The XO – One Hundred Dollar Laptop

Tonight I found out that my university had a “computer club” so I decided to check it out. We had a speaker that is a student at the university that I go to, but also works with OLPC who is in the process of making a very cheap laptop for children in other countries. Now, this is not some cheap toy that you might think it is. It actually is a very well designed computer. The laptop only uses on average 2 watts. That is crazy. Most normal laptops use around 14 watts when they are idling. The laptop also was said to get around 6 hours battery life with normal usage, which is very good.

The software that is designed for this laptop is made so that there isn’t a border between languages. The interface is very graphical and to the point. The speaker had one of the laptops with him, and we got to see what exactly they were like. They are very small of course, and they have rubber bumper things around them so that if they are dropped they won’t break. There are no moving parts in it so nothing will break inside of it is dropped. The screen swivels around so that you can use it as a tablet. The keyboard is coated with rubber so nothing will get between the keys (I wish my computer had that). There are also USB ports and an SD slot. The computer only has 1 GB of space, but that is plenty for the kids that will be using this. The operating system that it uses is a stripped down version of Fedora.

One really cool feature that this laptop has is its built in camera and microphone. This allows kids to talk to each other across a distance and still be able to see each other. Now keep in mind that these laptops are being made for kids in countries that don’t have much access to computers. One of the issues that the speaker brought up is that many people wonder why they are trying to make laptops for kids when they probably need medicine, food, water, electricity, etc. more than a laptop. Well, the answer he gave was something along the lines of, being computer people we wouldn’t do too well with giving medicine, so we are doing something that we are good at. The fact that kids will be getting access to their own computers will educate them more so that hopefully they will communicate with each other better. Of course, electricity is an issue, and he mentioned that they are brainstorming ideas so that they will have a power source to power the laptops when the battery runs out.

These laptops also have access to an internet browser so that they can access all of the information available on the internet. I think that is amazing, because there is so much out there on the internet to learn from. Now you may be wondering how some of the places will be able to access the internet when they don’t even have electricity. Well, these laptops have a wireless range of 2 kilometers. That is a huge range. I’m not really knowledgeable about how networks work, but the speaker mentioned something about all of the laptops will connect to the internet through each other. So if there is one laptop connected to the internet withing range of you, you will be able to connect to the internet also.

I’m sure I’m leaving something out, but if you want to find out more you can visit http://wiki.laptop.org or http://www.laptop.org. I really like the wiki site.