Tech shorts: OLPC lessons, FON and BT share Wi-Fi, Slashdot 10

– Geek.com lists the 10 lessons to be learned from the OLPC project, and why it will revolutionize the laptop world, although it’s more like six actual lessons, and four for padding the list to ten. Ils sont fous ces Americains… #1: the laptop is the type of computer that is most prone to physical abuse and theft; OLPC shows price matters for a laptop. #5: energy consumption need not be as high as that of a traditional laptop if you are willing to let go of preconceptions of what a laptop should be. And so on. Via Slashdot.

– FON is a company that sells Wi-Fi routers with a twist; any member can use the Wi-Fi of any other member. It has now struck a deal with BT that will create hundreds of thousands of FON hotspots in the UK, according to BoingBoing. The advantage for members with OLPC XOs and Irex Iliads could be considerable. Cory Doctorow seems to be a fan of this scheme, although a scheme he suggests in his novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town differs a bit. (Yes, go read the novel. It’s not bad.)

– In September Slashdot celebrated its tenth birthday. Slashdot is a website for technical news that has sported numerous blog like features from even before blogs were invented. It has had a journal like structure from its beginning, as well as the opportunity for anyone to comment. The Slashdot software is Free Software, and is used among others by the library news site Lisnews.org. Slashdot became very popular very quickly; so popular, in fact, that a link posted at the site would often cause the linked website to crash or stall, so heavy would the traffic from Slashdot be — a phenomenon called “the Slashdot Effect”. Now Network Performance Daily has an interview with founder Rob Malda. Via BoingBoing.