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. Hats off to Simon Schampijer and Sascha Silbe who have released Sugar 0.92. While primarily a maintenance release, there are some new feature of note; for example, better handling of Sugar Journal objects when copied to/from removable media. Release notes coming soon.
2. Last week, I was in Lima, where Claudia Urrea, Kiko Majorga, Sdenka Salas and I ran some workshops for teachers and teacher trainers: 1000 teachers on Monday
and 25 teacher trainers and curricula development specialists on Tuesday and Wednesday. The theme was ostensibly robotics: Peru is distributing robotics kits to all of the schools. We walked through lots of different approaches to using Sugar to interact with the physical world, through sensors and software (Turtle Art, Scratch, Etoys, Measure). We had them build sensors, calibrate them, and then program some activity with them. They made great progress and had lots of fun. Sugar enthusiasm abounds!
They are in the process of migrating to 10.1.3 as well as distributing machines to high-school students running Fedora with Open Office installed. (These machines will also include Scratch and the GNOME version of Turtle Art, which has undergone a great deal of refactoring.)
3. Other activities: I connected Sebastian Silva and Somos Azucar up with a group at the US Dept. of State who is interest in English-language learning. They are going to develop tools for a pilot in Colombia. When he returns from paternity leave, he can give us an update. Also, I have been contacted by three commercial companies who are interested in working with Sugar: UK company that makes class-participation tools has ported their system to Sugar and is looking for help with pilots (they may do a pilot in Peru); a Korean company is interested in porting some Sugar apps to Android – interesting in light of the ongoing discussion on IAEP list; and a Canadian company that has been making constructionist-like learning tools for more than 30 years. Also, OLPC France is working on a new activity to let children build stories; this is a request from a foundation in France who wants to deploy this activity in several schools by the end of April.
4. Stefan Unterhauser (dogi) has a preliminary version of Sugar running in the “Cloud”. He is using VNC to push the output of Sugar running in a VM to a browser. It works remarkably well and may well be the easiest way to demo Sugar to potential users.
5. Raul Gutierrez Segales (now working at Collabora) and I have been working on extending Sugar-collaboration to GNOME, using Turtle Art as the test case. It is quite exciting to be able to work transparently between the GNOME desktop and a Sugar instance. We'll be pushing out an RPM and a new version of the .xo file in a few days.
We've been doing a lot of refactoring of the code with some unexpected results: since you can share bitmaps and since you can now use the camera as a sensor, you can write a video broadcast system in Turtle Art – it takes all of three blocks (well, 7 blocks if you want it to work well). Meanwhile, Tony Forster and Guzman Trinidad have been cranking out great science and engineering projects using sensors and sounds.
Part of the refactoring effort has been to make it easier to plug new devices into Turtle Art. At present, there are plugins for the camera, audio sensors, and RFID tag readers. There are plugin projects to support Arduino, Lego WeDo, Lego NXT, and the GoGo board.
6. Belated thanks to Laura, Alex, Parul, and Julie, the MIT marketing team that did an analysis of Sugar Labs. Their final presentation can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/marketlabsugar/
Help wanted
7. One recommendation from the marketing team is to add more pictures to the website that show kids using Sugar. Please send candidate favorite pictures to the Sugar Marketing team.
8. Sebastian Silva posted this call for volunteers:
- We've started a good friendly relationship with one of the more interesting deployments of OLPC in Colombia, specifically in Medellín. They are looking for a volunteer that will help them with English. We think this is a great opportunity for a Sugar volunteer to work in a Deployment and engage the Maureen Orth deployment with the rest of the community.
9. We had a preliminary brainstorming session regarding what types of projects we might do in conjunction with the SugarLabs cycling team's participation in the Tour of Uruguay at the end of April. Read about it here: Vuelta a Uruguay.
Tech Talk
10. Tom Gilliard (satellit) has been making steady progress on Sugar images for use in virtual machines. In particular, he is getting much better (more stable and consistent) results on MAC hardware. See Emulator_image_files#Other_virtual_machines. The Trisquel image is particularly compelling.
