Despite not hearing much in terms of the OLPC project recently it seems that they are still seeing their fair share of success. According to Walter Bender they have topped one million downloads on Sugar Labs. “I had been meaning to mention that already several weeks ago we exceeded one-million downloads from activities.sugarlabs.org. We are more »

The One Laptop Per Child program is trying to live up to its name. OLPC has a deal with Yoko Ono to use John Lennon’s likeness in order to promote the purchase of these laptops for every child. There is a new commercial that OLPC will run using a John Lennon sort-of-sound-alike together with some video footage from an interview that has been altered to match the video to the audio.

The message is simple — empower children everywhere with knowledge using laptops. Personally, I think if Lennon were still alive, he probably would promote something like this. The ads will run on CBS, Time Warner, and Fox networks. These companies donated the commercial time to the OLPC program. You can see the video after the break.

Via [Geeksugar]Help [OLPC]

New England Patriots QB Tom Brady has announced he is teaming up with the One Laptop Per Child project and buying 1,500 of them to send to children in Uganda. They will be shipped to his sister Nancy who works with the Infectious Diseases Institute there. Continued after the break.

Just a few months back, we saw Peru become the first country in the world to begin a Windows XP based XO laptop pilot program, and now Columbia will be joining them. The announcement, which comes courtesy of Microsoft, is calling for the program to initially take place in Quetame and Chia, but will also more »

Walter Bender, Former President of Software and Content for the OLPC project, has stepped down due to his disagreement with founder Nicholas Negroponte, who wants to abandon Linux in favor of Windows XP in order to increase the marketability of the XO laptop. Bender had led the development of XO’s Linux OS, called Sugar. Before his resignation, he had been reassigned to oversee deployment of the organizations low cost laptops to children in developing countries. He had this to say in his exit statement:

There are so many things going on with the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project these days. Aside from parting ways with Intel, a new venture established by former OLPC chief technology officer, Mary Lou Jepsen, is now developing a $75 laptop with low-power displays. Pixel Qi, the name of this spin-out company, believes the more »