Yeah, I skipped out on blogging about days 1 and 2. See whiprush’s blog or Planet Ubuntu for more. I’m gonna blog about the OLPC - the One Laptop Per Child machine. Holy cow. Simply amazing technology, from the hardware up thru the OS and application stack.

Sophomore in #linux just asked “Wouldn’t it be more cost effective to send in off-lease/old used donated laptops?” The answer is no. The OLPC isn’t a PC per say. It’s a completely new architecture and way of looking at computing. The thing doesn’t have a BIOS, it’s using Sun’s OpenFirmware (and I just heard all the guys in #linux groan). Built in network meshing - so each machine can become a node in the WLAN or WWAN. Very cool stuff.

The OS is completely revamped as well. I came in late to the preso (traffic was freaking HORRIBLE today), but I did catch stuff like the OS patch model is one gigantic patchfile to bring you to the next level (like OS X). All the apps are enabled for wireless collaboration.

I can’t stress enough how this little machine will change education worldwide. Rather than continue blathering on about it (TOO LATE!) I’ll just link the site in here.

Check it out at www.laptop.org.