Submitted by The One Laptop Per Child project, including its leader Nicholas Negroponte, has weathered quite a few storms lately. There was a flood of criticism coming from the open source world when Negroponte stated that Windows might become the platform of choice, and when former employee and contributor Ivan Krstic stepped in the round, both the project as well as its leader had to face quite a few harsh words. All this hasn’t slowed down the project at all, it seems, as Negroponte just unveiled the plans for version 2.0 of the OLPC. Instant update: There’s a video of the unveiling too.As Forbes reports, Negroponte showed off photos and specifications of what he calls XO-2, the next generation of the XO laptop, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The device will do away with the rubber keyboard, and instead sport two touch-screen displays hinged together in the middle. This way, the laptop can function like the pages of a book, or as a traditional laptop with a touch-screen keyboard.
Negroponte explains:
This laptop comes from a different point of view. Over the past couple of years, we’ve learned that the book experience is key. So we said the next generation should be a book. And since it’s also got a touch-sensitive display, you can use it as a laptop.
The OLPC project is aiming for a selling price of USD 75, which is an ambitious goal if you take into account that the current USD 100 XO laptop actually costs USD 188. In addition, power consumption will be cut in half, from 2 watts to 1 watt. The device is scheduled for a launch in 2010.
Negroponte also took aim at Ivan Krstic during the presentation. “One person idiotically said that ‘Nicholas isn’t interested in learning,’ or something like that,” he fumed, “It really puzzled me, because this is an education project, it’s not a laptop project. I don’t think I can say it more often.”
If only they sold it in the US. I’m sure even with a higher price tag it would outsell the Asus Eee. I know I’ll be watching to see if I can get one when they do another G1G1.
From where I stand it looked like the biggest backer of the OLPC was the FOSS community. The FOSS community was a strong grass roots marketing machine that advocated the OLPC – I do wonder how the Microsoft partnership will play out…
Edited 2008-05-21 12:35 UTC
Easy: Provided they find some reason to continue with this, they will replace advocacy with $$$
Didn’t they say that they weren’t after upgrades and that instead of upgrading they would keep driving the price lower and lower? What happened to that?
Windows… upgraded hardware regularly… is this really still OLPC?
Am I the only one who finds the the current state of this project sickening?
No.
Sickening, does not even begin to describe it…
I get the feeling Negroponte has gone astray. Sure, two touch screens is very fancy and cool and all that, but what the heck are kids COMPLETELY new to computers going to do with dual-booting system? :O I absolutely don’t get the point behind that. Wouldn’t it be best to install one OS and spend as much time configuring and optimizing that one for the kids and learning rather than spend half (or third) of that time trying to do the same to two OSes? And touch-screens? In areas where kids live in severe poverty? Umm…It’s easy to keep one’s fingers clean here but they might not have it so easy. And you know kids, they will mess their fingers up. So you’d end up with totally smudged and dirty screen in no time resulting in unintelligible keyboard..
My feelings about OLPC are getting worse and worse…It started out as a fantastic project, but some key members have already left the ship, they most likely ruined their relations with a huge part of the F/OSS supporters, and now they are just apparently aiming for “cool” computers instead of useful ones..
you probably should ask the countries demanding this (and maybe their developers who may asked for it…)… even so, this is about the XO… i don’t think XOXO/XO2 will suffer from similar issues as its custom nature requires specially customized OS too (XP/Vista probably won’t do… Windows Mobile at last maybe…)
if this can be eventually delivered, it will be very nice and could even be interesting as a device for anyone besides children (as the first XO don’t do very well for normal costumers…)… that could mean more machine to be made and smaller costs.
Also, I’d like to hear more about some kind of 3d compatibilities in the new generation… I don’t see why kids could not use some advanced learning ways… even because by 2010 a PowerVR based/like accelerator would be in most mobile phones (already today… in iPhone and N95 for example), could be integrated in XO2 too without power problems by them… and kids could learn even more that today’s electronic+online paper paradigm…
even if it’s not released until 2010… the community needs some specifications and software soon as possible to start development the next-gen software, again, soon as possible.
OLPC 2 gives a look a technology where hardware and cost isn’t the main focus. They did say it’s a prototype and should help stimulate some R+D for similar projects, and won’t be available soon.
If XP flash gets released for the XO . Thats fantastic especially if GIGI owners can get it on a Flash card for the same price. I appreciate all the efforts of the Linux community but I’d say the Sugar is softening. Again this was never meant to be a North Amer user project. So quit kicking your novelty in Pants Boys and Girls.
This looks like a very nice toy… for reach people. Children in developing countries need something more reliable.
