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OLPC's next greatest thing |
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Written by Chris Tangora
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Wednesday, 21 May 2008 |
 One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), laptop.org, announced their next version of the sub $100 notebook, the XO-2. The original XO laptop actually came in well over $100 (at $188) and was getting bogged down with patent disputes and OS questions (Windows pushed their way in). The specs haven't been released yet, but the design is out and it is attracting all sorts of attention.
The new laptop's main feature is that it has two screens and no keyboard. The bottom screen can act as a keyboard while the top will be the display. Both displays can also act as if you were reading a book. This seems like the biggest benefit of all to the new layout. Lots of people have criticized the design saying it is not going to be achievable, or that it will cost well more than the current XO. OLPC says that in two years all the parts will cost no more than $75 per computer.
When I first saw the new design I had a memory of some older Apple patents. The patents were for the multi-touch keyboard display. I did some digging and couldn't find the exact patent, but did find a nice list of similar patents that Apple holds over at Functioning Form, lukew.com/ff. That got me wondering. Since OLPC said no to Apple's offer for OS X to be the OS for the XO, did Steve do some patent trading to get it on the next version of the XO? If the XO-2 is using an Apple patent, what are the chances that Windows will be available by default and not by hack?
Thanks to Marco for the shout out from DIGG
More on the XO-2 from the BBC.
List of apple touch interface patents at lukew.com.
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