MIDP on the OLPC
The One laptop per child (OLPC) project aims to develop a $100 laptop, with the goal of enabling children education. The project is interesting not only because of the very ambitious price target, but also because it explores new directions in the hardware design of mobile devices:
- very power efficient: It has a 1.1 Watt CPU. The LCD screen has a new design allowing to use 1/7 of the typical power consumption of present LCD displays. Combined with smart power management (for example, the CPU may be suspended while the LCD is kept ON - allowing to use very little power when reading a book) this may allow the device to run for dozens of hours on a battery charge. This would be quite an advance from the laptop I use today, where the battery time is in the 3 to 5 hours range.
- transreflective LCD display. This allows good LCD visibility in sunlight, again something I’d want on my laptop.
I think it would be a good idea to offer a JavaME implementation (MIDP/CLDC) on the OLPC laptop. This will allow to use the large amount of existing MIDP applications (many of them games, but not only) on the laptop. Also JavaME is a simple (and easy to learn) programming environment that may be used to introduce the children to programming. Another point is that the existing MIDP applications are developed for devices with limited processor power and smaller displays, so they are fit for running on the OLPC.
It is good that Sun is already working on open-sourcing JavaME (this should be completed before the end of 2006, let’s hope), as this may allow easier porting of JavaME to OLPC.
As a consumer, I’d like to be able to buy one OLPC laptop for myself (and maybe one more for my wife), either in a physical store or over the internet, even though I’m not a child in a developing country anymore. I guess I shouldn’t need help from the governement of the country I’m in right now in order to be able to get a laptop (because it seems that the distribution channel envisioned by MIT right now is large commands from the Ministry of Education). Maybe one problem with offering such cheap devices on the market is that it will upset the vendors of mobile phones and laptops, which may oppose the project in order to protect their profits.