Yup, this doesn’t look like it could cost anything below $100 even in 2010. And there are other problems – why would anybody need 2 screens to read an e-book (I know I can read 1 line at a time, some people more but I have yet to see someone reading 2 pages at the same time
), it drives cost up, dramatically increases power usage and makes keyboard harder to use.
This is an expensive gadget, not a tool.
If one line at time would be enough, pagers would still be popular… do not forget people who actually read paragraphs or even pages at once (they’re not unusual anymore, specially in the internet age and all this browsing people are used to do.)… still, besides that, two page reading is more natural to anyone who already reads books and magazines… and even besides reading, the possibilities for interaction with this dual multi touch design are almost endless. Just imagine something between iPhone and Nintendo DS… If you know educational games DS has, and multi touch interfaces available in iPhone, Surface and several studies, you how NATURAL they can be for its users…
…and ‘natural’ sounds like something kids can use to interact with software interfaces.
I won’t make a beat in the chances of is product actually making into the market with all these goodies, but criticizing it just to sound cool and informed…. well, doesn’t make sense. It actually has potential, all that needs to sorted out is the price target and how well software will be developed for the device.
You are probably right about the cost, I doubt it too. As for the format, it is the familiarity that counts. This laptop “feels” like a real book. Actually I think this is a nice idea (maybe it’s time mainstream manufacturers start offering them). And yes I read too fast myself
Two screens will probably make it more fragile though. But if you ask me, this whole OLPC thing has gone totally astray.
For profit or not..it is another issue. But now with schizophrenic direction of OLPC, everyone realizes that it needs visionary like Bill Gates to bring computers to masses. Without him we would have been in primitive world of whatever IBM provided with their C programming language.
And ivory tower professors from MIT and technocrats should be punished to make fake promises and should be sentenced to serve teaching in third world country school for six months…Then only OLPC will find right directions
Indeed, Bill Gates, or even better, Steve Ballmer, would be a more appropriate and more representative leader of the OLPC project in its current state.
Your sense of humour is.. visionary.
It has dual displays, it looks kick ass, can be used as a eReader…. forget 3rd world, i want one for myself.
Me too! I wanted an xo laptop but I just couldn’t buy into the whole G1G1 thing. It came out to $400 for a laptop, as much as I liked it I couldn’t justify the cost for myself. This new version looks pretty interesting. I’d like one for myself.
OLPC is a fraud.
I have a few left from my garage sale. Let’s see:
Excoriate , Protuberance , Expiation, Flatulence, Sponge
Ok, that about does it.
“Not as deceivin’ as a low-down… dirty… deceiver!”
–Jayne ( Firefly: “Out of Gas”)
Edited 2008-05-21 16:40 UTC
A few months ago, I had the opportunity to sit down and play with OLPC 1, as well as observe people who primarily work with MacBook Pro’s play with it.
The general consensus was that it was slow, and I suppose it was, but only comparatively with computers of this day. The other “problem” attacked was that the interface was very different, so most had problems getting accustomed to it.
But at the same time, after 10 minutes I knew how everything functioned without opening the manual. When the programs did load they were responsive, the networking was nice and battery was out of this world. Only ‘issue’ I had was that the keyboard was a bit small to type on. If there was a bigger version that cost $300-$400, I would get it even to use as a document reader. Hell yeah.
Considering that was version 1, I thought version 2 would be simply a time to adjust the OS a bit. Maybe by take out some crud, fixing some of the other issues cropped up as well as upgrade some hardware, since it would be cheaper now.
Then I saw this.
Imagine, just for a second, that you’re a kid, here in someplace that’s not a third world country… and you get this laptop. Cool right? By the end of the month, that screen would be so dirty and probably start to malfunction, of course you’ll clean it though with your parents dish cloth. Now try to imagine yourself typing on a touch screen display keyboard. There’s a reason why there’s so much emphasis on the feedback given when you press a key on a keyboard. I wouldn’t have any idea what key I was pressing without looking down. Mind you, it’s probably targeted towards people to ‘touch’ type. Looking down at the keyboard for every letter before they press it.
Only a few things needed to change, and now this? If an organization can’t take a product into version 2 without making a completely new product there’s something really wrong.
This device just seems impractical, it doesn’t teach anything and just gloats.
The only plus side here is that they get to experience how messed up and whipped we are by the corporate world. AKA. Microsoft.
What a disaster.
Edited 2008-05-21 23:27 UTC
it *is* just about a laptop. It is a tech solution in search of a problem. The whole project is premised on the flawed philosophy of constructivist education and won’t do much to help the poor.
Also see
http://d-edreckoning.blogspot.com