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Forum: Internet Links Topic: Ethiopian kids hack OLPCs in 5 months started by: TPRJones Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 02 2012,06:21
I like this story. So OLPC decides to try something different, and just dumps off a thousand touchscreen tablets (modded to have solar power) for the kids in an Ethiopian village. No instructions and no one in these villages had ever so much as seen a printed word. Just dumps off the boxes and wait to see what happens.QUOTE "We left the boxes in the village. Closed. Taped shut. No instruction, no human being. I thought, the kids will play with the boxes! Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, but found the on/off switch. He'd never seen an on/off switch. He powered it up. Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs [in English] in the village. And within five months, they had hacked Android. Some idiot in our organization or in the Media Lab had disabled the camera! And they figured out it had a camera, and they hacked Android."
Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 02 2012,07:09
Funny thing about the title of this forum.
Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 02 2012,07:23
Heh. Oops. I really meant to link it.< http://dvice.com/archives/2012/10/ethiopian-kids.php > Posted by Malcolm on Nov. 02 2012,07:26
Drop in some PCs with Windows Vista and see how intuitive that UI is.
Posted by GORDON on Nov. 02 2012,08:22
Yeah, that is pretty cool.
Posted by thibodeaux on Nov. 02 2012,09:45
They "hacked" Android? I smell BS.
Posted by GORDON on Nov. 02 2012,09:46
Probably to the extent they opened the case and plugged the camera back in.
Posted by Troy on Nov. 02 2012,10:07
How many of them were actually sold for things an Ethiopian village really needs? Like... food?
Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 02 2012,10:16
(Troy @ Nov. 02 2012,13:07) QUOTE How many of them were actually sold for things an Ethiopian village really needs? Like... food? Give a man some food, he eats for a day. Teach him to hack Android, he, uh... writes a tech blog? Posted by GORDON on Nov. 02 2012,10:23
(TheCatt @ Nov. 02 2012,13:16) QUOTE (Troy @ Nov. 02 2012,13:07) QUOTE How many of them were actually sold for things an Ethiopian village really needs? Like... food? Give a man some food, he eats for a day. Teach him to hack Android, he, uh... writes a tech blog? And they have never heard of an "Apple Product," but they intuitively hate it. Posted by GORDON on Nov. 02 2012,10:26
(Troy @ Nov. 02 2012,13:07) QUOTE How many of them were actually sold for things an Ethiopian village really needs? Like... food? But seriously, even Bono has figured out the just throwing food at them doesn't help. < http://www.forbes.com/sites....d-nerds > They need to learn how to help themselves, and capitalism is the only way to do that. But capitalism doesn't work without a trusted, innate sense of private property... how do you build and sell what can be taken from you on a whim? So, Africa has serious problems. The scarcity of food is just a symptom of the bigger problem. Posted by Malcolm on Nov. 02 2012,10:46
Africa needs infrastructure more than it needs food at the moment. That shit gets shipped in crates all day long to get sent over there. You can't just unload a modern sewage, electrical, water, or road system off a ship and install it in a week.
Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 02 2012,11:08
Well, at least in two villages there are now a bunch of kids that might grow up to be interested in more than just struggling to survive day by day.
Posted by GORDON on Nov. 02 2012,11:16
Once people have private property and start creating wealth by building shit to sell, they start getting interested in protecting their shit from bad guys, and they get civilian police, and security. Then the peeps who have created wealth start thinking they would have more customers if everyone were healthy with seeage and sanitation and stuff.But you have nothing without the concept of property ownership. Posted by Malcolm on Nov. 02 2012,11:45
(TPRJones @ Nov. 02 2012,13:08) QUOTE Well, at least in two villages there are now a bunch of kids that might grow up to be interested in more than just struggling to survive day by day. I bet they're all interested in that. I furthermore bet that only a few get to do it. Posted by Malcolm on Nov. 02 2012,11:49
(GORDON @ Nov. 02 2012,13:16) QUOTE Once people have private property and start creating wealth by building shit to sell, they start getting interested in protecting their shit from bad guys, and they get civilian police, and security. But you have nothing without the concept of property ownership. People who have large amounts of private property over in Africa generally maintain and get more by shooting or hacking others with machetes. Property ownership isn't enough, it's who owns what and what the fuck they decide "owns" means. I'd like to add that the gov't entities in the U.S. can < take your shit whenever they want with a good enough excuse >. |