Could OLPC be The Primer?

I have been fascinated with the concept of "The Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" since my first reading of "The Diamond Age" over 10 years ago. Do read it - my own hundredth reading has been as inspiring as the first.

Many concepts seeded by the book, such as "Racting" (hybrid dual-blind remote interactive acting) have been on my R+D list for The Wishfarmers since inception. But it is The Primer that most excites me.

The Primer is a sophisticated computer in the guise of a book, embodying all the functionality of a storybook, encyclopedia, study system and data processing unit. It's tied-into the global network and transparently draws on external resources - and even other people - and integrates them into the content seamlessly. As it does so it constantly adjusts its content and delivery to suit the user, based on what it observes from interaction and even 'spying' on the environment.

I've always considered Second Life a good platform for prototyping it, but I have also followed with intense interest the development of the One Laptop Per Child project. The XO prototype system has built-in wireless community networking, and the operating system is designed in a way that supports complete connectivity between user applications.

What does that mean? Well, it means these applications can talk to one another. What will happen when these children all grow up connected in this manner - connected constantly in what they are doing, what they are facing?

How long before their network results in a collaboration to solve, say, the specific problems of one abused peer? Psst: About 30 minutes.

How long before some of the older ones develop software specifically to organize this and - who knows what other sort of applications we cannot imagine (because we are not 12).

A single child may be helpless, but what happens when they are hyper-connected, and empowered to organize their own (real or virtual) "instant mouse armies"?

At the conclusion of Diamond Age, thousands of adolescent girls raised on the same network of Primers work in unprecedented coordination to beat back an overwhelming force. What will happen when these mouse armies bubble-up and make their ways across the third world?

I don't know the answer to any of these questions, of course -- like you, I can only stare in wonder and watch with bated breath as an entirely new world unfolds.