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This is part 2 in a series discussing how the digital revolution is currently reshaping society. Don’t know what’s going on? Go back: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

This is the post I’ve been building up to all series and the only one that actually relates to the title. I’ve spoken about the Internet as software, Computers as hardware, economies of scale and barriers to entry, the OLPC project, and more. Well, we’re finally going to delve into digital kids.

The Internet is already cheap enough for most to afford it and prices will continue to go down, even as speeds go up. There’s also some innovation going around in the field, from mesh Wi-Fi to WiMax, as the industry attempts to provide connection for the last mile (aka: people out in the boonies). And as I mentioned in Part 4, the OLPC has created a whole new market of hundred dollar computers, finally breaking any barriers to entry for hardware. It has also enabled computer access for millions of children in developing nations, and has the possibility to provide all children in the 6 to 12 market with their own personal computers, something new for the Western World. Up until now, personal computers are generally obtained in the teenage years.

But, obviously, there’s more to technology and the digital world then just computers.

And this is where it begins to get very interesting, beyond the question “what would happen if every child in the world had a personal computer?”

I was doing some research on children’s gifts earlier this month, and found two lists, both of which outlined a number of tech toys designed for the children’s market. Here’s some that caught my eye:

• Digital Cameras: Fisher Price, National Geographic, Polaroid, and VTech are all producing kid friendly digital cameras with simplified controls but surprisingly good quality, with up to 3 megapixels! Pricing is between $50 and $70 dollars, cheap enough to replace if the camera gets wrecked.
• Cell Phones: There’s two main options up here in Canada - Migo, by Telus (and Verizon down south) and Firefly, by Rogers (and Cingular down south). In the States, there’s also the Tictalk by Leapfrog, and Disney has been venturing in this space. Basically, it’s a very simplified phone with the ability to call a handful of programmable numbers, along with a 911 direct button. Some are even GPS capable!
• AI Robots: These have existed for a bit now, starting with that darned Furby and the Poo-Chi robot dog. The toys available today, such as the Pleo, are more advanced than the animatronics at Disneyland! It features “organic movements and adaptable behaviours”, making it seem way more lifelike than your grandpa’s robot. In fact, the Pleo is said to learn from it’s experiences…
• Virtual Worlds: *You* may know Second Life, but children today live and play in two extremely popular virtual worlds: Webkinz and Club Penguin. Webkinz has the child purchase a real life plush animal, which features a code enabling them to create a whole house for this pet online and participate in a larger world filled with games. Similarly, but without the plush component, Club Penguin, recently purchased by Disney, is your kids MMO. For a cheap fee, kids can have their own penguin and roam around this online world playing games and talking (with minor restrictions) to other players.
  
• Digital Video Cameras: Polaroid has released a video companion to it’s kids digital camera, the Pixie. It features 640×800 resolution, a 1.5″ pop-out screen, and expandable SD memory. All for $80!
• MP3 Players: SanDisk is the first to enter this market with a digital music player designed from the ground up for children: the Shaker! It has a built-in speaker, two headphones jacks, and is as small as a salt shaker. Just load an SD card with MP3s, and pop it into the player. Price? Only $30!

Aren’t you amazed at the cool tech gadgets that are being created for this emerging market? I mean, this technology is barely five years old and is not only available for so bloody cheap, but is also being designed specifically for children.

There is bound to be *huge* aftereffects of giving kids these technologies at such a young age, most of which I see as being good. The worst part is the gadgets might get lost or wrecked, but then they are so cheap anyways it’s not really a big deal.

These are pretty big things: digital cameras, virtual MMOs, intelligent robots, cell phones… All available from age six! I can only imagine the cool things I could’ve created if I had this type of technological access from such an early age.

