New details surfaced Wednesday about Microsoft’s plans to get Windows XP running on the OLPC.

Microsoft has been openly eyeing the OLPC project’s XO Children’s Machine for a year now, eager to see some version of Windows running on the tiny laptops. The design of the laptop, however, presents significant roadblocks for Microsoft –  the memory and processor capabilities of the machines were chosen with the much lighter Linux-based Sugar OS in mind. Windows is just too resource-heavy.

As OLPC representatives told Wired News back in April, the project leads have no intention of shipping the children’s laptops with Windows on board, but if Microsoft wants to develop a version of Windows for the machine, they’re welcome to do so. The team also acknowledged that an SD card expansion slot was engineered into the XO’s final design to beef up the laptop’s capabilities.

So are they or aren’t they?

Microsoftie James Utzschneider, a member of MS’s new "Unlimited Potential" program, has posted a lengthy overview of where the Windows-on-OLPC project stands now.

Here’s the rundown:

Continue Reading “Microsoft: Stripped-Down Version of Windows XP for OLPC Due in 2008″ »

The One Laptop Per Child project’s “Give One Get One” offer has been extended through the end of the year, which means there’s still time to pick up an XO laptop for yourself and someone in a developing country.

The promotional offer kicked off two weeks ago and was originally scheduled to end yesterday, November 26, but due to the demand it has been extended through the end of the year.

Why not just make it a permanent offer you ask? One of the many fine and growing number of questions we’d like to hear founder OLPC Nicolas Negroponte give an intelligent answer to, but so far he hasn’t. One XO fan has even started a site devoted to convincing the OLPC project that selling XO’s is a really good idea, but Negroponte still plans to kill the program come Jan 1.

In the end, even if the OLPC ends up being somewhat less than successful thanks to a strong inclination toward self-destruction, if nothing else, at least it seems to have spurred other manufacturer’s into action.

Continue Reading “OLPC ‘Give One Get One’ Program Extended Thanks To Overwhelming Success” »

Production of the XO, the One Laptop Per Child project’s computer for children, has been delayed again. The Chinese factory that’s producing the laptops was originally supposed to begin production this month, but last minute bugs have delayed the production launch until November 12 according to a Reuters report.

The delay means that the OLPC project may have trouble filling orders placed as part of its Give 1 Get 1 program in which buyers in the West could buy two XOs for $400, with one for themselves and the second machine going to a poor child overseas. The program is set to launch November 12 and will be available through the 26th, but the new production woes may delay the arrival date for both recipients.

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The XO Laptop from the One Laptop Per Child project has received another price bump with the cost now up to $188. That’s $88 over the project’s original goal, which was to build a $100 laptop, but still a pretty good price for a laptop.

Of course, the XO still isn’t shipping in quantity and it’s possible that the price could go up again before the XO is handed out on a large scale. The XO started out at $130, then climbed to $148, followed $176, before this weekend’s announcement of $188. Spokesman George Snell blamed the latest price increase on factors like the falling value of the dollar and rising costs of components like nickel and silicon.

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The One Laptop Per Child Foundation’s XO computer may not seem like something that’s going to revolutionize laptop computing as we know it, but it could end up doing just that. Although it’s bright green and white design screams toy and looks like some demented cross between an early iMac and a Fisher Price toy, the machine boasts some impressive specs.

The primary area in which in XO may change our expectations for even the most high-end laptops is power consumption.

Although I haven’t personally used an XO, Jim Rapoza of eWeek recently sat down with one at the OLPC offices and came away impressed:

Put simply, the XO is one of the most revolutionary computer systems that I’ve seen in some time. The entire time I was looking at the XO, I was thinking, why can’t my new expensive laptop do this? The technologies that the OLPC’s XO are introducing could go a long way towards changing the face of future systems, especially in the area of power consumption.

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