There is plenty of negative response to the OLPC project, particularly focused on the politics around the distribution and use of the computers. So, it was so refreshing to meet the OLPCs through Mary Lou Jepson’s hand in its creation, and to understand the innovation and advanced technologies that have gone into making them. Aside from the evident advancements that went into the development of the screen, such as the ability to be used in direct sunlight and to have the graphic quality of that of a laser printed document—neither quality is particularly standard on commercial laptops, OLPC’s greatest success from a technological standpoint is its modular quality. What I mean by this is usually successful computer design is associated with sleek exteriors and a discouragement of opening the laptop up yourself to reconfigure the hardware (there is a “genius bar” to fix computers for you, or you are enticed to buy the newer, thinner model). The fact that OLPCs were designed to be modular in that they could easily be taken apart and hardware updated or fixed creates an all together different, and maybe more successful attitude surrounding the technology within the laptop. The report about the girls who started the OLPC laptop hospital to perform these minor hardware adjustments is an instance of how attitudes around computer technology should be, even if not everyone is able to manipulated the physical aspects of the laptop, it is still understood that a “non-genius” will be able to do so, like the girls of the hospital. The technological advancements made in OLPCs are sure to find their ways into commercially sold laptops, but what might be more important to the current generation of computer users would be a return and refocus on the malleability of the hardware and the personal hand within the use of technology. Not to mention that it is in fact more environmentally sound to alter and update a laptop piece by piece as it is needed, than to scrap an entire computer in favor of a newer model.
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