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By David Rothman

image Will the XO-2 live up to our hopes and help popularize e-books in developing countries? And maybe in wealthy ones, too?

I say yes in the long run—by inspiring similar hardware, if nothing else. Not to mention e-books on other platforms, such as cellphones.

Not a certainty but lookin’ good

Based on OLPC’s track record, I won’t expect some instant miracles, and, in fact, there could be delays as before, both in getting the hardware out and in meeting price targets—$75 per laptop in this case. Still, long term, I’m upbeat even though ifs abound. Read the OLPC news release ahead, watch a video, and you’ll notice:

image 1. For display technology, one of the most most crucial aspects of the XO, both in terms of viewability and power consumption, Negroponte once again is turning to Mary Lou Jepsen even though she has her own company now rather than being CTO of OLPC. What’s more, the OLPC project will piggyback on tech for DVDplayers. Once again the display can either glow or make use of reflective light. Power consumption will be less for the unit as a whole, compared to the XO-1—including, I’d hope, the consumption in the glow mode.

2. OLPC will work with the private sector to drive down the cost of standardized components.

3. There is more emphasis on a book-friendly form factor—to which middle-aged education officials in developing countries can relate. The current XO-1 has a tablet mode, but not the dual-page concept. Experienced e-books will yawn about the double-page idea, but if it speeds up adoption, that’s A Good Thing.

Caveats

Despite the above positives and my long-term optimism, the success of the XO-2 as a general computer and e-book reader  is far from assured.

First, I’d feel better about a standard keyboard—do you really want to type on a virtual one hour after hour?

Second, I would like to see a mix of both open source and commercial e-book software, so they can compete against each other. I felt that OLPC’s XO-1 let the e-book community down with a third-rate e-reader app that was slow, hard-to-use and of course PDFcentric. The next XO ideally will appear right out of the gate with an ePub-capable program from the open source community, and if Mobi and/or eReader or a well-adapted Digital Editions can be on there, too, then so much the better. DE can handle both PDF and ePub, although I wish the interface were better in the current desktop version.

Related: Office to handle ODF and PDF: Microsoft ePub reader eventually? Maye even for OLPC laptop?—plus a somewhat related item in Pan Macmillan’s excellent blog The Digitalist.

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NEWS RELEASE

One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a non-profit organization focused on providing educational tools to help children in developing countries “learn learning,” announced today that work is already underway on a second- generation version of its revolutionary XO laptop computer. Leveraging new advances in technology, the primary goal of the “XO-2″ will be to advance new concepts of learning as well as to further drive down the cost of the laptop so that it is affordable for volume purchase by developing nations.

“Based on feedback from governments, educators and most important, from the children themselves, we are aggressively working to lower the cost, power and size of the XO laptop so that it is more affordable and useable by the world’s poorest children,” said Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of One Laptop per Child. “The delivery of the first generation XO laptop has sparked tremendous global interest in the project and provided valuable input on how to make the XO laptop an even better learning tool moving forward.”

“One Laptop per Child and the XO laptop are crucial to the fulfillment of the proposed UN Ninth Millennium Goal: to ensure that every child between the ages of 6 and 12 has immediate access to a personal laptop computer by 2015,” said Nirj Deva, Member of the European Parliament. “It’s only through access to education that young people will be able to develop the skills necessary to compete globally and to develop the solutions required to break the cycles of poverty, disease and malnutrition. Learning unites the child with the world, binds the village into a community, and joins that community to the global village.”

The first generation XO laptop went into production in early November 2007, and there are approximately 600,000 units in deployment in a number of countries including Peru, Uruguay, Mongolia, Haiti, Rwanda, Mexico, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the US and Canada (as a result of the Give One Get One charitable giving campaign that ran last November 12 – December 31, 2007). Key goals for the XO-2 include:

* Cost Reduction – Set in early 2005, the original target price of the XO laptop was $100. Although that target has not yet been met (it is now at $188), it is clear that OLPC must aim for an even lower target price of $75. New developments in display, processor and other hardware and software technologies will make it possible to achieve the $75 target in the future.

* Lower Power Consumption – While the first generation XO laptop already requires just one-tenth (2-4 watts versus 20-40 watts) of the electrical power necessary to run a standard laptop, the XO-2 will reduce power consumption even further to 1 watt. This is particularly important for children in remote and rural environments where electricity is scarce or non-existent. Lowering the power consumption will reduce the amount of time required for children to generate power themselves via a hand crank or other manual mechanisms.

* Smaller Footprint – The XO-2 laptop will be about half the size of the first generation device and will approximate the size of a book. The new design will make the XO laptop lighter and easier for children to carry with them to and from school or wherever they go. The XO-2 will continue to be in a green and white case and sport the XO logo in a multitude of colors that allow children to personalize the laptop as their own possession.

* Enhanced Book Experience – Dual-touch sensitive displays will be used to enhance the e-book experience, with a dual-mode display similar to the current XO laptop. The design provides a right and left page in vertical format, a hinged laptop in horizontal format, and a flat two-screen wide continuous surface that can be used in tablet mode. Younger children will be able to use simple keyboards to get going, and older children will be able to switch between keyboards customized for applications as well as for multiple languages. The dual-touch display is being designed by Pixel Qi, which was founded in early 2008 by Mary Lou Jepsen, former chief technology officer of One Laptop per Children and a leading expert on display technology.

“It’s crucial that the design of the XO laptop produce something that is both highly functional and a lot of fun for children to use,” said Yves Behar, founder of the fuseproject, a San-Francisco-based design and branding firm, and the industrial designer of the XO laptop. “Children have an amazing capacity to let us know how they use the laptop and what they want. The design of the next-generation XO is in response to their passion for learning, for sharing with each other, and for self-expression.”

Availability of the XO-2 is planned for delivery in 2010. XO-1.5 will be released in the spring of 2009 with the same design as the first generation but with fewer physical parts and at a lower cost than XO-1.

 
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