What's new
This page is updated each week (usually on Monday morning) with notes from the Sugar Labs community. (The digest is also sent to the community-news at sugarlabs.org list, blogged at walterbender.org, and archived here.) If you would like to contribute, please send email to walter at sugarlabs.org by the weekend. (Also visit planet.sugarlabs.org.)
Sugar Digest
1. We have a newly elected Sugar Labs oversight board. Joining us are Claudia Urrea, Gonzalo Odiard, and Daniel Francis. Continuing are Adam Holt, Chris Leonard, Gerald Ardito, and Walter Bender. It is a nice group -- quite diverse -- which will bring some new perspectives to the board. Departing are Chris Ball, Aleksey Lim, and Sebastian Silva. All three will be missed: Chris's calm, thoughtful guidance, Aleksey's cool insight into the needs of developers and also the reminder that our mission is broader than just our current collection of tools, and Sebastian, who lives and breathes on the ground of Sugar deployments, and has well represented their needs. I hope that our departing members will continue to participate as non-voting contributors to our discussions and I also am very grateful for everything they have contributed in the past.
2. Two more weeks of Google Code In. It has really been fun trying to keep pace with all of these new contributors to Sugar. If you have ideas for "tasks", it is not too late to add more. Please contact me or Chris Leonard.
3. 2012 is coming to an end, a natural time to reflect on where we have been and where we are going.
From the technical perspective, Sugar 0.96 and 0.98, which include the port to GTK3 and support for touch are important milestones. The tireless work of the development team under the leadership of Simon Schampijer has really born fruit. They have guaranteed the stability of Sugar on GNU/Linux for the foreseeable future. (A tip of the hat to Martin Langhoff and OLPC Association, who generously supported Simon and much of the devel team in 2012.) Their work will be featured as the OLPC XO4 is unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) early next month.
From the learning perspective, through the participation of Claudia and the Learning Team, we made a lot of headway on understanding how Sugar is used and how it can be used to have more impact on learning. Their work on "making learning visible" has both academic merit and practical implications for the learner.
From the user perspective, we continue to expand our user base, both in terms of new deployments and new platforms. In 2012, we made renewed headway in the US market, with projects in Miami, Florida and Charlotte, North Carolina (sponsored by the Knight Foundation). On the other side of the globe, Barry Vercoe has launched a program in New Zealand. Meanwhile, existing programs, such as those in Nicaragua and Paraguay, continue to expand. In Argentina, while the growth of OLPC has been slow, the growth of Sugar on other platforms is steadfast. While it is difficult to track where it is being used, the number of visits to the Sugar-on-a-Stick download page is >> 600,000.
We have also grown our developer community. Of particular note is that the next generation contributors is in large part coming from Sugar users. Daniel, Agustin, Christofer, Ignacio, Rafael, and others whom Flavio Danesse has been mentoring in Uruguay have become central to the Sugar development process. They have realized our goal of having real responsibility for learning and the tools for learning lie in the hands of the learners themselves. This is an unprecedented accomplishment for which the Sugar Community should be proud. Sugar Labs participation in Google Code-in is icing on the cake. We've got >50 new youth contributors since the contest began in November.
From the point of view of localization and internationalization, the highlights of 2012 are the progress we have made in Aymara and Quechua. Edgar Quispe and Irma Alvarez have done wonders. (A tip of the hat to Chris Leonard and Aymar Ccopacatty for their help and support.) Barry Vercoe has personally funded work on Maori and we have had much progress on several indigenous languages in Mexico. Meanwhile, Chris has made numerous contributions upstream, both by hosting some upstream projects on our Pootle server, but also by being a strong voice and advocate within the glibc and pootle communities.
More technical highlights include the work of Daniel Narvaez on sugar-build, which provides a much more stable development environment than the unwieldy sugar-jhbuild environment. Under the shepherding of Peter Robinson and Tom Gilliard, Sugar on a Stick and our virtual machine support continue to improve in quality and stability. Aleksey, Sebastian, and Laura Vargas have made contributions to enhance our ability to support off-line deployments with their work on the Sugar Network. The work by Team Butia on expanding Sugar into the sphere of robotics continues to impress me and the work of Guzman Trindad and Tony Forster, integrating Sugar into the world of rich sensing, provides endless pleasure.
