Windows XP Version of OLPC

The founder and chairman of OLPC has admitted that only using open-source software has not been good for the project. Just a day after the resignation of group president Walter Bender, Nicholas Negroponte admitted that the choice of the Sugar operating system has hit the XO laptop project in two places: usability; and popularity.

With Windows XP already available for the XO on an SD card, the news that future OLPC machines may have Windows XP, with Sugar running on top, may dismay the non-profit brigade. But with no support for the latest versions of Flash—a staple on many educational websites—the XO may not be catering to its supposed target audience.

If Windows XP does become the XO's operating system, then a substantial reworking of the laptop will be in order. Currently just 1GB of internal memory is available, and XP needs around 1.1GB. Sticking a larger SSD inside the machine will just pump up the price, making the XO even further out of reach of those who need it.

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Mahalo Adds Microformats

Mahalo, the people powered search engine, just rolled out microformats for certain search results. Sean Percival told me about the rollout earlier this evening, and I had to admit a shocking amount of ignorance when I asked what he meant exactly by ‘microformats.’  I’ve never had the opportunity to actually use this technology and couldn’t imagine what application the term would have in the context of search, but I did a quick run of research on the topic and brought myself up to speed.

After a bit of looking, you’ll find, like me, that you’re familiar with several things that fall under the umbrella of Microformats, even if you’ve never heard the term used before. For example, there’s hCard, the microformat for contact information, and rel-nofollow, the microformat attribute designed to discourage splogging and comment spam.

Other than those two subsets of microformats, I really haven’t had the opportunity to take advantage of microformats much (and frankly, since switching to GMail over a client side solution, I haven’t done much with hCard other than to synchronize a couple mobile devices).

That’s not uncommon, and that’s probably why Sean gave a good example on how to take advantage of the feature from within the browser:

Getting Started:
1. Firefox users can download the Operator plugin to get instant Microformats support.
2. Visit the Paris Hotels page on Mahalo
3. Notice the Operator plugin in the top left of the below image. Every hotel featured on the page is now available for quick and easy export. You also get a few other nice features like quick access to mapping websites. Get the data you need and drop it into your address book and phone with a few clicks.

It’s a useful feature, and an interesting upgrade I haven’t seen on any other search engines so far. It might just even inspire me to break out my old WinCE device and test it out.

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Facebook Finishes Chat Integration, Makes This Blogger’s Life Miserable

I made the mistake of leaving Facebook open on my desktop as I stepped out for the evening on Tuesday night. I returned to a complete mess of Facebook Chat messages. Some users got access to Facebook Chat as early as April 6.

Others trickled in over the following two weeks. But in the last hour a mass of users (all the rest, as far as I can tell) is reporting seeing it for the first time.

I have a policy of accepting all friend requests on Facebook (although I am quickly reaching the 5,000 friend limit). Apparently a significant number of my friends decided to test Facebook Chat as it went live with yours truly. I’m trying to respond to the messages, but a response seems to lead inevitably to a conversation, and having 25 of those at once is a little challenging. Meanwhile, eight more pop in.

Settle down, Facebook friends, and don’t be offended if I’m not jumping right in to the conversation. Except the guy who said his dad is an investment banker for Yahoo - please keep sending those messages.

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SightSpeed Launches Video Mail on MySpace

Having already announced its plans to create a no-download version of its video chat tool as an integrated communication tool for users across Open Social participating networks, SightSpeed has finally been able to release its MySpace version of SightSpeed Light. Beyond just chatting via video, there are also public video posting options as well as video mail.

SightSpeed Light supports both PCs and Macs, and works across most browsers, including IE, Firefox and Safari. As I already mentioned, SightSpeed Light does not require a download. That’s pretty key for use within an existing social network, especially given the demographics of the user base found on sites like MySpace.

I can only imagine the type of enhanced comments we’ll be seeing on MySpace profiles as a result of video posting and mail options. What’s good about this particular implementation of video communications is that it can be one-sided, and doesn’t have to operate in real time.

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