XO-1.75 launched at CES, is it One Tablet Per Child?
As reported by Computerworld. One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) showed off the XO-1.75 at CES this week. This moves towards a tablet design. "The entire motherboard, which holds the chips and other components, is behind the laptop screen, leaving the other half of the laptop for the keyboard and battery. The move simplifies the design so the next step can do away with the bottom half and end up with a tablet."
The cost will be $165. "The biggest obstacle has been power. We are pretty excited about getting a lower power laptop out there," said Edward McNierney, chief technology officer of OLPC. The XO-1.75 uses chips from ARM Holdings. McNierney recharged the XO-1.75 with a hand crank, claiming that it takes 1 hour and 47 minutes to fully recharge the battery.
The Armada 610 chip is supplied by Marvell, who also support OLPC research. The chip is intended for all Mobile Internet Devices (MID).
As reported by Ubergizmo, the Marvel 100 is shown at CES this week. Marvell have financed some of the research for the One Laptop Per Child project. The 100 is presented as tablet, not a laptop. It will be launched in the USA later this year priced at $199. There is support for wifi but not 3G.
Previously at BETT there has been an Open Source Village where a demo device from OLPC has been available. This has been of great interest, with visitors including people from Intel for excample. I am not sure yet where the Open Source stand will be at BETT 2011. But the OLPC design will influence much of the discussion.
In November Xconomy reported that The One Laptop Per Child Foundation (OLPC) were working on the XO3, to be released in 2012 with Linux rather than Android as used for what is now known as the Marvell 100. “The first one would definitely not have our brand. It’s a First World machine.” said Nicholas Negreponte, OLPC founder.
It appears that Marvell will use Android and OLPC will use Linux but I am not sure how this will develop or what else will happen. CES is not always a reliable guide to what turns up somewhere else.