One Laptop Per Child Give One Get One: Price double $100

Now we all love anything to do with One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) because it is all about charity at the end of the day, even though the price is double the $100 target. Europeans will be happy to know that they can have a slice of Read more

OLPC XO Laptop available to buy from Amazon

It seems that Amazon what to get in on the action of Give One, Get One, as they will start to sell OLPC XO Laptop’s in November. The Give One, Get One program for the One Laptop Per Child was developed last year.

The idea behind the OLPC program is that when a person purchases an XO laptop, they will pay for two, one they keep and the other they donate to a child in a developing country.

As we mentioned above Amazon will start to sell these in November around Thanksgiving in the U.S. and should go on until some time in December.

Source – PC World

Microsoft and One Laptop per Child (OLPC) Partner: Windows Available on XO Laptops

The latest press release news in is about Microsoft and One Laptop per Child (OLPC) partnering to give very affordable computing to students worldwide. It is also said that Microsoft Windows is now available on XO laptops, these trials will begin in key emerging markets next month.

Microsoft and One Laptop per Child (OLPC) have yes just announced an agreement which will indeed make the Microsoft Windows operating system available on OLPC’s low-cost XO laptops for the world’s poorest children, their plan is to start all this as soon as June in key emerging markets. We all know that by providing high-quality education for our children in the developing world is very large indeed in solving any single organization, so with Microsoft and OLPC committed to working with nongovernmental organizations and governments will ensure the success of these pilot programs.

With the availability of Windows in addition to Linux on XO laptops this will now allow customers the expanded choice of operating environments that best fit their requirements and that their intention to create a version of the XO laptop which will provide the best ability to host both Linux and Windows operating systems, this will in return give the users the ability to run either on XO laptops.

Part of the press release says ““Transforming education is a fundamental goal of Microsoft Unlimited Potential, our ambitious effort to bring sustained social and economic opportunity to people who currently don’t enjoy the benefits of technology,” said Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer at Microsoft. “By supporting a wide variety of affordable computing solutions for education that includes OLPC’s XO laptop, we aim to make technology more relevant, accessible and affordable for students everywhere.”

Microsoft have now spent well over a year working on a variety of partners to develop customized drivers that enable Windows to run on the XO laptop and now Windows now supports the laptop’s e-book reading mode writing pad and custom keys, standard Wi-Fi networking, camera, as well as the power-saving and other features of the XO hardware. More technical details regarding Windows for the XO laptop and a video demonstration can be found at http://blogs.technet.com/jamesu

More problems with OLPC: Kids ripping One Laptop Per Child apart

Just last month reports were coming in about the OLPC and how the keyboard was falling apart, however it seems as if the One Laptop Per Child has some more issues. The rubber keyboard in theory should be able to withstand whatever a child can throw at it however; it seems as if the children have been able to rip the rubber-membrane keyboard apart.

Executives of OLPC claim that these UMP’s should be able to last at least five years; the One Laptop Per Child is subjected to factory testing until they manage to destroy them. The OLPC also gets field tested by children and it is in these reports that tears have started to show in the keyboard cover.

According to reports there have been a number of complaints that the rubber above the letters U and J are splitting, and as a result children as young as 3 and 4 are then able to totally destroy the keyboard. That is not all though, it seems as if the OLPC is suffering from “stuck key” problem. What this means is that one or more keys get stuck in the active position.

OLPC issued a response stating that they do not know what the problem is as there is more than one manufacturer of the keyboard.

Source - Slashdot

OLPC XO CPU overclocked: has this UMPC lost its innocence?

Well it was only a matter of time before someone started to play around with the clock speeds of the OLPC XO, Yep that’s right someone has taken this once innocent UMPC and overclocked the CPU.

One reader who has tried this simple tweak has noticed an increase in performance by 21.8 percent. The one 433MHz is now boasted to 588MHz, the RAM which was 166MHz is now 233MHz. The result is a much smoother UMPC, however as with all computers that you overclock, please be careful as your little OLPC XO could decide to give up on you.

Source – OLPC News