OLPC unfolds $100 laptop

In one of the most ambitious educational exercises ever undertaken, the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Initiative unveiled its final industrial prototype of the XO - a laptop computer with a toylike look at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas yesterday.

Expressly designed for the world's poorest children living in the most remote environments, One Laptop per Child is a potent learning tool created collaboratively by experts from both academia and industry.

While currently marketed at $130 per laptop, the OLPC initiative hopes to price the device at less than $100 per unit.

As per plans, five million of the XO laptops will be delivered to developing nations this summer. The move is intended to bring the most isolated tribal village into the Information Age.

Premeditated to survive and thrive in a jagged and power sparse environment, the device needs about three watts to browse the Web, and less than a single watt to display an electronic book.

The computers will contain flash memory instead of a hard drive and will use Linux as their operating system.

The XO is equipped with a novel battery recharger for the machine that looks a lot like a yo-yo. Fixed to a door or tree, it can be pulled with either a hand or a foot, similar to a pulley system to recharge the battery. Designed by Squid Labs LLC, the recharger separately costs about $10.

Similar to a satellite link or cellular connection, the laptop includes a pioneering ‘mesh’ networking technology that automatically connects every child in a village to each other, as well as to any Internet connection that might be available.

The mesh is capable of linking the XO’s up to 600 meters apart.
Featuring a video camera and inbuilt speakers, the Xo’s are available in both color and black and white screens.

Headed by Nicholas Negroponte, the One Laptop per Child association (OLPC) is a Delaware based non-profit organization.

It was set up to oversee The Children's Machine project announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2005.

It is funded by a number of sponsor organizations namely, AMD, Brightstar Corporation, eBay, Google, Marvell, News Corporation, SES Global, Nortel Networks, and Red Hat.

The governments of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Nigeria, Libya, Pakistan and Thailand have committed to participate in the program.