One Tablet per Child
By Bala Shah

One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is one of the noblest ideas in the world.  Headquartered in Massachusetts, USA this charity has Nicholas Negroponte, Ashton Hawkins, Robert D. Fadel and Calestous Juma on its Board of Directors. In India, it is supported by the billionaire Ambani family and a number of NGOs and social workers.

Basically, OLPC aimed to provide a sub $100 laptop for children in poor countries. It managed to distribute XO laptops to 1.4 million children.  Sadly, the OLPC Project ran into a number of technical and bureaucratic obstacles which almost stalled the noble cause.  In Jan, 2009, OLPC had to sack 50 percent of its staff.

But now OLPC is back with new design for cheap, simple computing.  OLPC has announced new versions of its XO laptop which is more of a tablet (pictured above).  According to their media release the details will be as follows 

“
XO 1.5 – The XO 1.5 is the same industrial design as the XO 1.0. Based on a VIA processor (replacing AMD), it will provide 2x the speed, 4x DRAM memory and 4x FLASH memory. It will run both the Linux and Windows operating systems. XO 1.5 will be available in January 2010 at about $200 per unit. The actual price floats in accordance with spot markets, particularly for those of DRAM and FLASH.

XO 1.75 – The XO 1.75, to be available in early 2011, will be essentially the same industrial design but rubber-bumpered on the outside and in the inside will be an 8.9”, touch-sensitive display. The XO 1.75 will be based on an ARM processor from Marvell that will enable 2x the speed at 1/4 the power and is targeted at $150 or less. This ARM-based system will complement the x86-based XO 1.5, which will remain in production, giving deployments a choice of processor platform."

XO 3.0 – The XO 3.0 is a totally different approach, to be available in 2012 and at a target price well below $100. It will feature a new design using a single sheet of flexible plastic and will be unbreakable and without holes in it. The XO 3.0 will leapfrog the previously announced (May 2008) XO 2.0, a two-page approach that will not be continued. The inner workings of 3.0 will come from the more modest 1.75.
“

While the target of a good $100 laptop has not been achieved yet, the ideal still manifests itself in other products.

(Techgoss had published the following on Jan 8, 2009)

Laptop charity job cuts
By Bala Shah

One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is one of the noblest ideas in the world.  Headquartered in Massachusetts, USA this charity has Nicholas Negroponte, Ashton Hawkins, Robert D. Fadel and Calestous Juma on its Board of Directors. In India, it is supported by the billionaire Ambani family.

OLPC’s aim is to improve humanity by providing a cheap laptop to every child. It targeted a laptop below $100, but for a number of technical reasons this cheap price has not been achieved.  And there were the battles with big business as no IT company would like to lose profits by helping produce such a cheap laptop.   Despite all the obstacles, OLPC has managed to provide half a million laptops to poor children.

Sadly, this shaky economic climate is taking its toll on charities as well.  One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) boss Nicholas Negroponte has just released a statement to the media that his team has had to sack 50 percent of its staff and there will be pay cuts for the remaining 32 employees.

The new direction for OLPC includes four elements: Development of Generation 2.0, A no-cost connectivity program, A million digital books and Passing on the development of the Sugar Operating System to the community.

According to OLPC, North Western Pakistan, The Middle East and Afghanistan will be areas of focus in the near future.