MIT’s The Weather Oldest and Largest Today: Partly cloudy, 39°F (4°C) Tonight: Mostly clear, 27°F (-3°C) Newspaper Tomorrow: Sunny but cold, High 37°F (3°C) Details, Page 2 http://tech.mit.edu/ Volume 128, Number 60 Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 Friday, December 5, 2008 OLPC Patent Infringement Suit Dismissed by Middlesex Judge By Pearle Lipinski 2007, naming OLPC, OLPC founder case remains open in Nigerian court. STAFF REPORTER and MIT professor Nicholas Negro- The XO laptop was brought to A Middlesex Superior Court ponte ’66, and Quanta Computer, Lancor’s attention in January 2007 Judge has dismissed the case against the manufacturer of the XO laptop. when a friend of Lancor founder Ade the One Laptop Per Child Foundation Nigerian courts stopped OLPC from Oyegbola noticed a similarity between by Nigerian company Lagos Analy- distributing and marketing the laptop the Konyin keyboard and the XO key- sis Corporation (Lancor). Lancor in Nigeria in December 2007 and re- board. The Konyin keyboard was re- claimed that the OLPC Foundation’s jected the OLPC’s February 2008 re- leased in 2005 and has four shift keys XO laptop copied the design of Lan- quest for a dismissal. that allow users to type accented let- cor’s patented Konyin multi-lingual Following its failure to have the ters. The XO laptop has one alternate keyboards. The suit asked for $20 cased dismisse in Nigeria, OLPC filed shift key, which lets users add diacrit- million in damages. a preliminary action with the Massa- ics to letters as they type. In its suit, A similar case is still pending in chusetts Middlesex Superior Court Lancor accused OLPC of copying the Nigeria, where a temporary injunc- seeking declaratory relief, which layout of the Konyin keyboard and tion prohibits OLPC from distribut- would prevent the case from being stealing its software drivers. ing its laptops in Nigeria. brought to Massachusetts courts. A non-profit foundation started In August 2007, Lancor sent Lancor claimed that OLPC had vio- in 2005, OLPC aims provide quality OLPC a letter claiming that OLPC lated copyrighted information of the low-cost laptops to children in de- had reverse engineered its multi- Konyin keyboards, a federal offense, veloping and countries. OLPC’s first lingual keyboard for the XO laptop and attempted to file suit in US fed- laptop, the XO-1, has a 1200 x 900 — formerly the “Hundred Dollar eral court. 7.5” LCD screen, wireless connectiv- Laptop” — and asked for $20 million OLPC argued that Lancor’s origi- ity, and is resistant to heat and humid- for the “huge economic and financial nal case, that its trade secrets had been ity. An updated version, the XO-2, loss” suffered by Lancor. OLPC re- violated, was under the jurisdiction is slated for release in 2010 and will fused to pay the sum, requesting proof of state courts and the copyright in- feature dual touchscreens and will that it had violated Lancor’s Nigerian fringement claim was unfounded. The operate on only 1 watt, less than the patent. case was remanded back to Middlesex XO-1’s power consumption of 2-4 Lancor filed suit for patent in- in May, and the case was dismissed in watts. A standard laptop runs uses 20- fringement in Nigeria in November October by Judge Thomas Feeley. The 45 watts. As Nanoparticle Use Rises, So Does Concern Over Safety, Regulations PERRy Hung—THE TECH By Natasha Singer designed to work more effectively. And now comes nanophobia, the Institute Chaplain Robert M. Randolph leads a prayer and a THE NEW YORK TIMES But those minuscule building blocks fear that tiny components engineered moment of silence for victims of the terror attacks in Mumbai, It sounds like a plot straight out have an unexpected drawback: the on the nanoscale — that is, 100 nano- India during a candlelight vigil held in Killian Court on Tuesday of a science fiction novel by Michael ability to penetrate the skin, swarm meters or less — could run amok evening. Crichton. Toiletry companies formu- through the body and overwhelm or- inside the body. A human hair, for late new cutting-edge creams and gans like the liver. example, is 50,000 to 100,000 nano- lotions that contain tiny components Humans have long lived in dread meters in diameter. A nanoparticle of of such nightmare scenarios in which titanium dioxide in a sunscreen could swarms of creatures attack. Alfred be as small as 15 nanometers. (One College MIT Responds to Students; Hitchcock envisioned menacing nanometer equals a billionth of a me- flocks in “The Birds.” In the 1990 ter.) Expenses film “Arachnophobia” a killer spider “The smaller a particle, the fur- MBTA Drops Federal Case arrives in the United States, where it attacks and multiplies. Nanoparticles, Page 8 By Michael McGraw-Herdeg The case was dismissed by the Outpacing EXECUTIVE EDITOR MBTA on Oct. 7, with prejudice and This occasional feature will fol- without costs. Incomes low up on news stories long past their Oliver G. Selfridge ’45 prime. In this edition: how