Another highlight, seemingly innocuous, was the creation of the Amazonas page in Facebook. This simple use of social media to provide a support network for teachers in one of the most isolated places on earth has exceeded my expectations. It has three times as many members as had attended the workshop in Chachapoyas, and it has daily updates of projects, questions, and progress. The recent work by Raul Gutierrez on integrating Turtle Art with Facebook is a harbinger of how we might make sharing of the Sugar experience more seamless in 2013.
Personally, my biggest thrill in 2012 was working with children, in Miami and in Khairat (India). I had a chance to teach Turtle Art workshops and in both cases, the children did dance animations that were impressive in their depth.
So what is next? In 2013 we will see the fruit of some of our efforts, including a chance to see Sugar with touch in the field. OLPC Australia will be the first deployment of the OLPC XO4. It will be interesting to learn what impact it has in the classroom. One thing we already know is that touch makes Sugar more accessible to younger (pre-K) children. It also is congruent with the expectations of children coming of age in the tablet/smart-phone era.
Daniel has been working on revitalizing our automated testing suite, which will help with maintenance and QA.
We will see advances in localization. Already, the Ministry of Education in Peru has opened a bid to follow up on the work of Edgar and Irma. Translation of other language groups is also being advanced.
The topic of support for Special Needs was raised numerous times in 2012. I hope to convene the various interested parties in early 2013 to lay out a new road map for Sugar in this area. (The work on GTK3 has helped in that we now have, for example, an on-screen keyboard. And by eliminating Hippo, we have removed the last vestiges of Sugar that were preventing us from using the GNOME tools.)
Perhaps these themes will be the focus of Sugar 1.0, due to be released in Q2 2013. A few things queued up include setting a background image on the Home View (thanks to Agustin Zubiaga) and multiple Home Views (thanks to Daniel Francis).
I also expect that we will be seeing more learning guides in 2013, a harbinger of which was pulled together for the Charlotte deployment: teachers sharing best practice.
There are two elephants in the room: The Cloud and Android. How we face these opportunities will certainly become more clear in 2013.
I hope to organize a Global Sugar conference in 2013. Perhaps at MIT or perhaps at a deployment. It is time to bring our community together face to face on a larger scale.
Finally, in 2012, I wrote a book about the OLPC story, which includes a chapter on Sugar, but I need to write a more complete story about Sugar, its goals and its impact. I am setting that as a personal goal for 2013.
4. Rita Freudenberg announced that a new Etoys book is available: Learning with Etoys Imagine, Invent, Inspire.
Sugar Labs
Visit our planet for more updates about Sugar and Sugar deployments.
An archive of this digest is available.
Planet
The Sugar Labs Planet is found here.
Sugar in the news
| 07 Sep 2012 |
NDTV – One Laptop Per Child initiative a hit in rural India
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| 08 Jul 2012 |
Estado de S. Paulo – Para educar
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| 24 Apr 2012 |
Pacific Standard – OLPC Redux
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| 12 Apr 2012 |
Huffington Post – Hult Global Case Challenge: One Laptop Per Child
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| 30 Mar 2012 |
newswise – “Sugar on a Stick” Helps Kids Learn How to Learn
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| 11 Jan 2012 |
Boston Herald – One Laptop Per Child screening $100 tablet
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| 10 Jan 2012 |
ars technica – Crank, bicycle, and waterwheel: hands-on with the OLPC XO 3.0 tablet
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| 08 Jan 2012 |
The Verge – OLPC XO 3.0 tablet preview: impressions, video, and pictures
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| 07 Jan 2012 |
The Verge – OLPC XO 3.0 tablet: an 8-inch tablet for $100, with Android and Sugar options for the children
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| 23 Dec 2011 |
Miller-McCune – One Laptop Per Child Redux
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| 18 Oct 2011 |
BDU – Robotics in Uruguay (video)
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| 11 Aug 2011 |
Berlin.de – Gewinner des Berliner Landeswettbewerbs zu Open Source stehen fest
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| 25 Jul 2011 |
CCC Classic – Garmin-sugarlabs development cycling team at Crit starting line
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| 25 Jul 2011 |
CCC Classic – Garmin-sugarlabs development cycling team after Crit
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| 13 Apr 2011 |
framablog – L'expérience Sugar Labs préfigure-t-elle une révolution éducative du XXIe siècle?
