XO2

Tech.Blorge reports that the One Laptop Per Child program (some call it a debacle) is coming back with Version 2.0, and this one will be $75:

Remember the $100 OLPC laptop that wasn’t? Well, now the second version
is allegedly going to cost $75. XO2 looks less like the XO than the Asus eeePC. It looks like an ebook reader and is projected to be available in 2010.

The new design is not an attempt to cash in on the ebook revolution that has been sparked by the Amazon Kindle, but rather to create something much more complex and simple at the same time.

Negroponte stated that this new form factor would create a multi-user, multi-purpose device. The new XO will be a dual touch screen device that can be used as a laptop (one side becomes a keyboard), an ebook reader, and an electronic board.

This new type of device can be used in the classroom by several children at the same time, hence the electronic board feature. The XO2 provides more options in the classroom since it is multifunctional without requiring multiple parts. Teachers can load hundreds of books on the new XO2, have children surf the web and type papers, as well, as use the device as a group activity.

Since it is essentially a foldable ebook reader with two touch screens, it is much lighter than the original XO and is expected to be more energy efficient as well.

It is currently unclear if the new ebook/laptop will be operating with a Windows or Linux OS. Either way, the system should sell better than the first XO. If the cost remains $75, OLPC may have created a winner on several fronts. Since most ebook readers cost between $150 and $500, the two for one program that OLPC ran with the original XO could easily sell out.

Selling 1 million of these new XO2s would happen in very little time. This
great and noble idea has spawned a laptop/ebook reader that will be cheaper and
more versatile than any other laptop or ebook reader currently found.

My husband bought one of the XO laptops for our daughters (nearly 5 and 7 1/2) through the "buy one, give one" program. It's so much slower than our home desktops and laptops, though, that the girls don't have a lot of patience with using it for the Internet. It's hard to imagine that the XO is a viable laptop option for school children with any familiarity at all with screaming fast desktops and laptops. However, it's probably a decent starter laptop for a child with no previous computer familiarity. The one thing my girls do love about it is the built-in video camera function. They did figure out very quickly on their own that the computer had a video camera and that they could operate it.

The XO2 looks a lot more like something that would capture the imagination of students with some computer familiarity, especially if its faster than the XO and functions as an ebook as planned. I have a Kindle, and my kids are dying to get their hands on it.

With the goal of the XO/XO2 being to get a laptop in the hands of every child on the planet, one has to wonder whether teachers in the developing world will eventually come to see the computers as an unwelcome distraction and try to ban them? Will law professors still be trying to ban them in 15 years?