Archive for September, 2007
Riding the Tide
Friday, September 28th, 2007For almost a month now, the Vanuatu IT Users Society has been conducting demonstrations of the One Laptop Per Child Project’s XO laptop. These demos have led to numerous conversations about computers, the Internet and access to information. What affect is this going to have on the Vanuatu way of life?
Most people assume that as [...]
Black Smoke and Storm Clouds
Friday, September 21st, 2007Every weekday morning, in every street in Port Vila, we see a steady stream of people walking into town. On the road beside them, innumerable buses and cars drive by, belching black smoke into their faces. Just as regularly, we see complaints in the local media about this smoke. But nothing ever gets done about [...]
Stars in Their Eyes
Monday, September 17th, 2007 In an online discussion recently, I defended the XO laptop by mentioning how impressed people were when I conducted demonstrations of the hardware and software. If the XO is such a mediocre piece of hardware, “why,” I asked, “do people walk away with stars in their eyes?”
I went on to say that in my [...]
OLPC Q&A
Friday, September 14th, 2007OLPC Q&A
There’s been a ton of interest in the OLPC laptop ever since the Vanuatu IT User Society (VITUS) obtained a prototype to demonstrate to people here in Vanuatu. A few readers will have already attended one of the VITUS demonstrations. In the interests of raising awareness about this new approach to learning technology, here [...]
Talking Technology
Friday, September 7th, 2007This week’s column starts with a mea culpa. The column about Microsoft’s meeting with the Ministry of Education raised some eyebrows, and both Ministry employees and individuals wrote in to point out that there were inaccuracies in the reporting. They rightly observed that the author did not attend the meeting in question, and was therefore [...]