19 December 2007 - 21:22OLPC XO Laptop Explained

By the time I finished posting the previous image I realized that none of my friends have any idea what it is that I’m talking about.

Alright, quick refresher: Nicholas Negroponte has a project called “One Laptop Per Child“, possibly the most important thing to happen in education in the last 10 years. He has created a very small, simple laptop for the cost of $200 (soon to cheapen) that is being sold en masse to the developing nations of the world for the education of their children. The kicker is that as a condition to buy the laptops for the children the governments have to agree that the laptop belongs to the child, and can be done with as the child likes. This is an amazing educational tool- but listen to the TED talk, Nicholas says it better.

This laptop is called the XO-Laptop. It used to be called the $100 Laptop, but when the price crept up they realized marketing would need to shift…

The goal is educational, but as a marketing tool they have created a temporary offer called Give One Get One, where they allow you to buy one XO-Laptop for yourself and simultaneously donate one to the developing world. I signed up, and my copy showed up this morning.

The image in the previous post was taken off of the laptop. It has a mike, speakers and a small camera. I could have taken a video if I wanted to punish y’all.

I am currently typing this blog entry off of my XO-Laptop, logged on wirelessly to the internet.

Sweet.