Ergo Letter Bag

Marvell Technology Group Ltd has announced a $100K challenge to developers interested in making creative, innovative, and engaging educational applications for their $99 Android based ARM tablet. Aka the Moby Reference Platform . Note: this is the same reference design which the OLPC intends to use as the basis for the XO-3 . Will Perl developers enter the fray? Is Perl support in the Android Scripting Environment ready for prime time? Application submissions will be accepted from Oct. 11th thru Nov. 11th. Winners will be chosen and awards given during the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, January 6-9, 2011. [From the Marvell $100K Challenge website:] Start thinking now of your most creative ideas on developing the best tablet app for teaching children any one or more of the following subjects: Math Science Vocabulary Geography Social studies Grammar Spelling Other curriculum most common to children in Kindergarten all the way up to and including the 12th g...

This is a response to a recent blog post by Mark Guzdial , chairman of the ACM education board. Open Source is an integral part of a well rounded computing education. While I will praise efforts to raise awareness of demographic barriers in open source development, I would challenge Mark to do a better job lining up his arguments and checking his references. Especially when many of his links have little or nothing to do with the statements attributed to them. His link "more closed and less diverse than commercial software" links to a National Center for Women in Technology recruitment flyer. -Which sounds like a wonderful organization, but having read it now 3 times through says nothing about open source being more closed or less diverse. The next link "overwhelmingly White or Asian and male" links to a OSCON presentation which says a lot about the male/female ratio... but nothing about white/asian demographics. Furthermore, it is a presentation which shows that the...