Breaking News: OLPC is a second generation XO computers

In the center of public attention XO laptops first arrived November 16, 2005, when during the Economic Forum in Davos, Nicholas Negroponte and Kofi Annan showed a working prototype of the ... Since then, worked on the final version of the system design, manufacturer of search was conducted, which ultimately proved to be a Taiwanese company Quanta Computers. The project OLPC - « every child of the computer ... , AMD, Red Hat, etc. , Took an active part in the development of laptops. However, the project from the beginning has been criticized, both from the governments of some countries and the heads of the leading IT-companies. In their view, the OLPC project does not include the specifics of life in underdeveloped countries, and providing every child on their own PC is not a task of paramount importance, including with respect to reforming the education system. However, work on a cheap computer XO has been completed, and already being implemented delivery devices market countries wishing to cooperate with the OLPC- association. In the list of countries concerned appear: Uruguay, Peru, Mexico, Ethiopia, Iraq, Nigeria, Brazil, Suriname, Nepal, Pakistan and others. Total to date is known to supply about 600 thousand. devices, and expressed interest in increasing sales of personal computers in the near future.

At the same time the project has competitors, chief among which is to recognize a cheap PC Classmate PC, developed by Intel as part of its World Ahead Program. The project objective is to provide a full-fledged computers, educational institutions, with the emphasis in this case is not on the cost of terminal devices, and the functional component. It is worth noting that the company is Intel, for some time had declared their support for the OLPC, but later changed her mind on the contrary, according to the XO laptop is not enough functional units are not able to provide a full range of necessary functions for the full study. However, in the XO says its lower cost, because the PC Classmate PC worth over $ 200.

Thus, the OLPC project, and created as part of a personal computer are popular with buyers. This allows engineers to work on new, more sophisticated and at the same time, cheaper versions of the XO laptop. And just recently the association has presented a prototype OLPC XO computer 2. 0. Nicholas Negroponte said that the updated version of the XO should see the light in 2010, and major improvements are: improved liquid crystal display, equipped with touch control and issuing readable even in bright sunlight the picture, a more compact laptop case. But most importantly, that the cost of the computer will be reduced to $ 75, for the most expensive component of the system, LCD display, drop the price to $ 20. This happens, according to forecasts, thanks to the modernization of manufacturing technology of LCD panels, resulting in lower cost of production is expected to LCD products.

Another innovation, in addition to the new display will be a reduction in power consumption of the system, because not all regions have access to electricity, which means extra savings will not prevent. Thus, the new version will consume only 1 watt. It should be noted and greatly improved design concept, compared with a modern machine, but what is most interesting, the use of two touch screens allows for a number of interesting features, such as the use of XO 2. 0 as e- books. In the usual case, one of the display acts as a touch keyboard. In this case it is possible to ' tweak ' the layout of such a decision for a particular child, depending on the age and anthropometric data.

In general, the solution looks very attractive, both in terms of functionality and in terms of design, but are still concerns about the value of the final device - the representatives of the association said the price of $ 75, but in fact it may be higher than claimed, or the developers will have to drop some . However, before the official release version of the XO 2. 0 we are waiting for the emergence of ' transitional ' version - XO 1. 5, which looks a lot will resemble a ' deuce ', but it will be easier in terms of technical equipment.