OLPC To Sell 7-Inch XO Tablet In Wal-Mart

angry tapir writes "One Laptop Per Child is back in the tablet race, announcing a new 7-inch tablet with the Android OS that will be sold commercially and include its learning software. The XO Tablet was announced at the International CES show in Las Vegas. OLPC will license the design to Sakar International, which will sell the tablet in the U.S. through Wal-Mart."

Comments

Re:So does this mean that

[hairyfeet]

Walmart to me is the canary in the coal mine and a perfect example of what I have been arguing for years, which is that without government funded "make work" jobs capitalism would be just as dead as communism or any other ism of the past.

For those that don't know one of the first "training videos" you are shown when hired by Walmart is how to get on government assistance, because you simply can't survive on Walmart wages. Why that is just the evil dirty corp screwing the workers...right? Well it IS true they are screwing the workers but in reality most jobs could be done by machines now so I would argue that the vast majority of the service industry jobs aren't even needed anymore. With RFIDs, robot stockers, and camera systems that can allow a couple of guys to monitor the whole store frankly you wouldn't need more than a dozen people to run a Supercenter because the machines can do it better. same thing goes for all the fast food joints like Mickey D's, you could have an automated assembly line that would never make mistakes and it would be as simple to the end user as "push button to get food".

At the end of the day we are playing IQ musical chairs and fewer and fewer will ever get a seat, just look at how many student loan defaults we are having as students go straight from graduation to the unemployment line, you could wipe out half the people on this planet and not only would the quality of life not go down, it would actually go up as the people left would be valued for their labor! We just have to face the fact that like in Star Trek the age of trading labor for capital is coming to a close, the machines don't need living wages, never get sick or tired, don't need health insurance, etc. I predict the next decade will be ugly as the financial bubble finally pops and those at the top violently struggle to hold onto the system that gave the ability to live like Gods but with the difference between the top and the bottom growing by the minute the starving masses will outnumber them by such a huge amount they simply won't be able to win.

As for TFA its probably too little too late but it is nice to see the OLPC project finally growing a brain. I would argue that not only would the netbook still be alive today if they would have done like myself and many suggested and sold it to the first world the economy of scale they would have gotten would have allowed them to put a LOT more XO-1s in the hands of third world kids by dropping cost to manufacture and giving them healthy profits to pay for more units to give away. Maybe it will work, who knows, but considering how simple Android ICS is to use and the fact you can get an Android ICS 7 inch tablet for less than $80 complete with several games? i kinda doubt it.