority to Uruguay, Peru and other countries that have confirmed orders for large quantities of it. The goal being that as many children as possible should get laptops as soon as possible.

Jepsen says it’s true, as the story suggested, that final assembly of the first batch of mass-produced laptop—to begin soon at a recently expanded Quanta Computer factory in Changshu, northwest of Shanghai—was originally envisioned to begin in October, and will now start sometime in November. But neither the One Laptop organization nor Quanta ever claimed that production would be begin on a set day—so it’s a stretch to call the situation a “production delay.” Says Jepsen, “I think we had hoped to start mass production in October, but we were never focused on starting on a certain date. We’ve always just wanted to make the product as good as we can…I am certainly not aware of any promises that we are going to miss.”

And while Jepsen says she’s happy that audiences are so interested in the details of the One Laptop project, she points out that the One Laptop organization doesn’t work like a traditional manufacturing company, with detailed business plans or Gantt charts showing the dependencies between each part of the project. “It’s much looser and more collaborative, kind of in the spirit of the open-source movement—and yet I’ve never worked at a company where things have come together more smoothly,” she says. “Everyone thought this was impossible three years ago.”

(…)

“What is mass production, anyway?” asks Jepsen. “Is it when you put together the motherboards, or is it when the operators on the line screw together the plastic parts on a conveyor belt? You can say that that’s when it really becomes a laptop—but we designed it so that five-year-old kids in Nigeria can screw it together. In a way, the work is already largely done.” Jepsen points out that Quanta, the world’s largest laptop manufacturer, recently doubled the size of its Changshu manufacturing plant so that it could begin production of the XO-1, which will be the first product off the new lines.

Jepsen says she was surprised by the complaining tone that spread across the blogosphere yesterday in response to the Reuters story about the supposed delays. “On some level I’d just like to say to everyone, ‘Chill,’” she says. “But on the other hand, it’s clear that people are really interested in the process, and in learning about how a laptop is manufactured.”

Source: http://xconomy.com/2007/10/25/one-laptop-organization-to-world-chill/

This is a followup to John C. Dvorak’s column on PCmag.com:

Here’s one thing I’m looking forward to that a pocket product with somekind of GPS built-in and clever Web 2.0 apps would bring:

- Organisation in society and among people so that nobody needs to wait in line ever again.

In this society of consumerism, some people simply don’t question the fact that some coorporations are making a lot of money on them waiting in line. When you wait in line, you are generating frenzy around a product or service, like a magnet, the line tells passer bys that they should also stand in the line if they want to be normal. Normality today is to shut up, not care about politics, and to stand in lines to buy new products from large coorporations. In fact, the product is part of an experience and an event that is designed to attract more customers, to generate more profit.

The iPhone is all about the feeding of consumers with a flashy piece of gadget that has a flashy interface. Is this interface a better way to do consumer electronics? Or is it just a flashy animation that does not improve any aspects of usability, and a product that does not provide any new features? Surely Apple has had the ressources to research during the past couple of years what would be the best way to improve usabillity in consumer electronics? Has Apple mostly spent their R&D to create a flashy experience product but with no improvement in terms of usabillity and functionality?

Would some companies be able to earn even more money if there was a way that everyone could buy products and get experiences without having to wait in line?

Here are more negatives to add on the ones listed at gizmodo.com:

Just as any other Apple product, it’s locked to iTunes, it doesn’t support full DVD quality DivX, XviD, Mpeg2, WMV, AC3, vbr-mp3, RM, Mpeg1, Ogg Theora, GVI.. It only synchs through iTunes, forget about copying some files from a random computer that doesn’t have iTunes installed. No TV-out, no TV-in.

The iPhone being sold in the USA is also locked on an outdated 2G data service plan and Americans are thus forced by law to continue paying for that data service for two years. Minimum price is 2000$ in all. Even if there are 3G, WiMax alternatives already available or imminent, every iPhone owner is forced to stay on a crappy data service network and are forced to keep paying for EDGE for two years even if one quickly gets tired of such a slow bandwidth (after like 5 minutes of browsing on EDGE speed you get sick of it and probably won’t like to do it again ever) Thus this is gonna be just an expensive WiFi browser with an EDGE service plan nobody needs but are forced to pay for.

Also it’s locked so users cannot do VOIP on the iPhone, nor IM and bad Javascript support means a lot of Web 2.0 apps are never going to work on the iPhone.

Neigther the iPhone nor the N95 are any really good value for the crazy expensive prices that they cost.

Nokia is 750$ (+ subscription?)
iPhone is 500-600$ (+ 1440$ - 2400$ 24-month subscription contract)

Given the fact that neigther are going to last any more than a few months, those are both not to recommend anyone else than someone who has no problems paying a lot of money for a product that is not going to last.

In my opinion the revolutionary effect in portable consumer electronics, which will be usefull in the longer term, provide the good reason to invest more than into a 10$ pre-paid phone, that’s when the Archos 605 WiFi (200$) or the N800 (400$) will be comming with VOIP on WiFi, HSDPA and later WiMax.

If your device comes with 2G data service, then you might as well get a 10$ pre-paid clamshell phone with virginmobile or something like that which will give you the same use.

Though when there will be 800×480 4″ screen products with PC-like Opera browser experience, with full Flash and Javascript support, and providing free unlimited worldwide VOIP and IM using all of WiFi, HSDPA and WiMax, then those are gonna be the revolutionnary product.

Thus far iPhone and N95 are not revolutionary, they are simply temporary flashy bricks for rich kids and misguided early adopters.

Free Iliad has launched the TV Perso service, what this does is it provides its 2 million broadband ADSL2+ subscribers in France access to a special channel on their TV with user generated Live and On-Demand content.

User-generated On-Demand content is captured by the Freebox HD’s analog Composite or S-video line-in, is encoded at 3.5mbit/s Mpeg4 and uploaded slowly using 1mbit/s and can be made available to the public or to a limited amount of friends.

User-generated Live content is also captured the same way but encoded at 800kbit/s Mpeg4 and is streamed directly to an unlimited amount of Freebox users in France. For Freebox HD users in certain areas of France with Fiber to the home, they can broadcast 3.5mbit/s quality video live.

For now the user-generated content can only be captured from the Freebox HD’s composite or s-video input thus it is only SD resolution for now. But Free has said it could become HD quality using HD-capable webcam or video-cameras on the USB-host connection.

This is definately more impressive than Youtube since it’s 3.5mbit/s for user-generated content at DVD resolution in Mpeg4. And the Live video is more impressive than mogulus, ustream, justin since it’s broadcasted directly to people’s TV.

The TV Perso service has been online only for a few days, and http://www.universfreebox.com/article3553.html and http://freenews.fr are already reporting of very fun and awesome user-generated Live and On-Demand content.

Just as I saw awesome live iPhone launch coverage a couple of days ago made by Mogulus at http://iphonelaunch.tv, the French are using participatory tactics on their Live user-generated TV channels, chatting with viewers live on Skype, answering questions on chat channels and more.

I expect a French made Archos TV+ would be able to sell this service and feature to the rest of the world. Such as VOD to the TV, and using the recording ability and the Internet upload connection to upload user-generated live and On-Demand high quality Mpeg4 video.

This is a video in french by a french technology magazine SVM showing the interface of this service:

Click Read More to watch more videos about this service:
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