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| 05 Apr 2011 |
Businesswire – The Government of Peru Expands the One Laptop Per Child Program with Local Manufacturing
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| 31 Jan 2011 |
Sundance – A Day in the Life – Peru
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| 01 Dec 2010 |
velonation – Sugar Labs to back Garmin-Cervelo’s development team in unique arrangement
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| 28 Oct 2010 |
UCR – Nuevas tecnologías deben estar al alcance de todos los niños y niñas
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| 05 Oct 2010 |
xconomy – One Ecosystem per Child
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| 08 Sep 2010 |
FLOSS Weekly – Sugar Labs
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| 09 Aug 2010 |
ABC digital – Indicadores constatan el impacto positivo en el aprendizaje de niños
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| 23 Jun 2010 |
ABC digital – Xo para todas las escuelas de Caacupé
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| 21 Jun 2010 |
La Nacion – “Buscamos que los niños no solo usen softwares, sino que puedan crear uno”
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| 20 Jun 2010 |
UltimaHora.com – La laptop une a padres, alumnos y docentes
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| 15 Jun 2010 |
The H – OLPC XO-1.5 software updated
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| 10 Jun 2010 |
engadget – Sugar on a Stick hits 3.0, teaches us about a new kind of fruit
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| 27 May 2010 |
Pro Linux DE – Sugar on a Stick v3 freigegeben (German)
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| 27 May 2010 |
NY Times – One Laptop Per Child Project Works With Marvell to Produce a $100 Tablet
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| 27 May 2010 |
PC World – OLPC Rules out Windows for XO-3
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| 03 May 2010 |
WXXI: Mixed Media – Interview with Walter Bender (audio)
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| 03 May 2010 |
Linux Magazine – OLPC Computers for Palestinian Refugee Children
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| 14 Apr 2010 |
National Science Foundation – XO Laptops Inspire Learning In Birmingham, Alabama (video)
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| 02 Apr 2010 |
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| 15 Mar 2010 |
nbc13.com – Birmingham City students opt to spend spring break in class, XO computer camps (video)
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| 18 Feb 2010 |
LWN – Karma targets easier creation of educational software
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| 05 Feb 2010 |
iprofesional – La PC barata de Negroponte desembarca en la Argentina para pelear contra Intel
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| 14 Jan 2010 |
AALF – Open Systems for Broader Change
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| 03 Jan 2010 |
Educacion 2.0 – PLAN CEIBAL, El Libro
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| 14 Dec 2009 |
xconomy – Sugar gets sweeter
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| 10 Dec 2009 |
ars technica – Sugar software environment gets sweeter with version 2
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| 09 Dec 2009 |
Wired – New Sugar on a Stick Brings Much Needed Improvements
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| 08 Dec 2009 |
engadget – Sugar on a Stick OS goes to 2.0, gets Blueberry coating and creamy Fedora 12 center (video)
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| 07 Dec 2009 |
Teleread.org – Sugar on a Stick: What it means for e-books and education
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| 27 Nov 2009 |
CNET Japan – 「コードを見せて、もっと良くなるよ」と言える子どもが生まれる--Sugar Labsが描く未来
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| 16 Nov 2009 |
zanichelli – software libero a scuola
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| 12 Nov 2009 |
opensuse.org – openSUSE 11.2 Released
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| 07 Nov 2009 |
My Broadband News – Mandriva 2010 packs a punch [and Sugar]
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| 06 Nov 2009 |
GhanaWeb – Open education and an IT-enabled economic growth in Ghana: Musings of a dutiful citizen
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| 26 Oct 2009 |
Linux Magazine ES – Software Libre como apoyo al aprendizaje
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| 09 Oct 2009 |
interdisciplines – OLPC and Sugar: mobility through the community
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| 08 Oct 2009 |
IBM developerWorks – 10 important Linux developments everyone should know about
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| 01 Oct 2009 |
OLPC France – Interview Walter Bender au SugarCamp
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| 25 Sep 2009 |
The Inquirer – One Laptop per Child marches on
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| 18 Sep 2009 |
Groklaw – The Role of Free Software in Education
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| 18 Sep 2009 |
Reuters – Sugar Labs and Free Software Foundation Celebrate Software Freedom Day
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| 17 Sep 2009 |
ICTDev.org – Dream Again with One Laptop per Child
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| 26 Aug 2009 |
