Everyone thought Nicholas Negroponte was crazy, trying to equip every child on earth with a laptop. In order to achieve that he tried to produce a laptop for $100. The price however soared to $188.
Less than a year since it went into production in November 2007, about 600,000 XO laptops have been sold around the world.
Last week the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project unveiled its plans for a second generation of XO, the XO-2, or XOXO.
It will come with dual-touchscreens which will be similar to Nintendo DS. The touchscreens can be used as a keyboard to enable the standard typewriter style of computing.
The XO-2 will make use of displays developed by Pixel Qi which was founded by former OLPC-CTO Mary Lou Jepsen in early 2008.
The XO-2 will apparently have multi-touch and haptic feedback and possibly tactile feedback for the keyless device.
The first generation XO laptop requires about 2 watts power to run. XO-2 will need only about 1 watt.
The XO-2 should be about the size of a book, reducing to just half the size of OLPC’s current laptop.
The case will continue to be available in green and white, but it would be possible to choose from a range of different-colored XO logos to help personalize the laptops.
OLPC expects it to become available in 2010. XO-2 is expected to cost around $75.
OLPC is also planning an XO-1.5 release in the spring of next year. OLPC said it will have the same basic design as the XO-1 but will have fewer parts. It’s expected to be less expensive than the original.
It is interesting to note that since the OLPC project many small laptops with low prices have appeared trying to compete against it.
XO and XO-2 laptops, whether we like it or not, are extremely innovative and have challenged the notion that simple computers cannot exist in today’s world.
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