The "One Laptop Per Child" or OLPC idea began in 2004.
OLPC home page: http://laptop.org/en/
The ugly, slow computer, which looked like a pop-top VW Vanagon camper, was supposed to sell for $100. Many of the larger companies rejected the feasibility of the idea. But three and a half years later the vision produced the XO, a real laptop co-developed and manufactured by the world's largest notebook maker, Quanta. Whether or not this program is successful depends on your opinion of success. The computer currently sells for a $199 donation. There are approximately three quarters of a million laptops in the hands of deserving children. The president of the company hopes to double that sometime this year. It is said that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, if that is the case; the company has been successful in stimulating a world wide interest in "low cost" laptops.
Source:
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2008/08/secret_origin_of_the_olpc_genius_hubris_and_the_birth_of_the_netbook-2.html
Source:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/05/one.laptop.per.child/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
For a few years, from PC Magazine to Fox News, the OLPC and its competitors have been making news headlines. More than 25 low-cost notebooks based on Intel's upcoming Atom processor are in the works, including models from multinational PC vendors, according to the chip maker's top executive in Asia. There are lists of low cost laptops, there are reviews of low cost laptop companies, and there are companies vying for the global market. I think the vision has strayed from the non-profit ideas of Nicholas Negroponte, OLPC's founder. The OLPC project was designed to bring educational computing to children in the developing world. Although OLPC operated a Give One Get One scheme for two weeks at the end of 2007, the XO is not currently available for the general public to buy.
Source:
http://www.cio.com/article/194200/Atom_Based_Notebooks_to_Cost_Between_US_and_
Interesting Technical Details:
The picture above is how they depict the network the computer is on.
The XO is based on the AMD Geode LX700 processor, an embedded x86 device running at 433MHz, with 1GB of flash memory and 256MB of RAM. This supports a heavily customized version of Red Hat Fedora Core 6 Linux and a custom icon-based front end called Sugar, written in Python. A suite of educational applications including graphics, music making, word processing, simple programming concepts, chat and audio/video sharing is included; all of this is open source and defiantly kid-friendly.
The screen is the stand-out technology in the XO. An ingenious mix of reflective and transmissive LCD design, it is both high resolution and high density -- 1200 by 900 pixels at 200 dots per inch (dpi) in greyscale (reflective) mode, 800 by 600 pixels at 134dpi in colour (transmissive) mode. The latter activates when you turn the backlight on and mix primary colours behind the main LCD matrix.
Source:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/reviews/hardware/laptops/soa/OLPC-XO/0,2000065761,339286725,00.htm?omnRef=1337
To add insult to injury the co-designer of the original OLPC, who left the company, now has plans for its chief competitor. Her goal is for the Pixel Qi to be as technologically and aesthetically compelling as an iPod Touch. The $75 laptops now under development by what Jepsen calls a "spinout" of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project won't be "Dells on a diet," and they will definitely run Linux. But the Pixel Qi is looking at Microsoft Windows and other operating systems, too.
Source:
http://www.betanews.com/article/Former-OLPC-CTO-75-laptop-will-run-Linux-and-maybe-Windows/1200087717
Last year ASUS marketed the Eee PC as a cost-effective but well built sub-notebook (or now known as a "netbook"). The original Eee PC 700 series had shipped with Intel Celeron hardware, a solid-state drive, and a Xandros-based Linux distribution. The newer models now use Intel Diamondville-based Atom CPUs. The cost of these is around $500, much more than the OLPC computers.
Source:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=asus_eee_901&num=2
Pictures from:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,309204,00.html
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