Latinux – Azúcar en una memoria USB
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| 03 Aug 2009 |
Wired: Geek Dad – Inventing a New Paradigm: SugarLabs and the Sugar UI
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| 30 Jul 2009 |
Zanichelli – Sugar on a Stick: imparare insieme
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| 23 Jul 2009 |
Everything USB – RecycleUSB.com - Donate your Flash Drives for a Good Cause
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| 22 Jul 2009 |
OLPC France – Sugar : mauvaise presse et mise au point
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| 13 Jul 2009 |
Spiegel Online – Das zuckersüße Leichtbau-Linux
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| 07 Jul 2009 |
ComputerWorldUK – Gran Canaria Desktop Summit: a Study in Contrasts
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| 06 Jul 2009 |
Windows Forest – USBメモリなどから“OLPC”用のOSを利用できる「Sugar on a Stick」が無償公開
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| 02 Jul 2009 |
Howard County Library – Sugar on a Stick
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| 27 Jun 2009 |
Deutschlandfunk – Süßes für die Kleinen: Sugar ist Linux speziell für Kinder (in Deutsch)
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| 26 Jun 2009 |
EduTech – Sugar on a stick, and other delectables (praise for the lowly USB drive)
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| 26 Jun 2009 |
ars technica – Sugar on a Stick brings sweet taste of Linux to classrooms
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| 24 Jun 2009 |
BBC – OLPC software to power aging PCs
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| 24 Jun 2009 |
Technology Review – $100 Laptop Becomes a $5 PC
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| 15 Jun 2009 |
TechSavvyKids – Episode 10 FOSSVT: Sugar on a Stick (audio)
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| 10 Jun 2009 |
LWN.net – Sugar moves from the shadow of OLPC
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| 27 May 2009 |
LWN.net – Activities and the move to context-oriented desktops (subscriber link)
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| 27 May 2009 |
Business Wire – Dailymotion Launches Support for Open Video Formats and Video HTML Tag
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| 01 May 2009 |
Guysoft – Nokia N810 Running OLPC Sugar
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| 29 Apr 2009 |
El Mercurio – Así se vivió la fiesta del software libre
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| 27 Apr 2009 |
ostatic – Sugar on a Stick: Good for Kids' Minds (and School Budgets)
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| 25 Apr 2009 |
Free Software Magazine – The Bittersweet Facts about OLPC and Sugar
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| 24 Apr 2009 |
ars technica – First taste: Sugar on a Stick learning platform
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| 22 Apr 2009 |
Betanews – Beta of Live USB Sugar OS opens
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| 27 Mar 2009 |
Mass High Tech – Google promotes summer open-source internships
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| 18 Mar 2009 |
Metropolis – A Good Argument
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| 16 Mar 2009 |
Laptop Magazine – Sugar Labs’ New Version of Sugar Learning Platform Is Netbook and PC Ready
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| 16 Mar 2009 |
Market Watch – Sugar Labs Nonprofit Announces New Version of Sugar Learning Platform for Children, Runs on Netbooks and PCs
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| 14 Feb 2009 |
OLPC Learning Club – DC – Learning Learning on a Stick
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| 05 Feb 2009 |
xconomy – Sugar Beyond the XO Laptop: Walter Bender on OLPC, Sucrose 0.84, and “Sugar on a Stick”
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| 26 Jan 2009 |
Linus Magazine – Sugar Defies OLPC Cutbacks
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| 19 Jan 2009 |
Feeding the Penguins – The status of Sugar, post-OLPC
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| 16 Jan 2009 |
OLPC News – Sugar on Acer Aspire One & Thin Client via LTSP
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| 12 Jan 2009 |
Bill Kerr – thoughts about olpc cutbacks
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| 07 Jan 2009 |
ars technica – OLPC downsizes half of its staff, cuts Sugar development
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| 06 Jan 2009 |
OLPC News – An Inside Look at how Microsoft got XP on the XO
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| 30 Dec 2008 |
OLPC News – Sugar Labs Status at Six Months
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| 22 Dec 2008 |
The GNOME Project – Sugar Labs, the nonprofit behind the OLPC software, is joining the GNOME Foundation
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| 16 Dec 2008 |
Feeding the Penguins – Sugar git repository change
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| 14 Dec 2008 |
NPR – Laptop Deal Links Rural Peru To Opportunity, Risk (Part 2)
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| 13 Dec 2008 |
NPR – Laptops May Change The Way Rural Peru Learns (Part 1)
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| 09 Dec 2008 |
SFC – Sugar Labs joins Conservancy
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| 31 Oct 2008 |
Linux Devices – An OLPC dilemma: Linux or Windows?
