Pentagram has announced an update to the One Laptop Per Child website. OLPC is an initiative I’ve been interested in for a while and I’m excited to see any updates that further the awareness of the program. From Pentagram, designers of both the website and the XO laptop’s interface:

The new site is an evolution of the previous one and was designed to more actively engage visitors through videos, frequently updated news feeds, Flickr photostreams and interactive demonstrations of Sugar, the laptop’s user interface…

OLPC is also taking its marketing campaign and distribution system to a new level this year, making the laptops available through Amazon and partnering with media companies such as CBS and Time Warner as they donate TV time, billboard space and magazine pages to raise public awareness about the initiative.

More info at Pentagram.com

My immediate thoughts are that the full-screen interface allows for future updates through firmware only which should lengthen the product lifecycle. Alas, many people will lament the hard keyboard (iPhone groaners quiet down for a second) but the reality is touch screen interfaces are here to stay and if a nation of children are going to be using them, we should lighten up and get used to it. (Especially if they have haptic response.)

(Via Dezeen)

While I’m tempted to get one, I feel the promotion would be much better received if the donator and the recipient could communicate directly with each other via their XO’s. How great would it be to actually see the smile of a child who’s got a shiny new laptop and the means to live a much improved life now thanks to you?

The New York Times has a great write up on a small but significant group of folks at MIT that use “concrete thinking to improve the lives of the world’s bottom billion, those who live on a dollar a day or less and who often die young.” 

A solid read for anyone interested in how easy it is to help the world’s poor.

• The XO is specifically designed for kids: small keys, trackpad, and size
• Manufactured for around $140
• They will ship them in orders of 1 million
• Includes some overview of the amazing Pentagram-designed software interface
• Switch between color and monochromatic display mode for inside-outside use
• There’s a pretty nice built in camera for taking pictures (again the goal is to share)
• Uses mesh networking so one laptop can share an Internet connection with other laptops (“trickle-down effect” if just one laptop is near a large city)

Again, I can’t stress how much I love this project. We are fortunate to be able to access information and education for free and now these kids will have the same opportunity. Moreso, they’ll experience computers in a much different way than most of have (until now) — as social, collaborative tools that foster relationships and group work instead just being fast typewriters.

If you’re still not getting the impact, think of the first thing you learned on a computer. Most of us will probably say word processing or a single-player game. These kids will be learning about setting up groups by seeking out other OLPC laptops and creating projects. And if you think of all the MySpace’s, Facebook’s, dating sites and IM tools, isn’t that what we’re just figuring out how to do now?