Negroponte Hints At Paper-Like Design For XO-3

waderoush writes "In May 2008, Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of the One Laptop Per Child Foundation, unveiled an e-book like design for the second-generation XO Laptop, consisting of a pair of facing touchscreens. In a new e-mail interview, Negroponte says that design has been thrown out, and that instead the foundation is working on version '1.75' of the existing green-and-white laptop with a more powerful processor, as well as a '3.0' version that would look 'more like a sheet of paper.' Negroponte also addressed a range of other questions about the OLPC project, including the significance of the project to make 1.6 million e-books readable on the XO laptop and the organization's push to reach more children in Latin America, Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan."

Re:Priorities

[znu]

Seriously? I thought the world had gotten past the notion that computers were frivolous toys or first-world luxuries.

The truth is, food aid doesn't really work, at least by itself. You feed the current population, don't solve any of the systemic problems that led to the hunger, and you end up with another generation of hungry people.

What the developing world needs is development and mass empowerment. And that means, among other things, education. If you know of a tool that packs more educational potential into a less expensive package than a $100 networked computer system that's resistant to the elements, requires little or no supporting infrastructure, and can be preloaded with large quantities of information relevant to the populations it's given to, please name it.

Re:Priorities

[cusco]

Paruro, Peru, is a beautiful town of about 5,000, high in the Andes. It's the sort of place that hasn't existed in in the US for a century, where there are more horses than cars, everyone cooks with firewood, and children and dogs run loose in the streets. They have an Internet cafe there, all of a dozen PCs sharing a satellite link. While stopping in occasionally to check my work email I saw kids enrolling in classes in the University in Arequipa (otherwise two day's travel each way to enroll), a grandma in Lima met her first grandbaby on webcam, farmers checking prices to see whether it was better to sell in Cusco or Abancay, merchants checking on the status of goods they had ordered, THE mechanic looking up a manual for a backhoe, a mother chatting with her daughter in the university in Paris, and a lady looking for patterns for wedding dresses. If you think the Internet's just good for porn you have no imagination at all.