OLPC laptop passes N.Y. Times columnist's screen test: Now how about .epub and a kick-start for publishers in dev countries?

So is the OLPC laptop worth it as a holiday buy—through the $400 two-for-one deal for yourself and a child in a developing country?

In an upbeat review with an accompanying video, David Pogue, a New York Times tech columnist, praises the 7.5-inch screen and notes the e-book capabilities and the long battery life, among other things.

Screen “almost like paper”

“Speaking of bright sunshine,” he says, “the XO’s color screen is bright and, at 200 dots an inch, razor sharp (1,200 by 900 pixels). But it has a secret identity: in bright sun, you can turn off the backlight altogether. The resulting display, black on light gray, is so clear and readable, it’s almost like paper. Then, of course, the battery lasts even longer.”

Yes, Pogue’s sample OLPC machine came with a PDF reader; and that means you could download customized versions of the format from sites like Manybooks.net and Feedbooks. An .epub reader soon? Perhaps a special flavor of FBReader or else a browser plug-in? Now combine that with social DRM for publishers insisting on at least some kind of piracy-discourager, and adventurous commercial publishers using the the .epub format could find a new audience in developing countries for very reasonably priced books.

A modest proposal for MacArthur or another foundation

Perhaps MacArthur or another foundation needs to use grants as carrots to get Western publishers to experiment with the now-$178 laptop, ideally with the .epub standard. I want all kinds of business models to thrive, and for local books, too, not just imported titles, to be available. The OLPC project could encourage the creation and survival of small e-publishers in the developing world—enlarging the market for indigenous books, not just imports alone. Oh, and now about e-newspapers there, too?

The Sophie platform, funded in part by MacArthur and created somewhat with collaborative learning in mind, is also be worth considering although I think .epub capability should come first. We need a bridge between the laptop and the mainstream of e-books, and PDF is horrid on small screens unless you’re able to able to customize it.

Don’t forget, too, the possibilities of a stripped-down, etext-optimized machine like the Solar Reader, conceived by Martin Woodhouse—another possibility, as I see it, for books and newspapers alike. It just might make commercial sense, not merely do-gooder sense, and be useful in the States, not simply developing countries. Martin envisions the price at $50, although I doubt it would be that low in the beginning, especially if wireless were included.

Businessweek links

Meanwhile here are three OLPC-related links from Businessweek:

—Is Intel better than OLPC in teaching kids at the bottom of the pyramid?

—Give a laptop and get one.

—It’s time to call One Laptop Per Child a failure, by Bruce Nussbaum. It is in the sense that major governments haven’t come through with checks so far despite encouraging words. Nussbaum correctly says that the project could have paid more attention to education bureaucrats and used less of a tops-down-approach. But I would disagree with his observations that perhaps a cellphone kind of device would have been better. The problem is less in the hardware—far more flexible than a phone and capable of including VoIP—than the way it’s been sold.

Major positive

One major positive is that OLPC is now using the e-book capabilities of the machine as a Trojan Horse to try to reel in countries that are still thinking strictly in textbook terms. Existing books can simply be digitized. As OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte notes, “This is less disturbing to their educational establishments.” Exactly! Laudably, OLPC has backed off from insisting that the machines simply be used for constructivist-style education.

Another perspective: One Fake Steve Jobs Sarcasm Per Academic Laptop Project, in OLPC News.