Version 1.75 of the One Laptop Per Child laptop has passed testing at the FCC. There are no photos or advanced technical details on the FCC site (indeed, there’s a letter asking the FCC to keep all that information confidential for 180 days (PDF) to protect manufacturer Quanta’s trade secrets), but prior coverage from Engadget shows the netbook is very similar in appearance to prior OLPC models. (The planned OLPC tablet is apparently still some distance away.) The main difference from previous OLPCs seems to be that since OLPC has started using a low power Marvell Armada CPU, it...

Kobo seems to have a new e-reader or tablet in the offing, Engadget reports, based on testing documents released by the FCC. Not a whole lot of details are present, but Engadget does note that the “Kobo Vox” seems to have a touchscreen and WiFi, but no visible hardware buttons. It features microUSB and microSD card interfaces, which are to be expected—but it also features an earphone jack, which hasn’t been on any Kobo model thus far. With a name like “Vox”, my first inclination is to suspect that this device is going to include the “read aloud” functionality...

Like a creeping zombie that refuses to lie down and die, it appears that Fusion Garage is primed to claw its way out of the grave with another try at a tablet device. Liliputing reports that Fusion Garage has sent a device to the FCC for testing. Details are sparse, but it’s apparently tablet-shaped. This wasn’t entirely unexpected, given that the company said last year it had a new model planned for this year. All the same, it’s still a little surprising they’re actually going through with it. Fusion Garage’s first device, the JooJoo, might as well have...

From our sister publication,Gadgetell: It looks like the FCC has outed an updated version of the Barnes & Noble nook. But all in all it does not appear to be a major change, not yet anyway. So far the listing confirms that the device is a nook and is 3G capable. Its also labeled as BNRZ100-01, which is a change from the original. Or probably more accurately said, an addition from the original which was BNRZ100. Bottom line, it looks like this version of the nook will have a Sierra Wireless MC8201V 3G wireless card, which is touting support for the...

Here’s something interesting about the FCC National Broadband Plan, which I’ve mentioned here a couple of times in recent days: it has quite a few provisions that are only orthogonally related to broadband, and a number of them have to do with copyright. For example, the Plan suggests adoption of a new voluntary permissive copyright license, administered by the government, to permit educational digital use—even including a mock-up of a new copyright symbol to be used with the program (see left). While a number of educational uses are already permitted under fair use, fair use is...

Plastic Logic has announced it is delaying the Que for several more months. As CNet points out, with the advent of the iPad this may be a product whose time has already come and gone. It is hard to see paying $649 for a black-and-white-only reader, no matter how big it is, given that the iPad starts at $499. Speaking of the iPad, from order numbers it was estimated that it sold 50,000 units in just the first two hours of its presale period yesterday. Not a big surprise that people are anxious to get their hands on it. Meanwhile, Gizmodo...

Reuters and ZDNet  report that, at a Digital Inclusion Summit aimed at addressing the 1/3 of American households that lack broadband service, the FCC has announced it may make wireless spectrum available for an “affordable” national broadband network. Details were sparse, so I can only speculate about such things as how the system would work, what areas would be covered, and how much it would cost. But having lived in rural Missouri for some time, including several months relatively recently recovering from a broken leg, I can say it would certainly mean a great deal to have this...