11. Fred Grose has been working on SoaS-remix: a bundle of edit-liveos.py and supporting scripts to make testing and use of Sugar on a Stick easier. See Sugar_on_a_Stick/Sugar_Clone.
12. Yioryos Asprobounitis announced a new version of Sugar running in Puppy Linux.
See the full announcement here: [1]
Sugar Labs
Gary Martin has generated a SOM from the past few weeks of discussion
on the IAEP mailing list.
2011 Feb 12-18 (70 emails)
2011 Feb 5-11 (78 emails)
Visit our planet [2] 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
| 31 Jan 2011 |
Sundance – A Day in the Life – Peru
|
| 01 Dec 2010 |
velonation – Sugar Labs to back Garmin-Cervelo’s development team in unique arrangement
|
| 28 Oct 2010 |
UCR – Nuevas tecnologías deben estar al alcance de todos los niños y niñas
|
| 05 Oct 2010 |
xconomy – One Ecosystem per Child
|
| 08 Sep 2010 |
FLOSS Weekly – Sugar Labs
|
| 09 Aug 2010 |
ABC digital – Indicadores constatan el impacto positivo en el aprendizaje de niños
|
| 23 Jun 2010 |
ABC digital – Xo para todas las escuelas de Caacupé
|
| 21 Jun 2010 |
La Nacion – “Buscamos que los niños no solo usen softwares, sino que puedan crear uno”
|
| 20 Jun 2010 |
UltimaHora.com – La laptop une a padres, alumnos y docentes
|
| 15 Jun 2010 |
The H – OLPC XO-1.5 software updated
|
| 10 Jun 2010 |
engadget – Sugar on a Stick hits 3.0, teaches us about a new kind of fruit
|
| 27 May 2010 |
Pro Linux DE – Sugar on a Stick v3 freigegeben (German)
|
| 27 May 2010 |
NY Times – One Laptop Per Child Project Works With Marvell to Produce a $100 Tablet
|
| 27 May 2010 |
PC World – OLPC Rules out Windows for XO-3
|
| 03 May 2010 |
WXXI: Mixed Media – Interview with Walter Bender (audio)
|
| 03 May 2010 |
Linux Magazine – OLPC Computers for Palestinian Refugee Children
|
| 14 Apr 2010 |
National Science Foundation – XO Laptops Inspire Learning In Birmingham, Alabama (video)
|
| 02 Apr 2010 |
|
| 15 Mar 2010 |
nbc13.com – Birmingham City students opt to spend spring break in class, XO computer camps (video)
|
| 18 Feb 2010 |
LWN – Karma targets easier creation of educational software
|
| 05 Feb 2010 |
iprofesional – La PC barata de Negroponte desembarca en la Argentina para pelear contra Intel
|
| 14 Jan 2010 |
AALF – Open Systems for Broader Change
|
| 03 Jan 2010 |
Educacion 2.0 – PLAN CEIBAL, El Libro
|
| 14 Dec 2009 |
xconomy – Sugar gets sweeter
|
| 10 Dec 2009 |
Ars Technica – Sugar software environment gets sweeter with version 2
|
| 09 Dec 2009 |
Wired – New Sugar on a Stick Brings Much Needed Improvements
|
| 08 Dec 2009 |
engadget – Sugar on a Stick OS goes to 2.0, gets Blueberry coating and creamy Fedora 12 center (video)
|
| 07 Dec 2009 |
Teleread.org – Sugar on a Stick: What it means for e-books and education
|
| 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
|
| 16 Nov 2009 |
zanichelli – software libero a scuola
|
| 12 Nov 2009 |
opensuse.org – openSUSE 11.2 Released
|
| 07 Nov 2009 |
My Broadband News – Mandriva 2010 packs a punch [and Sugar]
|
| 06 Nov 2009 |
GhanaWeb – Open education and an IT-enabled economic growth in Ghana: Musings of a dutiful citizen
|
| 26 Oct 2009 |
Linux Magazine ES – Software Libre como apoyo al aprendizaje
|
| 09 Oct 2009 |
interdisciplines – OLPC and Sugar: mobility through the community
|
| 08 Oct 2009 |
IBM developerWorks – 10 important Linux developments everyone should know about
|
| 01 Oct 2009 |
OLPC France – Interview Walter Bender au SugarCamp
|
| 25 Sep 2009 |
The Inquirer – One Laptop per Child marches on
|
| 18 Sep 2009 |
Groklaw – The Role of Free Software in Education
