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OLPC's XO-1.75 Laptop To Have a Multitouch Screen

Posted by timothy on from the get-one-give-me-one dept.

angry tapir writes "One Laptop Per Child has revealed it is adding a multitouch screen to the upcoming XO-1.75 laptop and is modifying software to take advantage of the new hardware. The XO-1.75 with a touch-sensitive 8.9-inch screen will start shipping next year. The laptop will run on an Arm processor and is the successor to the current XO-1.5 laptop, which runs on a Via x86 processor. OLPC will also add a multitouch screen on the next-generation XO-3 tablet, which is due to ship in 2012. Fedora will continue to be the base Linux distribution for XO-1.75 as the laptop changes from the x86 to Arm architecture."

4 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How many by Darkness404 · · Score: 5, Informative

    According to various sources, 1,494,500. While that is a bit low when considering the 3 year span, it still is a pretty large number of kids who wouldn't have gotten any shot at technology otherwise.

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  2. Re:Patent Problems? by tlhIngan · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'd love to get a reliable source on that. I always imagine Apple as being evil as sin (ha!); it would do a lot for my impression of the company to believe that they were willing to work on something for nothing (OS X + PostScript GUI on a 433mhz Geode?).

    This might be the best source WSJ
    Quote:

    Steve Jobs, Apple Computer Inc.'s chief executive, offered to provide free copies of the company's operating system, OS X, for the machine, according to Seymour Papert, a professor emeritus at MIT who is one of the initiative's founders. "We declined because it's not open source," says Dr. Papert, noting the designers want an operating system that can be tinkered with. An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

    As for OS X on a 433MHz X86 compatible - "OS X" seems to run just fine on an iPhone/iPod Touch which have 400MHz ARM processors. Sure it's not the full OS, but it can be cut down to run decently. I think OLPC could've cut out the fat and made it run decently...

  3. Re:Let them eat laptops! by cgenman · · Score: 4, Informative

    E) Durable as hell. I challenge anyone to find a $200 netbook that is waterproof, let alone one that can be dropped from 7 or 8 feet repeatedly without worrying about if it will survive. F) Grid networking. Instead of crowding around a single access point that might not be in reach, a school full of OLPC's can piggyback on eachother's signals to get much further than otherwise possible.

    And let's not forget that the XO project is partially responsible for the existence of netbooks. Intel and Microsoft both made reference netbook platforms in response to the perceived threat of OLPC platform. (politics, someone else can jump in with the sordid history, I'm sure). Basically, when it was announced a $100 (cough $200) laptop was considered ludicrous, and a lot of effort went into making viable platforms. Now, netbooks are almost an impulse buy.

    The keyboard's pretty terrible, but other than that the OLPC is a surprisingly well designed platform for the environment it finds itself in.

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  4. Re:Where can they be bought? by naz404 · · Score: 4, Informative

    They can't normally be bought except in large government-level quantities, but if you want to get your hands on one for testing, you can apply for the contributors' program. Basically you submit a project proposal on how you're going to use the units, and it's kinda like a grant except they send you laptop units.

    You can volunteer as a developer and if you submit a good project proposal, there's a good chance of being sent some units.

    You can check it out and apply here:
    http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Contributors_program

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