One Laptop Per Child or OLPC project is now focusing on expansion of its domain. This non profit organisation has recently decided to keep away from the small scale deployment of XO laptops and has started to focus on large scale deployments of the devices. This strategy is adopted to combat the recession. The OLPC will now break its operations on regional basis and start giving the laptops.

This change is also initiated by a loss in interest in Give 1 Get 1 program, which was the major source of funding for OLPC. The G1G1 program was a big hit in its initial and subsequent stages but last year the program’s sales dropped tremendously. According to OLPC founder and Chairman Nicholas Negroponte, “This year G1G1 was less than 10 percent of the previous year. Not good; perhaps in keeping with the economic times.” Of course, sales of netbooks, like the Samsung NC10, are actually soaring during the same tough economic times; so maybe there is something else amiss with the OLPC XO laptop. Apart from this another program called ‘Change the World’ was also discontinued by OLPC. This program was aimed at small deployments of XO laptops with a hope that it will bolster the program’s success in future. Unfortunately this didn’t happened and thus the OLPC now targets large deployment of XO. OLPC will now put special emphasis on Sub-Sahara, Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Citrix has launched a unique and innovative programme for its employees. Like any other major IT company, Citrix also believes in replacing the employee’s laptops every three years with a new advanced one, but this time the policy has been further enhanced.

It has been observed that the majority of employees remain dissatisfied as the laptops which they get from the company are locked up to certain limit and do not allow them to customise the applications and comply with the taste and preferences of each and every individual. In addressing this issue, the company has expanded its scheme under which the employees can either accept the laptops selected by the company or they can have a check of $2,100 (around £1,400) and buy the one they want. Such a sum is easily enough to purchase most high-end laptops on the market, including exclusive models like the Sony Vaio VGN-AW11Z. The only condition is that the laptops must support all the company’s applications such as Xen App Receiver (ICA) browser plug-in that provide access to virtual corporate desktop.

Employees can buy any laptop with any configuration. Citrix will share only $2,100 of the total cost. The rest has to be paid by the employees themselves. Apart from this, the hardware support contract also has to be arranged by the employees if they buy their own customised laptop. The company’s IT team will only provide support for the in house applications like Xen App Receiver (ICA) browser plug-in. Despite of all such conditions more and more employees prefer to buy the laptop of their own.

Tags for this article: laptop, Laptops, company

The Fusion Voicemail Plus is finally out for Android smartphone users. It is the only visual voicemail application which has been designed specially for the Android phones. PhoneFusion, an innovative provider of communication solutions has developed this beta version of Fusion Voicemail Plus. This is basically the result of the overwhelming response from the Android community after it previewed the application at the Under the Radar: Mobility event. It is also one app the Apple iPhone does not have. Visual voicemail will offer the Android users a new and refreshing way of communication. It will not only bring in the innovation but also simplify voicemail management. As of now, most users have to deal with three or more voicemail boxes each one configured to be used at their home, office and on wireless devices. The Fusion Voicemail Plus resolves this issue by offering a centralised management of all the voicemail boxes and displaying them on the Android smartphone.

The users of this service will be able to listen to their voicemail directly from their Android phones and with new technology that displays the Caller ID Name for each voicemail, regardless of whether it is saved in your phonebook or not. Louis Libin, chief executive officer, PhoneFusion said, “After previewing Fusion Voicemail Plus for Android smartphones, we received an overwhelming amount of interest from the Android community. Our PhoneFusion development team has worked around-the-clock to get a beta version of the application ready for use. Stay tuned as we will continue roll out additional functionality in the next few weeks, showing PhoneFusion’s commitment to enhancing the user experience beyond a mobile device’s limits.”

Disability Support Services (DSS) has decided to raffle a laptop next year in order raise funds to buy special laptops loaded with unusual software which will help the students suffering with disability.

The students will be offered the laptops of their choice and they will also be allowed to take away the unit to their homes. That means it completely depends on the student’s choice whether they want to use the laptops in the lab or at their home, because some of the students find it difficult to come to the lab for work. And as the students are offered the laptop of their choice, they can even pick advanced and capable machines like the Sony Vaio VGN-FW21Z to help them out. Most of the DSS students are suffering from learning disabilities such as Dyslexia and attention deficit disorder. For such students the laptops, which have adaptive software installed, are really useful. The adaptive software basically contains Kurzweil 3000, which can convert the printed text into audio. It can also increase the size of the printed text. The DSS department is looking forward to raising enough money to buy at least five laptops and licenses for the Kurzweil 3000.

According to Regina Pino, assistant to the coordinator of disability support services, “If I was dyslexic, for example, I could use this software to see the words as I hear them being spoken, so I know exactly how to spell the word. If I couldn’t see well, this program allows me to make the text bigger.”

Google has just released a customised Google Earth application for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. This one is simply stunning and is packed with useful features. As this one was meant especially for Apple iPhone and iPod Touch, its original PC version has been altered and optimised for the iPhone/iPod touch displays. The mobile version of this geographical application from Google is designed in a way that it fully utilises the functions of the iPhone. For example, it allows the users to tilt the iPhone to adjust the view while browsing mountainous terrain. Apart from this, the application also has a ‘My Location’ feature that takes the user to the location where he is located, in no time.

It also provides the user with the opportunity to use Google’s local search engine in order to fetch information regarding cities, places and businesses. Additional functional layers, such as Panoramio and Wikipedia, are also embedded into the Google Earth for iPhone application, so you can browse through geo-located high quality photos and informative articles. This makes the Apple iPhone version of Google Earth almost just as good and capable as the current desktop version, which was first released back in 2005.

The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project is really becoming a hot favourite in developing countries. Although the XO laptops are minimally powered, they are a perfect tool for making kids computer literate at a minimal cost. The goal of the programme is astoundingly to develop laptops that are even less expensive than the Asus Eee PC 701 4G. The only issue that the OLPC programme has faced is that the laptops used in this project are running on Linux based Sugar Operating System instead of Windows. While in some countries Sugar is considered as a great operating system, others argue that as the global workspace is dominated by the Windows based systems, the students should practice on the same platform; otherwise they will turn into computer literates but still incompetent in the Windows environment.

Thus the OLPC has decided to introduce new XO laptops running Windows XP Pro. As of now, Peru will be the first country to experience these newbies. In addition to this, a dual boot edition is also expected in future. To find out which OS the kids prefer, they were given both the laptops to work and play. The results were amazing. The kids find it easier to work on windows based XO machines but they still want to stick to the Sugar OS because of the array of pre-installed learning games that come with it. Obviously, both the operating systems offer excellent opportunities to learn and enjoy.