OLPC Gets $5.6M Grant To Develop Tablet With Marvell

tugfoigel writes "According to Xconomy, 'The One Laptop per Child Foundation and Santa Clara, CA-based semiconductor maker Marvell have cemented a partnership announced last spring, with Marvell agreeing to provide OLPC with $5.6 million to fund development of its next generation tablet computer. Nicholas Negroponte says the deal, signed in the past week or so but not previously announced, runs through 2011. "Their money is a grant to the OLPC Foundation to develop a tablet or tablets based on their chip," he says. The OLPC tablet ... is known as the XO 3 because it represents the third-generation of the XO laptop currently sold by OLPC (the foundation scrapped plans for its e-book-like XO 2 computer and is moving straight to the tablet). ... The deal, he says, means the tablet's development is "fully funded."'"

Comments

Re:And we need this why?

[Obfuscant]

I think its a shame more people didn't get an opportunity to buy them.

Lots of people had an opportunity to buy them. "Buy one Give one", for example.

The problem was OLPC was vaporware, at least as far as being able to provide the "buy one" that I tried to buy. They charged my credit card the day I ordered, then tried dragging the delivery date out until after the time limit for contesting the charge. They lied to me about delivery dates about three times, claiming they had them in stock one day, then two days later admitting they'd been out of stock for a month.

I'd have cut them a lot of slack if they'd been honest about being able to provide what they charged me for, and didn't charge me until it shipped, but they shot themselves in both feet the way they did things.

If they've gotten their act together now, good for them. Once burned, twice shy.