Just envision giving a kid a digital camera at 7. This child can just go around taking thousands of pictures of everything around him. Over the years he can improve and perfect his photographic skills. I wonder how advanced he will be by 11… by 20…

What about the communication and web skills kids are learning at this young age by participating in these virtual worlds? No longer are they jumping in at 13 or 14, in the prime of their teens, wanting to rage against the machine. These are children just beginning to learn respect, manners, and reasonable limits. Does this mean that, now that they have prior experience with the Internet before the tumultuous teen years, the web will be a nicer place? Maybe, thanks to the resources on the web and having the skills to access them, these kids will know where to turn when something is getting them down…

The Millennials are kids that were born after 2000 into a digital world. Today, there are absolutely no barriers of entry to the digital market, even at age 5, no matter what your income bracket! Will our brains rewire into multitasking, super networking organic machines? The effects are boundless, and I for one am genuinely exciting at finding out how it all unravels.

This is part 2 in a series discussing how the digital revolution is currently reshaping society. Don’t know what’s going on? Go back: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Have you heard of the One Laptop Per Child project? If not, it’s probably because you don’t live in America, and the international media is doing a half-assed job of reporting about it (see: social media revolution) despite it’s huge effects it will have on the whole world.

The OLPC was a non-profit project launched by Nicholas Negroponte from the MIT Media Lab. It’s goal was to create a hundred dollar laptop and put it in the hands of children in developing nations. It was supposed to sign up multiple national governments to purchase hundreds of thousands of these laptops, which would allow it to achieve it’s goal price through the economies of scale.

After many meetings and prototypes, the laptop has now been shipped off to several countries and is now in the hands of these children, many of whom have never seen a computer before; who have absolutely no idea of how powerful the machine they are holding truly is.

You see, there were two simple arguments about the OLPC. The naysayers made a clear point of asking what need a child has for a laptop without sanitary conditions, clean water, food, and basic shelter. Those who supported the project, like me, made the case that that laptop has more potential for ingenuity than the combined international aid money that’s been sent around the world for the past decades.

Say a poor child living in the shanty towns of Argentina received a laptop at school. The shack he lives in with his family doesn’t have power, and their only light source is a few candles. With this laptop, and an internet connection, he can instantly find instructions on how to build a simple windmill. After a few weeks of the family saving money, and purchasing materials down in the city, he can create and install a windmill, which could then easily power a lightbulb.

Or, let’s take a less ingenius solution, and something just a bit more common. Let’s say there’s a young teen in sub-sahara Africa who just got this laptop. Her first Google search is “Africa”. She clicks through the links, with one of them talking about HIV. Although she lives in the most infected continent in the world, her teachers don’t speak of it, and her parents don’t understand it. She begins some simple research of the virus. Through this basic understanding of what HIV is, and how to protect yourself from infection, she has now dramatically reduced the likelihood of her catching the disease. She can now explain this information to her family, and although her school may not cover it, she can raise the conciousness of her fellow peers.

Almost thankfully, the OLPC XO isn’t your typical laptop. It’s minimal processor, and small screen are what enable it’s cheap price. Besides, the machine isn’t supposed to be a workstation. But regardless, the XO features some very cool design, specifically made for developing nations, where the machine truly shines:

• the small screen can be read clearly during the day, even in direct sunlight
• it has mesh networking built-in, allowing the OLPCs to allow connect to one another within a certain radius. This networking enables a simple internet connection to vastly expand it’s reach.
• battery life is excellent (I’ve heard of it lasting a good 24 hours)
• with simple power attachments, one can recharge with a hand crank, a pull string, or even a small solar panel
• it’s incredibly sturdy

The amazing thing about this device is that we are giving the children in these developing nations the tools they need to alleviate themselves from poverty. Large scale international aid and charity has never worked as good as we all hoped for 3 reasons:

1. Corrupt governments diverting the money
2. Approaching the problem from a top-down perspective, versus from the bottom-up
3. There’s no incentive for the people to use the money wisely

The microaid programs have been so successful because they eliminate numbers 2 and 3. However, those programs rely on people understanding or learning about investing and social entrepreneurship.

The strengths of the OLPC are similar. They give people something useful, a real tool, directly. And because the governments are paying directly for these laptops, you can be sure that the machines are going to schools.

As the old proverb goes, “Catch a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, he’ll eat for a lifetime.” Well, all a child has to do is some simple research online about fishing and he’s good to go.

Despite slightly missing it’s goal price, the OLPC has been an immediate success on another front. It has created a whole new type of machine, completely changing the marketplace.

