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By Chris Meadows

Found via the MobileRead forum: Wired’s Michael Calore has discovered that the OLPC’s “hidden killer app” is that it makes the “ultimate e-book reader.” Apparently this killer app was hidden so well that Calore was unable to find it for over a year after TeleRead brought it up.

The article touts the OLPC as a full-fledged computer in a rugged tablet form factor, with a screen designed to be visible even in direct sunlight. This does make a pretty appealing package, except for the fact that the OLPC can not support any e-book publisher’s DRM format at present. (Though this could change soon, if Fictionwise’s forthcoming Linux eReader application can be run under the OLPC’s “Sugar” operating system.)

The article does get one fairly important fact dead wrong—it claims (as of this writing) that buying the OLPC under its “give one, get one” program costs only $200, making it about half the price of the Kindle and Sony Reader.

However, it actually costs $200 for each of the laptops the buyer gives to the third world and gets for himself, bringing the cost to $400 for the consumer to get a single OLPC. That’s more than the Kindle or Sony cost, and more than a number of competing netbooks that have sprung up in the OLPC’s wake—such as the $249 Dell we just mentioned. (Which is why the OLPC “give one get one” program did so poorly this past year that the OLPC program had to lay off half its staff.)

The OLPC would make a great e-book reader, and I would not mind owning one at all for that purpose. But Wired seems to be a little late to the party with this observation.

 
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