MIT fired, Women’s support administrator’s By Tamar Lewin and un-fired, job secure By John Markoff THE NEW YORK TIMES a women’s After deciding to fire an MIT ad- THE NEW YORK TIMES The rising cost of college — After support ad- ministrator in charge of supporting Oliver G. Selfridge ’45, an innovator in early computer science and even before the recession — threat- ministrator; women on campus, MIT reversed its artificial intelligence, died Wednesday in Boston. He was 82. ens to put higher education out of Deadline and whatever decision within weeks. She was un- The cause was injuries suffered in a fall on Sunday at his home in reach for most Americans, accord- happened to that MBTA lawsuit? fired and reassigned to another depart- nearby Belmont, Mass., said his companion, Edwina L. Rissland. ing to the biennial report from the ment within the Institute. Credited with coining the term “intelligent agents,” for software National Center for Public Policy MBTA surrenders in In mid-April, MIT told Lynn A. programs capable of observing and responding to changes in their en- and Higher Education. Subway vs. Students? Roberson, formerly Coordinator of vironment, Selfridge theorized about far more, including devices that Over all, the report found, pub- A lawsuit against MIT students Programs and Support for Women would not only automate certain tasks but also learn through practice lished college tuition and fees in- filed by the Massachusetts Bay Transit Students in Student Support Servic- how to perform them better, faster and more cheaply. creased 439 percent from 1982 to Authority was dropped in October. es, that it could no longer afford her Eventually, he said, machines would be able to analyze operator 2007 while median family income The Massachusetts Bay Transit services and would be firing her, ac- instructions to discern not just what users requested but what they ac- rose 147 percent. Student bor- Authority sued three MIT students in cording to an e-mail she sent to fresh- tually wanted to occur, not always the same thing. rowing has more than doubled in August and sought to quash research man women. Following student com- His 1958 paper “Pandemonium: A Paradigm for Learning,” which the last decade, and students from apparently showing how anyone could plaints, the decision was reversed by proposed a collection of small components dubbed “demons” that to- lower-income families, on average, get free T fare by copying an exist- the end of April, with Roberson taking gether would allow machines to recognize patterns, was a landmark get smaller grants from the colleges ing CharlieTicket or by making their on a new job as associate director for contribution to the emerging science of machine learning. they attend than students from more own. student activities in the Student Ac- An early enthusiast about the potential of interactive computing, Sel- affluent families. A gag order granted in early Au- tivities Office. fridge saw his ideas summarized in a famous 1968 paper, “The Com- “If we go on this way for another gust kept the students from presenting According to Roberson’s April 18 puter as a Communications Device,” written by J.C.R. Licklider and 25 years, we won’t have an afford- their research at the summer’s DEF e-mail, “MIT will be terminating my Robert W. Taylor and published in the journal Science and Technology. able system of higher education,” CON hacker convention in Las Ve- position of Coordinator of Programs Honoring Selfridge, the authors proposed a device they referred to said Patrick M. Callan, president of gas. But the gag order was dissolved and Support for Women Students as as OLIVER, an acronym for On-Line Interactive Vicarious Expediter the center, a nonpartisan organiza- on Aug. 19, with the judge saying that of the end of June 2008, and I will be and Responder. OLIVER was one of the clearest early descriptions of tion that promotes access to higher the MBTA was unlikely to succeed on laid off.” a computerized personal assistant. a claim that the research violated the With four other colleagues, Selfridge helped organize a 1956 con- College Costs, Page 11 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. After Deadline, Page 8 ference at Dartmouth College that led directly to creation of the field of artificial intelligence. “Oliver was one of the founding fathers of the discipline of artificial intelligence,” said Eric Horvitz, a Microsoft researcher who is presi- OPINI O N World & Nation . 2 dent of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. India’s 9/11: Opinion ����������������������������������������������������4 “He has been well known in the field for his early and prescient writ- How Mumbai stood up to ings on the challenge of endowing machines with the ability to learn Arts ����������������������������������������������������������5 to recognize patterns.” the terrorist attacks Comics / Fun Pages ��������������������������������6 Oliver Gordon Selfridge, a grandson of H.