[Olpc-za] OLPC XO-2

[Morgan Collett]

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 11:01, David Robert Lewis <ethnopunk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Booted Sugar OS last night using Quemu on WindowsXP. It also boots nicely
> with MS Virtual PC. However I have reservations about the OLPC user
> interface. Surely there is a better way to connect to a pc than a keyboard
> and mouse/touchpad?

Indeed, OLPC's next goal is development of a device with two touch screens:
http://blog.laptopmag.com/first-look-olpc-xo-generation-20 (concept art only)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jan/29/nicholas-negroponte-olpc
is more recent:

An open book

With the XO-1 now being deployed in the field, interest is turning to
a follow-on project: the XO-2. This will be a $75 dual-screen device
that's held like a book. You can also turn it around and use one of
the screens as the keyboard.

"The first generation is a laptop that can be a book; the next
generation will a book that can be a laptop," he says. "That's the
switch.

"One important thing about the XO-2 is that we're going to do it as an
open source hardware programme. The XO-1 was really designed as if we
were Apple. The XO-2 will be designed as if we were Google - we'll
want people to copy it. We'll make the constituent parts available.
We'll try and get it out there using the exact opposite approach that
we did with the XO-1.

"We had to do the XO this way because everybody said it couldn't be
done. We purposely designed a special-purpose, award-winning museum of
modern art piece. The next one will be different: everything from the
dual display to the touch-sensitive, force-feedback, haptic keyboard
will be available."

The XO-2 came as a result of feedback from the XO-1. Negroponte says
he'd thought ebooks were the weakest argument for the OLPC, "but I
found that for many people, the strongest case was books. Suddenly a
village can have 10,000 books, which is more than we had in school."

The other interesting thing about the XO-2 is that it looks like
something western consumers would buy as an ebook reader, and there's
potentially a mass market at the target $75 price. Or somebody like
Asus or Acer could make them, without paying OLPC a royalty. A project
that was started to help children in the developing world could end up
helping children in the west as well. "I wouldn't complain," he says.