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By David Rothman

Nope, we aren’t covering the OLPC’s XO-1 laptops the way we used to—and with reason.

I just don’t hear much talk about e-book software. The XO-1 is still more of a hacker’s companion than a book reader’s friend. Result? I’m not nearly as excited about it as in the past.

Efforts have been underway to make FBReader a true denizen of the Sugar environment, but this is too little too late. What a shame. Imagine the boost that the laptops with a properly adapted FBReader app could give to literacy and publishing in developing countries.

Meanwhile, as reported by OLPC News and seen in the accompanying video, the OLPC folks have clearly made speed improvements in the XO-1.5 model. Oh, and there’s full-screen video playback. Yes. Talk about priorities. Screw e-reader apps. Let’s do good video.

image The good news is that the next generation of the of OLPC laptop hardware may be better suited for e-reading.  Maybe the software will be better.

Let’s just hope that OLPC’s XO-2—photo shows a prototype—will come with a nice USB port for a physical keyboard. How I hate the virtual kind for prolonged use. But the XO-2 may still be a winner for reading itself, complete with dual screens—just like the rumored Microsoft (non)tablet.

If I were a Bertelsmann exec, I’d take an interest in this baby as a long-term market-developer, just so I didn’t compromise OLPC’s mission, which is to educate kids, not exploit them for short-term corporate purposes. In fact, the rival Murdoch interests, at least in the past, have supported the OLPC project.

$75 price in time

The XO-2’s price is supposedly to be a mere $75 in time. Why isn’t the Democratic Leadership Council writing about these possibilities—and for the States, not just overseas—rather than coming out with a “Kindle in Every Backpack” proposal? Talk about America’s corporately driven political system!

Bottom line: I haven’t given up on the OLPC machines. I’m just underwhelmed by the current ones, and the lack of more interest in decent e-reading software that, like FBReader, could read ePub. Here’s looking ahead to the XO-2 and hoping that OLPC’s current funding challenges won’t kill it!

Related: BBC blog post and  one user’s argument that the current XO-1 is unusable for a teenager. Of course, the XO-1 really was designed for smaller children.

 
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