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...

We’ve already talked about Marvell and OLPC getting cozy, what with OLPC basing its XO-3 model on a Marvell reference design. Now Robert Buderi reports on Xconomy that Marvell has ponied up a $5.6 million grant to OLPC to help it develop the XO-3 through 2011. “Their money is a grant to the OLPC Foundation to develop a tablet or tablets based on their chip,” [OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte] says. “They’re going to put the whole system on a chip.” They were already one of ten overall corporate sponsors, Negroponte said, but now...

 When I first reported on Marvell Semiconductor’s $99 10” “Moby” ARM tablet, I mentioned that ARMdevices.net saw a parallel between that and the OLPC group’s goal of creating a $75 tablet device for their next XO device. It turns out that the OLPC group has seen that parallel as well. Ars Technica reports that OLPC and Marvell are partnering up to base the XO-3 design on the Moby. "Today's learning environments require robust platforms for computation, content creation and experimentation—and all that at a very low cost," [OLPC founder Nicholas] Negroponte said in...

Marvell has announced the prototype of a $99 tablet. The tablet has “always-on, high performance multimedia” and features live, real-time content, 1080 full HD and 3-D media, and full Flash internet. It is powered by the Marvell ARMADA 600 series of processors with gigahertz-class processor speed, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/FM/GPS connectivity, high performance 3-D graphics capability. Full specs haven't been released yet, however Marvell announced a pilot program in partnership with the Washington, D.C., Public Schools, in which the company will donate a Moby tablet to every child in an at-risk school as part of a multi-year program in new media and learning. More...

Earlier today, Paul mentioned that the HP slate might be a better device than an iPad. Here are another couple of devices that might make promising alternatives. First, TechCrunch reports on German manufacturer Neofonie’s 11.6” 1366x768 (720P capable) WePad. (English datasheet PDF here.) Due next month, it has a larger multitouch screen, faster processor, USB, card reader, Flash, and even a webcam. It will run “a Linux derivate (sic) with Android on top,” meaning that it can install not only Android apps but also Adobe Air software from Neofonie. The WePad is being pitched not only as...