OLPC is bringing new technology to satisfy not only environmental activists but also practical people in general.

The company is soon launching two models of portable PCs that will run on solar power, namely the XO-1.75 laptop as well as the XO-3.0 tablet PC.

Said devices run on a unique technology that does not consist of a solar panel with which you can charge a battery when it is turned off as some expect. Rather, the XO-1.75 and the XO-3.0 can be connected directly to a solar panel while it is in use. The user may then remove the battery and continue working.

Of course, users may still use a solar panel to charge the laptop and tablet’s battery for use when it is dark or when sunlight is insufficiently bright. However, if the user is, for instance in a place where an electrical socket is not available, but there is much sunlight, then said user may utilize the sun’s rays to power the devices.

The OLPC XO-1.75 and XO-3.0 both run on 1 GHz Marvell Armada PXA618 central processing units. It may likewise be configured for use with a Pixel Qi LCD display, which also runs on low power—that is, around 80 percent of energy as compared to a common LCD when it is not backlit. Added together, these only consume only about 5W of energy.

With these, it looks like the future of computers is going to be bright.

via liliputing

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One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is quite busy these days. They are currently preparing for the unveiling of the XO-3 Tablet at CES while they are also in preparation to launch a new laptop model in March.

The XO-1.75 is one of the original XO Laptops announced in the past. It will feature a Marvell Armada PXA618 ARM-based processor, which is the same chip used in the XO-3 tablet. But the laptop will have a QWERTY keyboard, a sunlight readable display, and the same rugged design of earlier XO Laptop models. The key difference is the ARM-based processor which uses just 2 Watts, or about half as much power as the x86 chip in the XO-1.5 Laptop.

According to OLPC News, the XO-1.75 will ship in March for $185 and up. Exact prices will vary depending on the configuration, e.g. 4GB or 8GB of flash storage.

Source:  Liliputing

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One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is still on the go and in addition to its student-oriented XO notebooks, the organization plans to unleash its own tablet on schools in developing countries.

According to OLPC founder and chairman Nicholas Negroponte, XO-3 tablet is ready to ship [after years in the making] and working units will be shown next week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The device features a 1-GHz Marvell Armada PXA618 CPU, and an 8-inch screen with either a Pixel Qi sunlight-readable panel or standard LCD.

The image above is an artist’s concept rendering from the OLPC site, not a photo of the actual XO 3.0, which will be shown for the first time at CES.

“The XO-3 price will be $100 or lower. But this time there are options, so we cannot guarantee the final price,” Negroponte said. Like OLPC’s XO-1 laptop, the XO-3 will be offered as an educational tool for children in developing countries. Negroponte declined to say if it will also be sold at retail.

Besides the XO 3.0, OLPC and Marvell announced that the latest version of its laptop, the XO 1.75, will start shipping in March. There are 75,000 units already headed to schools in Uruguay and Nicaragua. The XO 1.75 will use the same Marvell Armada PXA618  system-on-a-chip processor as the XO 3.0, which will use half the power of the 1-GHz Via C7-M processor on the current-generation XO 1.5 notebook.

Like the tablet, the XO 1.75 will run Linux with Sugar educational software. The notebook will be priced at $175, but it’s unclear whether OLPC will offer the systems to consumers as it did when it released the first-generation XO notebook in 2009.

According to said Ed McNierney, chief technology officer at OLPC:

The tablet provides about eight to 10 hours of battery life, though some audiences may choose a smaller battery capacity to reduce the purchase price.

The internal batteries can be charged by “just about anything that produces DC power,” he said. The charging options include solar panels or hand cranks, and a study is under way to see if the battery can be detached and the tablet powered directly through a solar cell.

“Our ability to accept erratic, variable, noisy power inputs is extremely important to us, and something no other tablet has even attempted,” McNierney said.

The tablet is also available with a traditional LCD screen. But the optional Pixel Qi display absorbs ambient light to brighten the screen, reducing power consumption and extending battery life.

McNierney further said,

Eight inches is the right size for the display because a 9.7-inch display is too big for children to handle, and 7 inches “seems too small to be usable.”

Microsoft’s Windows will not run on the device, only Linux-based OSes, Negroponte said. The nonprofit organization has abandoned its pursuit of Windows for tablets, even though Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 will work on ARM processors. Negroponte has said the tablet on display at CES will run Google’s Android OS.

OLPC is not dependent on a specific manufacturer for the tablet and will work with “whomsoever wants to roll-out the tablet, for whatsoever purpose, at a very large scale,” Negroponte said, adding the objective is to see prices plummet.

Aside from the objective of helping students learn in school, the XO 3.0 will also be used in a study to find out how students can learn from slates. A test group of children in Tanzania, India, and Sierra Leone will have software on their tablets that will record audio and video that researchers can use to study the kids’ interactions with the goal of improving self-directed learning, Negroponte told PC World. The study will be run out of the MIT Media Lab and be conducted in partnership with Tufts University, Newcastle University, and OLPC.

