OLPC unveils 2.0 version of its laptop

Paul Mah — Wed, 21 May 2008 04:23:30 -0400

OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte unveiled the foundation's second-generation laptop at the MIT Media Lab--a day-long media event on Tuesday. The surprise here is that it uses dual-touch screens much like a fold-up electronic book with only a touch-sensitive software keyboard that can be brought up on one of the panels as necessary. In fact, it will be marketed to developing nations as an e-book reader that also works as a simple notebook PC.

At the presentation of the new device, Negroponte said the second-generation laptop was designed based on what the OLPC has learned over the past few years. "The book experience is key," he said. This new XO laptop is expected to be out by 2010, where it likely will be kept to just $75 by using screens built for portable DVD players. No information is available at the moment about whether it would be able to run Windows XP, which was announced for the XO-1 last week.

For more about the second generation XO laptop:
- check out the Xconomy article

Developing Nations

OLPC unveils 2.0 version of its laptop