Richard Nantel

Amazon launched their e-book reader this morning. Here’s a demo from the Amazon site.

I can’t help thinking it looks like a big cheap calculator or perhaps a medical device. =:0 At the very least, Amazon should make it available in nice colors.

Interestingly, in this Newsweek article about the Kindle, the One Laptop per Child XO laptop I wrote about last week is mentioned as a good choice for an e-book reader. The XO laptop has a high resolution screen (1200 × 900, 200 DPI) and can be charged by hand. Here’s the quote:

“All this becomes even headier when you consider that, as the e-book reader is coming of age, there are huge initiatives underway to digitize entire libraries. Amazon, of course, is part of that movement (its Search Inside the Book project broke ground by providing the first opportunity for people to get search results from a corpus of hundreds of thousands of tomes). But, as an unabashed bookseller, its goals are different from those of other players, such as Google—whose mission is collecting and organizing all the world’s information—and that of the Open Content Alliance, a consortium that wants the world’s books digitized in a totally nonproprietary manner. (The driving force behind the alliance, Brewster Kahle, made his fortune by selling his company to Amazon but is unhappy with the digital-rights management on the Kindle: his choice of an e-book reader would be the dirt-cheap XO device designed by the One Laptop Per Child Foundation.)

My XO laptop will get here shortly, so I’ll provide a review when it arrives.

Between November 12 and November 26, One Laptop per Child is offering a Give One Get One program in the United States and Canada. Buy two laptops, and one will be sent to a child in a developing country. You get the other for a child in your life.

This is a revolutionary machine. Here’s a demo.

November 12, 2007 is the official launch of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative.

It’s been less than two years since Nicholas Negroponte presented at the World Economic Forum the idea for a $100 laptop that would be distributed to children in developing countries. High profile companies, including AMD, News Corp., Google, and Red Hat, quickly joined the initiative to help create a rugged, low-cost, Linux-based laptop.

Although the final cost is $199 per computer, the technology looks amazing, right down to the crank-powered electrical supply.

I can’t see any story being bigger than this in the world of learning in 2007. Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General, sums up the benefits of this initiative as follows:

“This is not just a matter of giving a laptop to each child, as if bestowing on them some magical charm. The magic lies within—within each child, within each scientist—, scholar—, or just-plain-citizen-in-the-making. This initiative is meant to bring it forth into the light of day.”—Kofi Annan

Would you like to support this initiative? Starting next week, buy two laptops for $399. One will be shipped to a child in a developing country. You get the other. Or, you can make a donation here.

Mr. Negroponte: thank you for reminding us that we each have the power to change the world for the better.