The WFP has been developing some lovely materials to support their work with OLPC in Nepal. In a recent animation short, Nim Doma Sherpa (the youngest woman to climb Mt. Everest) and an acrobatic yak (who seems to have been working with her for some time) snowboard down a mountain to deliver XOs to a school of children. Priceless.
Thanks to Flavio Danesse, one of the CeibalJAM developers, children can now stream TV and radio to their XOs using the new Sugar activity called JAMedia. This Sugar activity is a music and video player that can stream online TV or radio broadcasts, or play local media from the Journal. The result offers quite a fine video-watching experience, and for now offers access to over 25 television and 70 radio streams.
CeibalJAM recently made headlines by receiving an honorable mention from the Prix Ars Electronica annual awards for “Digital Communities”.
Sugar Labs recently announced their latest build of Sugar on a Stick (codename: MIRABELLE), along with the Sugar Creation Kit.
See a Mirabelle retrospective by one of the contributing developers, and the inimitable Mel Chua’s take on lessons to be learned from the process.
The PaleXO volunteer team, whose Arabic language blog we recently added to our sidebar, has been working with the OLPC children in the West Bank for the past year. They’ve run some local installation events and software workshops, and are planning a Scratch Day to encourage kids to make Scratch activities. They often host events at Birzeit University.
They also have the best group OLPC shirts I’ve seen since the rise of the velociraptors… it’s a snapshot of the Sugar desktop with the most common activity icons on it, so they can simply point to the right icon on their shirt when working with students during a workshop. Brilliant. Barbara brought back some lovely photographs from there as well as the ones we posted earlier from Gaza.
Photography is a powerful medium that conveys a message through an emotional and visceral impulse in the viewer. An image can tell the story of hardships, frustrations and joys, and the immutable human spirit in a way that transcends words.
I am curating and archiving OLPC photographs from around the world – of communities, kids, teachers, and the towns and cities they live in. I believe the best photographs portray a sense of daily life and learning. I want to collect and show a set of photographs for people who love photography. They will present an intimate portrait of the subjects that can be achieved by close observation and interaction over time. They will show children and their families in daily life at home and in school, reading, studying, working, and at play.
These photographs will strive to answer basic questions about how OLPC affects children, their families, and community: How is learning valued at home? How do children, parents and teachers work and study together, or with others? What are their hopes for the future? How do they share stories or ideas with other towns? What music and videos do they like?
Here are some great photos found so far:
Child and grandmother at home in Peru
Children in a classroom in Peru
Children show their XOs in Uruguay
Whole school with XOs in Sichuan
Girls sitting on gate working on XOs in Colonia, Uruguay
Child on salt lake with XO in Pilbara, Western Australia
Boys working together in classroom in Mongolia
Girl learning with XO in classroom in Gaza
Girls using laptop in field in Peru
Children learning with laptops in a village in Colombia
Boy works with XO on the ground in Uruguay
Children learn and play in Brazil
-Mike
Pixel Qi is showing off at Computex this week in Taipei, and Charbax just posted a detailed interview with Mary Lou Jepsen from the floor. Â Look for the “Qi” button at 0:25, and serious geeking out on the physics and fab process starting at 5:00… and for the rest of the video! (For a quicker soundbite, he also posted this side-by-side iPad / iPhone / 3Qi comparison video yesterday.)
Notion Ink's Adam tablet, with 3Qi screen
Pixel Qi are having a good quarter. They are offering a variety of display options, including wide-view, anti-reflective coating, and a capacitive touchsreen. And they have started winning industry awards. More details, and a Notion Ink interview (they say their Adam tablet will release on time in a few months), after the jump.
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