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150,000-170,000 XOs donated through Give One Get One program—and my own laptop just arrived!
January 2, 2008 | 4:25 pm
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By David Rothman
Between 150,000 and 170,000 of those spiffy OLPC XO laptops will be reaching kids in developing countries as a result of the just-ended Get One Give One program, according to Nicholas Negroponte’s chat with Laptop Magazine. And another G1/G1 may happen in 2008,
The FedEx guy just dropped off mine within the past hour. That copyright piece, almost done, will just have to wait until tomorrow, while I see how FBReader fares on my new laptop. Picture is of someone else’s XO.
The TeleRead take: Didn’t an analyst say Amazon might move just 50,000 Kindles the first year? And isn’t it interesting that 150,000+ XOs were donated within a period of weeks. The combination of tech, good works and some literacy-related apps can be pretty powerful. Yes, this is orange and apples since the XO is much much more than an e-reader. But I wonder what the numbers say.
In fairness to Amazon, it might make a fool of the analyst and sell hundreds of thousands of Kindles the first year once the production lines really crank up. Still, the size of the potential XO market is another sign that it would be a mistake for publishers just to think about dedicated machines, and fixate on one company in particular.
At least that’s how I personally see it; others are welcome to disagree. Here’s to a wealth of content for the Kindle and many other kinds of e-book-friendly machines—from XOs to cellphones! I’d love for the XO to be a hit as a consumer machine, not just one for education. The more boxes out there, the more people with the technology to read e-books.
Technorati Tags: Nicholas Negroponte,OLPC
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Comments:
>>>The FedEx guy just dropped off within the past hour. That copyright piece, almost done, will just have to wait until tomorrow, while I see how FBReader fares.
What?! Selfish, selfish, selfish! (You know I kid.)
You know I am no fan of FBR. So I’m more interested in how you find that crazy screen. Make sure you go out in *bright* sunlight and report to us.
Mike: Oh, my dedication to the TeleBlog (plus some interrupting phone calls)! I still haven’t opened the box. It’s a cloudy day, so I’ll just have to see what gives under less than ideal conditions.
So what’s this about your NOT being maniacally ecstatic about FBReader? Dish it out, bro. Share your hate, and I’ll respond—if I can tear myself away from the XO.
Thanks,
David
You forget then. I have no love for its confusing interface. I think it is clunky. I also hated the file selector. That is not a mass-market piece of software. This was when I used it on the 770. Perhaps it is better on other hardware, but I doubt that.
I must agree with Mike. I always found FB reader to be confusing and hard to use. The way it handled files was also extremely unfriendly. That’s one reason I stopped using the Nokia, as I couldn’t find a program I was comfortable with.
Sorry, I know you are an editor ” … with which I was comfortable.”
Mike and Paul…
M.: The interface could be better, but I loved the customization. An XO version could start out in a simple default mode.
P.: Hey, I can live with “comfortable with.” Meanwhile thanks for your preparation efforts for CES!
Thanks,
David
(who commits his own share of atrocities)
There’s a typo in this post:
“Get One Get One program”
Your XO is not enough ? You really want a second one ?