Triplesourced

It seems the rumours that the fruits of the OLPC project, or "$100 laptop" project as its also known, will be made available to consumers in developed countries is true after all.

There seemed to be some confusion over whether the XO laptop would actually be available to consumers in the US and Europe - but today OLPC announced a "Give one, Get one" scheme - - where for $399 dollars, buyers in the west get a laptop for themselves whilst donating another machine to a child in a developing nation.

A lot of people are still sceptical that this device is the right solution for tackling the digital divide but this move still sounds like a great plan to popularise the device over here and where it is really needed.

Find out more here:
http://www.techmeme.com/070924/p8#a070924p8

And:
http://laptop.org/

It seems that Stephen Fry fancies himself something of the tech-journalist/blogger - and has held forth in great detail about a whole host of new mobile devices including the iPhone.

You can find Stephen Fry's blog here:
http://www.stephenfry.com/blog/

More news of the sterling work done by telecoms aid agency Telecoms Sans Frontieres. The latest venture from the IT equivalent of International Rescue, involved despatching a crew of telecoms specialists to Ghana last week flowing heavy floods that have affected much of the country.

The report makes for sobering reading:

According to the government’s National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), floods have affected close to 275,000 people in the Upper East, Upper West and Northern Regions of the country. Parts of the Western Region have also been affected. At least 20 people have been killed. The United Nations is currently running assessments in the affected areas to confirm the NADMO information and identify the needs of affected civilians.

In coordination with UNDAC, TSF already supervised the installation of a first communication centre in Accra. Monday morning, TSF’s crew arrived in Tamale, focal point for aid coordination in the Northern regions of the country and could deploy one or several additional emergency satellite-based communication centres for all rescue teams involved in disaster relief. Technical assistance will also be provided.

This mission in supported by the Vodafone Group Foundation (VGF), the United Nations Foundation and TSF’s other corporate partners: Inmarsat, France Telecom, Eutelsat, AT&T, Vizada and Cable & Wireless. This is TSF’s seventh emergency mission this year.

TSF is still deployed in Peru, following the devastating earthquake which hit the country on August 15th and is operating in Nicaragua since September 5th to strengthen relief efforts after Hurricane Felix. In Nicaragua, TSF already deployed four communication centres for rescue teams in the RAAN (Northern Atlantic Autonomous Region) and is currently running humanitarian calling operation for affected civilians. These calling operations enable survivors to call their loved-ones to say: "I’m alive".

For more information or to make a donation go to:
www.tsfi.org.

We're doing some musing about this right now. In his press conference earlier, Microsoft Brad Smith announced that Microsoft would continue to sell the Windows Media Player-free versions of Windows – Windows XP-N and Vista-N. However the whole issue of these so-called 'N' releases have been a farce with retailers doing little or nothing to promote them. They are simply versions of Windows without something that cost practically the same – where is the motivation for the consumer? All in all the Windows-N decision was a pretty toothless one from the EU. What we should have had was Windows-N as the default option and consumers forced to ask for Windows Media Player bundled versions.

However –the Media Player debate seems pretty old-school now. This EU ruling might not have gone Microsoft's way – but legislation and fines is not what the company is really worried about now.

It needs Vista and the server offering Longhorn to be a success – and given this EC ruling it's going to be a tougher mission than for any previous OS release from Redmond. Not only are serious curbs now in place to stop it using its dominance to plough market share for Vista and Longhorn but Google, Apple and Linux (server and a resurgent desktop) mean that the natural upgrade to the next Microsoft offering is no longer the automatic decision it once was.

More worryingly for MS, a real feeling in the market has taken hold that it has lost whatever innovative direction it might have had and just has nothing to offer when it comes to competing with Apple's brilliantly realised consumer offerings and Google's complete dominance of the Internet – and increasing office productivity tools. Microsoft is rapidly being painted into a corner – with no real idea of how to get out.

TThe EU versus Microsoft press conference has just finished in Brussels and chief council for the software giant Brad Smith is doing a good job of saying a lot without saying much.

He seemed pretty jovial and even kicked off proceedings with a Woody Allen gag about learning to speed read and after digesting War and Peace in 20 minutes – concluding it was about Russia.

Smith is definitely a cool customer and wasn't about to be rattled by the Brussels press corp into saying anything concrete or negative – in one instance he dodged the 'negative' mine-field by referring to "positive outcomes and disappointing ones".

Smith did a very good job of making some of the aggressive language used by EU representatives appear to be at best over-zealous and at worst clumsy and ill-thought-out. The EU did itself no favours either – with one spokesperson Neelie Kroes, already forced to clarify remarks made early today where she claimed that she hoped to see a lowering of Microsoft's 95 percent market share. The EU is not against high market shares – but rather abuse of that dominance. Right- that's clear then.

One of the main questions being fired at him is will Microsoft appeal - but Smith is avoiding any firm comment on this at the moment - it's a big document and MS needs more time to digest it, he claims.

Smith did make several references to the fact that Microsoft is not the only company to have a dominant market share in the tech industry. He mentioned Apple's 70 percent share digital downloads as evidence that the Microsoft's Media Player hadn't curbed competition in that segment of the market.

Smith also claimed that Linux Server has grown faster than Windows Server recently as more evidence that Microsoft hasn't got things all its own way. However he was quick to point out that did not mean that Microsoft would not comply with the EU's 2004 ruling in full but just that that "the world, the IT industry and this company" has changed since a letter from Sun Microsystems helped to instigate the EU action back in 1998.