Sources:   Laptopmag, PC World, Netbooknews

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One Laptop Per Child’s next low-power laptop will come in the form of the XO-1.75, which apart from shifting to an ARM processor from a Via x86 CPU will also make use of a touch-sensitive 8.9-inch screen that supports multi-touch, according to a recent report from Computerworld. The actual release of the OLPC XO-1.75 laptop is scheduled to happen some time next year, while a similarly equipped tablet PC called the XO-3 is slated for launch some time in 2012. Being a product of the OLPC foundation, the XO-1.75 should be quite affordable but there is currently no word on pricing for it. It should be more affordable than most mainstream netbook models, at least, since OLPC have already ruled out the use of Windows for future models and are sticking to Fedora Linux for the default OLPC OS.

Via Computerworld

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OLPC’s $100 laptop may not have gotten much headway in the netbook market, but this won’t stop OLPC’s founder Nicholas Negroponte to pursue his plan of coming up with a tablet version of their laptop geared for children in the developing countries. This time, Negroponte is taking the tablet route via its Android-powered OLPC XO-3 tablet PC.

In fact, the development of the XO-3 is now being fast-tracked and Negroponte is eyeing to come up with a working prototype as early as December. Just in time for a demonstration in CES 2011 in January. And guess how much would this tablet cost? – $75.

For that price you’ll get an ARM-powered  9-inch tablet with tons of great features that could put the iPad into shame. These features include:

Powered by high-performance, highly scalable, and low-power Marvell® ARMADA™ 600 series of application processors, the Moby tablet features gigahertz-class processor speed, 1080p full-HD encode and decode, intelligent power management, power-efficient Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/FM/GPS connectivity, high performance 3D graphics capability and support for multiple software standards including full Adobe Flash, Android  and Windows Mobile.  The ultra low power Moby tablet is designed for long-battery life.

WSJ tells us:

The new tablets will have at least one, and maybe two, video cameras. They’ll sport Wi-Fi connections to the Internet, multi-touch screens and have enough power to play high-definition and 3-D video. Unlike Apple Inc.’s iPad tablet, the device will also work with plug-in peripherals such as mice and keyboards.

Do you think this is achievable? Would OLPC create a tablet this powerful and release it for $75? We’ll see.

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It seems the story of Pixel Qi has gone back full circle. Mary Lou Jepsen, founder or Pixel Qi and one of the original designers of the XO laptops of OLPC, has reached out back to her roots and promises to bring a new screen to the masses. Pixel Qi is makes great black-and-white power-saving screens that just pop on top of an existing LCD without any fancy tinkering.

Putting one of these screens in the popular buy-one-give-one laptop is almost a given since needy children all over the world who use them are likely going to be lugging along the device to places without indoor lighting. It’s also a great boost to the power supply of the XO laptop giving more study hours to kids in places where electrical outlets are in scarce supply.

No buzz as to when good ol’ retail laptops and netbooks will get their own Pixel Qi screen but they did say they are going to roll out DIY kits soon.

source slashgear

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Actually, DHL has already started picking up those laptops in Dallas Texas and delivered them Port-Au-Prince the next Monday. A local organization in Haiti, Waveplace receive the laptops are voluntarily distributing them to four communities in Haiti.

It’s a good thing that the OLPC project was not really a big hit as this afforded the OLPC to distribute the XO laptops for free.

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The OLPC should be no stranger to netbook veterans since it’s one of the devices that spurred the entire market we have today. While everyone is giving away this netbook to deserving school children all over the world, a tiny upgraded version slipped into the FCC recently.

The OLPC XO 1.5 will be replacing the AMD Geode processor with a more powerful VIA C7-M. It also sports 1GB RAM, 4GB flash storage, 802.11 b/g WiFi. It’s expected to sell for US$100, though we’re not sure if that’s retail or if you need to donate one to get one.

source wireless goodness

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Remember the One Laptop per Child or OLPC? The group is currently revitalizing its operations with the hope fulfilling their mission of reaching 500 million children in all remote corners of the planet by announcing three new concept XO laptops.

OLPC is currently developing three new XO laptops:

XO 1.5 – sports almost the same design as the original XO laptop but this it will be powered by a VIA processor instead of the previous AMD. With this, the machine will be doubly faster, with 4x DRAM memory and 4x Flash memory. This laptop will run both Linux and Windows OS and will be available in 2010 for $200.

XO 1.75 – it will have the same industrial design as the previous XO laptop but this time with rubber-bumpered on the outside and in the inside. It will feature an 8.9-inch touch sensitive display and will be based on an ARM processor from Marvell. This will have 2x speed at 1/4 power. This laptop will have a market price of $150.

XO 3.0 – This is OLPC take on the tablet PC. It will be a single sheet of flexible and unbreakable plastic without holes in it.  If you’ve watched the movie AVATAR, this is similar to what was used in the movie.

Via

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Having given up on its fantasies of creating a $10 laptop back in February, India has finally placed orders for a total of 250,000 units of OLPC laptops for its school children. OLPC India’s CEO Satish Jha comments that up to 3 million OLPC laptops are expected to be shipped to India before the end of the year, but for now the only sure figure is 250K. Whether the OLPC laptops that will be delivered to India are running on AMD chips or VIA C7-M processors wasn’t specified, however, it’s sure to be light years ahead of any $10 laptop they could have put together.

PC World via Ars Technica

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