One laptop

One Laptop per Child- is now with AMAZON !!!!!!

This year the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program will begin selling its XO laptop via Amazon in a reprise of its Give One Get One (G1G1) program, according to Ars Technical and several other outlets.

The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) organization has signed a deal with Amazon to sell its low cost laptops. The online retailer will help with its next Give 1 Get 1 (G1G1) programe that is due to begin in late November.

The new Inspiron Mini of Dell’s can be had for $349 and, while it lacks some cool features of the XO in terms of performance. Sure in a developing country $399 to a laptop Amazon gives a child but a donation of the $50 I save to Doctors without Borders or Action against Hunger would get children a heck of plenty of food and medicine.

However, under this scheme people can buy one of the XO laptops for themselves and donate the other to a school child in a developing nation.

It is hoped the deal with Amazon will iron out the problems OLPC encountered when it ran the G1G1 programe itself.

Novel model

The OLPC was set up to create and build a powerful laptop for school children in developing nations that sold in the millions and cost less than $100 (£56) and that Dreamed up by MIT Professor Nicholas Negroponte.

The resulting XO laptop sports idiosyncratic green and white livery has wi-fi built in, can be powered by a pull cord, and comes loaded with educational software.

Many nations have expressed an interest in using the XO but relatively few started big projects that gave the machine to students and school children.

While many people expressed interest in participating the OLPC group hit problems in getting XO machines to customers. Production delays and delivery glitches led to many people canceling orders while OLPC sorted out the problems.

The new round of the G1G1 programe is due to start in late November and run until the end of 2008. It will only be open to US residents.

At the same time the OLPC group said it planned to launch the second generation of its laptop in 2010.

The XO-2 does away with a keyboard in favor of two touch screens one of which can be converted to a touch type screen.

OLPC hopes that the new version will also get closer to its long-stated ideal of producing a computer that costs less than $100.

The current versions of the XO laptop cost about $200 but the new generation is expected to be available for about $80.