Designer of laptop for poor kids starts company
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The scientist who designed a notebook  computer for poor children that is being produced and sold by a  nonprofit foundation has set up a company to commercialize the  technology with a goal of producing a $75 laptop computer.
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A onetime critic of the One Laptop Per Child initiative has jumped on board.
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A nonprofit group that designs low-cost  computers for poor children may start selling $350 laptops on  the commercial market by Christmas, an executive said on  Monday.
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By George Hsu  Nicholas Negroponte's plan to give laptop computers to 100 million poor children is enriching parts makers more than the principal manufacturer.
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With its lowest-priced home PC to date, company shows desire to move beyond pricier game machines.
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The new desktops, priced between $600 and $715, target families, students and small businesses.
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The PC maker's founder shows commitment to the company he built.
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Designed for schoolchildren in developing countries, these inexpensive, stripped-down portables are drawing lots of interest from the gadget set.
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Despite previous bad blood between Intel and the One Laptop Per Child program, which opted to include AMD processors in the low-cost computer for developing nations, the leading chip manufacturer will join the non-profit's board of directors and help fund the initiative.
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One-Laptop-Per-Child's XO has inspired a new class of low-cost laptop and highlighted the need for computing resources in developing nations.
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(InfoWorld) - Intel Corp. wants to see its low-cost Classmate PC help transform they way students in developing countries are educated. And the company is not alone. The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project also hopes its low-cost XO laptop can close the "digital divide" that exists between the developed world and emerging markets. Much has been made of these two efforts, which are often painted as rivals by the media and observers. Sean Maloney, executive vice president and general manager of the Intel's sales and marketing group, recently spoke with IDG News Service about the Classmate PC and the challenges Intel hopes to address with the device. What follows is an edited transcript of that interview. IDG News Service: Is there room for both the Classmate PC and OLPC as efforts to close the digital divide in emerging markets? Sean Maloney: I've spent a good deal of my life traveling around emerging markets and the first thing I want to say is that it's a truly humongous problem. It's an enormous, enormous problem you're talking about. No one company is going to solve this, whether it's us or the OLPC guys, or Asustek, or HP. And no one single approach is going to tackle the issue either. It's very diverse what people want. Even if you pick one country, say India, you're not going to get the state governments having the same opinions on how this should be handled. It's a perfect problem that a Taiwanese economy of scale could tackle. What Taiwan has always done in the past -- with stunning success -- is drive down costs for standardization and mass manufacturing. IDGNS: And standardization helps keep costs low... Maloney: Yeah, if they're standardized it makes field repair easier and logistics easier and distribution chains easier and all that stuff. It's not just about the device. It's also about the education software that goes on it, the role of the teacher in the class, and then someone has to maintain the thing locally. Many of these countries actually want to assemble it and someone has to do the integration, and all of that. It's a broader issue than just the device, regardless of whether it's an Asustek device, or a Classmate PC, or an OLPC. IDGNS: Apart from education, will these low-cost computers help to increase PC penetration in developing countries? Maloney: To be determined. I've spent a lot of time in the last year in emerging markets and the striking thing is how many mid-range and high-end notebooks are being sold. If you go to Egypt or Turkey or Ukraine or Poland or Czech Republic or Brazil or Argentina, you're seeing shopping malls everywhere converting over to selling notebooks. You could see it in China a year ago, where you go into shopping malls that used to sell desktops and now they're full of notebooks. You see the same thing all across India. It is amazing how many mainstream, made in Taiwan or made in China, notebooks are sold in emerging markets. People have the same aspirations and brand aspirations. You can't patronize people and say we get the big one with the 14-inch color screen and you get the little one, that's not going to work. My view is that these things, like Classmate PC, are much better targeted at kids, with a much smaller screen, smaller keyboard. IDGNS: Is the aim to give the students in developing countries basic PC skills, or is computer access the key to something larger? Maloney: It's about the Web more than anything. I have young kids and it's almost obscene: my kids have access to it and there are 2 billion kids that don't. The disadvantage for someone who doesn't have access to the Web is overwhelming. Â
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If the One Laptop Project keeps its promises, the small green US$100 laptop could very well revolutionize teaching in developing nations. Computerworld Denmark asked Jan Soelberg, an expert from the school of education at the University of Aarhus, to try the computer.
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The world's largest contract laptop maker announces a million orders with the One Laptop Per Child project. In Gadget Lab.
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First machines being made The One Laptop per Child project has started production, with the first children in the developing world expected to receive their computers in October this year.â¦
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The One Laptop Per Child Project will start selling its low-cost computers in the United States, one of the founders of the organization says.
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The One Laptop Per Child project suffered a blow this week, with Chief Technology Officer Mary Lou Jepsen quitting the nonprofit to start a for-profit company to commercialize technology she invented with OLPC.Jepsen, who joined OLPC as its first employee in 2005 after Nicholas Negroponte started the effort, will pursue an opportunity to chase after &quot;her next miracle in display technology,&quot; OLPC said in an e-mail sent on Sunday.Jepsen was responsible for hardware and display development for the rugged and power-saving&#160;XO laptop, designed for use by children in developing countries. Though the laptop has struggled to find buyers, it has been praised for its innovative hardware features and environmentally friendly design.Her last day with the organization is Dec. 31, though she will continue consulting with OLPC, according to the e-mail. Dec. 31 is also the end of OLPC&#39;s Give One Get One program, in which two XO laptops can be purchased for about $400, with a user getting one laptop and the other being donated.Satisfied that XO laptops were shipping in volume, Jepsen noted in an e-mail that she was starting a for-profit company to commercialize some of the technologies she invented at OLPC.&quot;I will continue to give OLPC product at cost, while providing commercial entities products they would like at a profit,&quot; Jepsen wrote in an e-mail.&quot;I believe that the work I led in the design of the XO laptop is just the first step in changing computing,&quot; she wrote.Powered by solar power, foot pedal or pull-string, the laptop doesn&#39;t rely on an electrical outlet to run, making it useful for situations where power is unreliable or unavailable. The laptop&#39;s specially designed lithium-ferro phosphate battery consumes between 2 watts to 8 watts depending on usage, compared to 40 watts on commercial laptops depending on usage.The laptop&#39;s battery lasts up to 21 hours because of custom-designed, efficient power-saving features implemented at the hardware and software level. Batteries in commercial laptops may explode at high temperatures, while XO&#39;s batteries can run and recharge in temperatures around 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), Jepsen said in earlier interview.OLPC is also designing a cow-powered generator that works by hooking cattle up to a system of belts and pulleys.For connectivity, the laptop has mesh-networking features for Internet access.
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Digital guru Nicholas Negroponte says he is developing a laptop that will sell for less than $100 (Â£53).