Thanks to simple competition, Intel has developed it’s own mini-laptop, called the ClassmatePC, for developing nations. Asus, being a smart and nimble beast, took the developing nations out of the requirements, and built a cheap, small laptop for developed nations - the eeePC - which has proven to be a humongous success. There’s already rumours that several other manufacturers will enter this new market very soon.

Which begs the question, why don’t children in developed nations get access to these computers? Sure, they may not be building windmills with them, but giving children access at an even younger age would continue to revolutionize the Western world.

As I mentioned in Part 3, the age at which people in the First World at owning their own personal computers continues to drop. Right now, it’s a the point where a teenager typically has his of her own computer. Heck, even a number of schools are providing them with one.

But, let’s go even younger. Why not give the 6-12 market an OLPC type machine? If it breaks, it’s cheap enough to replace.

Doing so would dramatically increase our children’s digital literacy, at a much younger age. This in turn would spur technological innovations at a much younger age. You think a 20 something running a multi-million dollar web startup is crazy, wait till his child gets his own personal computer at age five!

The OLPC will not only bring developed nations out of the poverty cycle, which in turns helps balance out the world economy, but will also bring the next billion online into this whole new social global community. Take it one step further into the developed nations, and ingenuity will take another leap forward.

In the last article, I will discuss some more digital tools that are now available to children, and what effects this will have on society as a whole.

This is part 2 in a series discussing how the digital revolution is currently reshaping society. Don’t know what’s going on? Go back: Part 1, Part 2.

As I discussed in Part 2, the Internet is the software side of this digital revolution. As a commodity, it’s relatively cheap to come across, or even available for free in certain areas. This low barrier of entry for the Internet has always been hindered, to a degree, by the hardware side of things. Obviously, if you couldn’t afford a computer, you weren’t about to get online for a serious amount of time. There’s a whole other conversation to be had about internet access at libraries and such, but the strength of the computer is that it has always been *personal*.

Unfortunately, the economics of scale haven’t exactly worked out their magic just yet on computer hardware. That’s not to say that prices have not come down dramatically over the decades - because they most certainly have - but the entry level, up until recently, was still too high for a whole new segment to jump into the market of owning their own computers.

See, whereas the Internet only took into account monthly cost, and speed/bandwidth capabilities, the development of the computer has faced a few more hardships that don’t factor into the Internet’s calculations. Sure, computers decreased in cost, and increased in power and functionality, but along with this new potential, users created whole new applications for their robust PCs.

At one time, a person would only partake in making spreadsheets and word documents on their personal computer - the heavy lifting was taken care of by an enterprise machine (aka: workstation). As computers developed, the lines began to blur, and people began using the machine for graphic design, education, gaming, and, of course, internet access. Then there was the huge jump into the digital age where computers, as Apple put it, were now the certain of your digital hub: a place to store and interact with your movies, music, pictures, and more.

So you see, the advances in processing speeds and storage capacities have been met equally with increased usage of these new capabilities. The downside of this is that nobody wanted or would use an old computer: it just wasn’t capable of doing modern computer tasks on an older machine. This is why computers have remained quite steadily in the thousand-dollar market (yes, there’s cheaper ones nowadays. That’s what I’m coming to!)

A number of years ago, with the advent of Dell and Gateway, computers were made available for under a thousand dollars. However, and this still must be taken into account, computers from these companies are still considered low end simply because their business model is based around quantity and not quality. The upside of this however was the availability of a *personal* computer to whole new markets. In the past, a family would typically share a computer. With the advent of the sub-thousand dollar PC, you could now expect to see multiple PCs in a household, with one for each family member.

And we can’t underestimate the leveling factors this has on the digital divide between citizen’s of lower socio-economic statuses. Many middle class families, who couldn’t previously afford a machine, could now afford to buy one on Boxing Day or at Wal-Mart.