|
| 18 Sep 2009 |
Reuters – Sugar Labs and Free Software Foundation Celebrate Software Freedom Day
|
| 17 Sep 2009 |
ICTDev.org – Dream Again with One Laptop per Child
|
| 26 Aug 2009 |
Latinux – Azúcar en una memoria USB
|
| 03 Aug 2009 |
Wired: Geek Dad – Inventing a New Paradigm: SugarLabs and the Sugar UI
|
| 30 Jul 2009 |
Zanichelli – Sugar on a Stick: imparare insieme
|
| 23 Jul 2009 |
Everything USB – RecycleUSB.com - Donate your Flash Drives for a Good Cause
|
| 22 Jul 2009 |
OLPC France – Sugar : mauvaise presse et mise au point
|
| 13 Jul 2009 |
Spiegel Online – Das zuckersüße Leichtbau-Linux
|
| 07 Jul 2009 |
ComputerWorldUK – Gran Canaria Desktop Summit: a Study in Contrasts
|
| 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
|
| 02 Jul 2009 |
Howard County Library – Sugar on a Stick
|
| 27 Jun 2009 |
Deutschlandfunk – Süßes für die Kleinen: Sugar ist Linux speziell für Kinder (in Deutsch)
|
| 26 Jun 2009 |
EduTech – Sugar on a stick, and other delectables (praise for the lowly USB drive)
|
| 26 Jun 2009 |
Ars Technica – Sugar on a Stick brings sweet taste of Linux to classrooms
|
| 24 Jun 2009 |
BBC – OLPC software to power aging PCs
|
| 24 Jun 2009 |
Technology Review – $100 Laptop Becomes a $5 PC
|
| 15 Jun 2009 |
TechSavvyKids – Episode 10 FOSSVT: Sugar on a Stick (audio)
|
| 10 Jun 2009 |
LWN.net – Sugar moves from the shadow of OLPC
|
| 27 May 2009 |
LWN.net – Activities and the move to context-oriented desktops (subscriber link)
|
| 27 May 2009 |
Business Wire – Dailymotion Launches Support for Open Video Formats and Video HTML Tag
|
| 01 May 2009 |
Guysoft – Nokia N810 Running OLPC Sugar
|
| 29 Apr 2009 |
El Mercurio – Así se vivió la fiesta del software libre
|
| 27 Apr 2009 |
ostatic – Sugar on a Stick: Good for Kids' Minds (and School Budgets)
|
| 25 Apr 2009 |
Free Software Magazine – The Bittersweet Facts about OLPC and Sugar
|
| 24 Apr 2009 |
Ars Technica – First taste: Sugar on a Stick learning platform
|
| 22 Apr 2009 |
Betanews – Beta of Live USB Sugar OS opens
|
| 27 Mar 2009 |
Mass High Tech – Google promotes summer open-source internships
|
| 18 Mar 2009 |
Metropolis – A Good Argument
|
| 16 Mar 2009 |
Laptop Magazine – Sugar Labs’ New Version of Sugar Learning Platform Is Netbook and PC Ready
|
| 16 Mar 2009 |
Market Watch – Sugar Labs Nonprofit Announces New Version of Sugar Learning Platform for Children, Runs on Netbooks and PCs
|
| 14 Feb 2009 |
OLPC Learning Club – DC – Learning Learning on a Stick
|
| 05 Feb 2009 |
xconomy – Sugar Beyond the XO Laptop: Walter Bender on OLPC, Sucrose 0.84, and “Sugar on a Stick”
|
| 26 Jan 2009 |
Linus Magazine – Sugar Defies OLPC Cutbacks
|
| 19 Jan 2009 |
Feeding the Penguins – The status of Sugar, post-OLPC
|
| 16 Jan 2009 |
OLPC News – Sugar on Acer Aspire One & Thin Client via LTSP
|
| 12 Jan 2009 |
Bill Kerr – thoughts about olpc cutbacks
|
| 07 Jan 2009 |
Ars Technica – OLPC downsizes half of its staff, cuts Sugar development
|
| 06 Jan 2009 |
OLPC News – An Inside Look at how Microsoft got XP on the XO
|
| 30 Dec 2008 |
OLPC News – Sugar Labs Status at Six Months
|
| 22 Dec 2008 |
The GNOME Project – Sugar Labs, the nonprofit behind the OLPC software, is joining the GNOME Foundation
|
| 16 Dec 2008 |
Feeding the Penguins – Sugar git repository change
|
| 14 Dec 2008 |
NPR – Laptop Deal Links Rural Peru To Opportunity, Risk (Part 2)
|
| 13 Dec 2008 |
NPR – Laptops May Change The Way Rural Peru Learns (Part 1)
|
| 09 Dec 2008 |
SFC – Sugar Labs joins Conservancy
|
| 31 Oct 2008 |
Linux Devices – An OLPC dilemma: Linux or Windows?
