When the One Laptop Per Child project, which aims to distribute low-cost netbooks among the world’s children, launched a couple year’s back, it was a revolutionary idea. And while it’s had its successes, the first OLPC XO-1 netbook never achieved the manufacturing scale it needed to drive down the cost.
At the beginning of the project, OLPC hoped to get government support from countries by offering each device for $100, but to this day the price still sits at $188.
But at the Davos Economic Forum, Netvibes and Jolicloud founder Tariq Krim managed to grab a quick cellphone picture of the next-generation OLPC XO-2. The first thing I thought was that the device looked like a touchscreen book, or an e-book reader.
OLPC founder, Nicholas Negroponte, told the UK’s Guardian that is exactly what the design is aiming for.
“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.
The XO-2 will be a dual-boot, dual-screen device that runs both Windows and Linux operating systems. Negroponte says that adding Windows will appeal to the governmental big-wigs familiar with the operating system. The open-source Linux system is popular, but among the technically hardcore. It doesn’t have the mainstream appeal of Windows.
OLPC is also taking a different approach to distributing the XO-2. The entire project is open source, in that the device’s components will be available to anyone. Manufacturers like ASUS or Acer that make money by producing low-cost netbooks could be potential candidates for manufacturing something like the XO-2, driving down the end price and expanding its distribution chain. This plan could be key to OLPC’s successful distribution of the new XO-2.
The laptop is also expected to be cheaper than the XO-1. Negroponte says the project is aiming for a $75 price tag, low enough to appeal to mainstream consumers in the Western world. I know I’ll be anxiously waiting for the XO-2’s release.
