Considering the OLPC (as pictured) is a dedicated i386 hardware without touchscreen, and that OLPCs runs on a customized RedHat, while the article refers to hacking Android (?) and a Motorola Xoom tablet, I wonder what kind of huge mix up this is and what it is supposed to mean.<p>EDIT: thanks for the helpful explanation in the comment. I read the article <i>twice</i> and still couldn't figure that out. My first idea was the journalist mixed this up. My mistake
I've seen this article five or so times now, but what's always missing is what they did that counts as "hacking" the tablet. Was it changing a (hidden) setting in the camera preferences file? Disabling some sort of monitoring software (and if so, how)? Reverse engineering a preexisting binary on the device?
I am convinced that when computing comes in force to the third world, it will not be through donated/subsidized laptops, but through phones. I bet that in 100 years, the famous hacker that rose to great power from the slums will have cut his teeth on a mobile device that was purely the result of the free market. This is not a value judgement. Just a prediction.
See, professor, the Martians are intelligent after all!<p>Oh wait, those were human beings, and they're being treated like lab rats because they're poor and not European. Seriously does nobody else see the stark white-man's-burden arrogance in all of this?.
<i>Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, but found the on/off switch</i><p>Wow, found a blemish on an unusually featureless, smooth object and poked at it. Amazing.<p>As for 'hacking android', it's kinda scary that OLPC is so bereft of talent that their security can't stand up to illiterate first-graders. I mean, if we're going to go with 'hacking android' and not 're-enabling the camera'.