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| 10 Oct 2008 |
Feeding the Penguin – Sugar on Ubuntu
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| 21 Sep 2008 |
Groklaw – Interview with Walter Bender of Sugar Labs
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| 17 Sep 2008 |
Bill Kerr – Sugar Labs
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| 16 Sep 2008 |
Open Source – Sugar everywhere
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| 28 Aug 2008 |
OLPC News – An answer to Walter Bender's question 22
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| 20 Aug 2008 |
OLPC News – Sugarize it: Intel Classmate 2
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| 08 Aug 2008 |
Investor's Business Daily – 'Learning' Vs. Laptop Was Issue
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| 06 Aug 2008 |
OLPC News – Twenty-three Questions on Technology and Education
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| 18 Jul 2008 |
Bill Kerr – evaluating Sugar in the developed world
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| 28 Jun 2008 |
OLPC News – A Cutting Edge Sugar User Interface Demo
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| 18 Jun 2008 |
PC World – OLPC Spin-off Developing UI for Intel's Classmate PC
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| 17 Jun 2008 |
Datamation – If Business Succeeds with GNU/Linux, Why Not OLPC?
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| 11 Jun 2008 |
LinuxInsider – The Sweetness of Collaborative Learning
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| 06 Jun 2008 |
Bill Kerr – untangling Free, Sugar, and Constructionism
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| 06 Jun 2008 |
Open Education – Walter Bender Discusses Sugar Labs Foundation
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| 06 Jun 2008 |
BusinessWeek – OLPC: The Educational Philosophy Controversy
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| 05 Jun 2008 |
Code Culture – The Distraction Machine
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| 05 Jun 2008 |
BusinessWeek – OLPC: The Open-Source Controversy
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| 27 May 2008 |
The New York Times – Why Walter Bender Left One Laptop Per Child
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| 26 May 2008 |
ars technica – OLPC software maker splits from X0 hardware, goes solo
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| 22 May 2008 |
BetaNews – Linux start-up Sugar Labs in informal talks with four laptop makers
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| 16 May 2008 |
OSTATIC – OLPC's Open Source Sugar Platform Aims for New Hardware
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| 16 May 2008 |
PCWorld – Bender Forms Group to Promote OLPC's Sugar UI
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| 16 May 2008 |
MHT – Bender jumps from OLPC, founds Sugar Labs
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| 16 May 2008 |
News.com – Sugar Labs will make OLPC interface available for Eee PC, others
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| 16 May 2008 |
Feeding the Peguins – The future of Sugar
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| 16 May 2008 |
Sugar list – A few thoughts on SugarLabs
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| 16 May 2008 |
xconomy – Bender Creates Sugar Labs—New Foundation to Adapt OLPC’s Laptop Interface for Other Machines
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| 16 May 2008 |
BBC – '$100 laptop' platform moves on
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| 15 May 2008 |
OLPC wiki – Dual-boot XO Claim: OLPC will not work to port Sugar to Windows.
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| 16 May 2008 |
Softpedia – Bender Launches Sugar Labs for Better Development of OLPC's Sugar UI
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