|
| 10 Oct 2008 |
Feeding the Penguin – Sugar on Ubuntu
|
| 21 Sep 2008 |
Groklaw – Interview with Walter Bender of Sugar Labs
|
| 17 Sep 2008 |
Bill Kerr – Sugar Labs
|
| 16 Sep 2008 |
Open Source – Sugar everywhere
|
| 28 Aug 2008 |
OLPC News – An answer to Walter Bender's question 22
|
| 20 Aug 2008 |
OLPC News – Sugarize it: Intel Classmate 2
|
| 08 Aug 2008 |
Investor's Business Daily – 'Learning' Vs. Laptop Was Issue
|
| 06 Aug 2008 |
OLPC News – Twenty-three Questions on Technology and Education
|
| 18 Jul 2008 |
Bill Kerr – evaluating Sugar in the developed world
|
| 28 Jun 2008 |
OLPC News – A Cutting Edge Sugar User Interface Demo
|
| 18 Jun 2008 |
PC World – OLPC Spin-off Developing UI for Intel's Classmate PC
|
| 17 Jun 2008 |
Datamation – If Business Succeeds with GNU/Linux, Why Not OLPC?
|
| 11 Jun 2008 |
LinuxInsider – The Sweetness of Collaborative Learning
|
| 06 Jun 2008 |
Bill Kerr – untangling Free, Sugar, and Constructionism
|
| 06 Jun 2008 |
Open Education – Walter Bender Discusses Sugar Labs Foundation
|
| 06 Jun 2008 |
BusinessWeek – OLPC: The Educational Philosophy Controversy
|
| 05 Jun 2008 |
Code Culture – The Distraction Machine
|
| 05 Jun 2008 |
BusinessWeek – OLPC: The Open-Source Controversy
|
| 27 May 2008 |
The New York Times – Why Walter Bender Left One Laptop Per Child
|
| 26 May 2008 |
Ars Technica – OLPC software maker splits from X0 hardware, goes solo
|
| 22 May 2008 |
BetaNews – Linux start-up Sugar Labs in informal talks with four laptop makers
|
| 16 May 2008 |
OSTATIC – OLPC's Open Source Sugar Platform Aims for New Hardware
|
| 16 May 2008 |
PCWorld – Bender Forms Group to Promote OLPC's Sugar UI
|
| 16 May 2008 |
MHT – Bender jumps from OLPC, founds Sugar Labs
|
| 16 May 2008 |
News.com – Sugar Labs will make OLPC interface available for Eee PC, others
|
| 16 May 2008 |
Feeding the Peguins – The future of Sugar
|
| 16 May 2008 |
Sugar list – A few thoughts on SugarLabs
|
| 16 May 2008 |
xconomy – Bender Creates Sugar Labs—New Foundation to Adapt OLPC’s Laptop Interface for Other Machines
|
| 16 May 2008 |
BBC – '$100 laptop' platform moves on
|
| 15 May 2008 |
OLPC wiki – Dual-boot XO Claim: OLPC will not work to port Sugar to Windows.
|
| 16 May 2008 |
Softpedia – Bender Launches Sugar Labs for Better Development of OLPC's Sugar UI
|
Press releases
See our Press Page