And this is the point we are at now. It is quite common for a household to have several computers, all for separate family members: a laptop for Dad, a PC for Mom and the little sister, and a laptop for the older brother. There’s two interesting points here though:

• The parents, unless one is in business or techno-literate, will typically share a family PC and not request their own personal computers, unlike the typical teenager who would want their own
• There is a undefined age at the moment for children’s access to computers: there’s the age at which they first start using the family PC, and there’s the age at which they get their own personal computer

You used to hear a few years ago of parents buying laptops for their graduate sons or daughters, as a college/university gift. Now, it’s not rare to see a high schooler with a laptop, either bought by the parents or paid for by the teenager him or herself. While they are rarely used in K-12 schools, unlike the ubiquitous laptop in universities, it is still a huge symbol of freedom - something akin to a teenager’s first car several decades ago.

If we are to follow the trend, one could assume you’ll begin to see under 12 year olds with their own computers. I used to scoff at the idea, thinking they wouldn’t have the responsibility or the operational knowledge to handle such a device, but I’ve been slowly changing my mind on this front. Kids from 2000+ were born into a digital world - this stuff is all around them, everywhere and everyday. There’s no point in underestimating their potential for success.

In the next article, I will discuss how the OLPC project has completely destroyed any barriers to entry for computer hardware. We will also see how this ubiquity of hardware and software will effect the current generation of kids: the Millennials.

I’m beginning a five part series today, which a new post each day this week. The latest articles will each eclipse the one it proceeded, and will shift from providing interesting information to enabling discussion. The topic: how the digital information revolution we are currently living in will dramatically reshape the world in the coming years - perhaps far faster and remarkable than anyone can imagine.

Just to start us all off, here’s an 8 minute slideshow, “Shift Happens”. This video was originally produced for a school board in America, thus explaining the minor focus on education towards the end, and ended up going viral late last year. They recently updated the video with the latest stats and it’s truly some very fascinating data giving us all a sense of the huge societal shifts that are beginning to occur in this world, thanks to the internet.

According to an earnest warning on Volumes 1 and 2, “Sesame Street: Old School” is adults-only: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”

The show rolled, and the sweet trauma came flooding back. What they did to us was hard-core. Man, was that scene rough. The masonry on the dingy brownstone at 123 Sesame Street, where the closeted Ernie and Bert shared a dismal basement apartment, was deteriorating. Cookie Monster was on a fast track to diabetes. Oscar’s depression was untreated. Prozacky Elmo didn’t exist….

In East Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant in 1978, 95 percent of households with kids ages 2 to 5 watched “Sesame Street.” The figure was even higher in Washington. Nationwide, though, the number wasn’t much lower, and was largely determined by the whims of the PBS affiliates: 80 percent in houses with young children. The so-called inner city became anywhere that “Sesame Street” played, because the Children’s Television Workshop declared the inner city not a grim sociological reality but a full-color fantasy — an eccentric scene, framed by a box and far removed from real farmland and city streets alike. [The New York Times via Digg]

It’s quite sad looking back at what once was and the Sesame Street that is running today in the States, and in it’s modified version around the world. That show invented the concept of edutainment, and I’m quite sure has touched many people in the last couple decades. Of course, you want to portray the “correct” image to young children, and I understand why they’ve made many changes to the characters over the years.

However, I found one of the quotes above particularly interesting, about they they wanted to point out the good parts of the inner city of communities, considering it was designed for the “poor black kids”, and at the same time change perception of such areas to the “suburban white kids”. I suppose, to a degree, that situation has progressed in the States. Povery isn’t nearly as bad, not to mention the efforts for years in restoring the downtown’s of cities, bringing a new mix and vitality to these “inner city” areas.

It is annoying though, seeing the show change, perhaps for better or for worse, especially when it’s so tightly knit to so many people’s childhoods. The perfect example of screwing around too much with a show is what ended up happening to Sesame Street Canada. The CRTC wanted so much Canadian content, the producers ended up removing so much of what made Sesame Street: the Street and it’s wealth of characters - human or Muppet. Eventually, it became so far removed from the original that they completely overhauled the show, bringing in all new “Canadian” Muppets, and set is around a park: thus the name Sesame Place. Suffice to say, it didn’t last too long, and Canadian kids have been missing out on the Sesame gang for almost ten years now. Let’s just hope that American producers don’t make the same mistake with the original Sesame Street.