OTB Gadget Blog

The “One Laptop Per Child” (OLPC) program is getting closer and closer to becoming a reality.   The OLPC program was started by MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte, and its aim is get cheap and educational laptops out to school children in developing countries.  The first design attempt was called the “XO computer,” and a revamped version is set to be released in 2012.

The design is much different than a typical pc; it’s an 8.5 x 11″  touch screen tablet.  According to Yves Behar, found of the Fuse Project and designer of the X0, “I wanted to bring the One Laptop Per Child identity to life in this new form.   That meant taking the visual complexity away, bringing tactility and friendliness, touch and color.”  Behar wants to keep the frame around the touch screen as minimal as possible, and in the early mockups, the screen is only surrounded by a thin green rubber gasket.  “The media or content on the computer will be the prime visual element,” he says.

The form factor is just one of many difficult demands that must be met, it needs to be: highly durable, all plastic, waterproof, half the thickness of an iPhone, and can only use 1 watt of power, despite the plans for an 8-gigahertz CPU.  Oh, and it has to be available for only $75!  This super cheap and user-friendly PC will come with a digital camera built in, allowing unheard voices to make thier way around the web.

I think this is a great program, and could really help people of the world come together.  Right now, people think of the internet as a cross-section of humanity, but in reality, there are large portions of the population that never go online, and therefore our “cross-section” of life is skewed.   Just imagine the face of a small child in a 3rd world country firing this thing up for the first time, and playing a game someone on the other side of the world… I really hope they pull this off!

Source: Forbes

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