The One Laptop Per Child XO

My wife bought a One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO box under the Give One Get One (G1G1) program. You have probably heard about the project. The idea is to provide small, extremely inexpensive laptops to children throughout the developing world. There has been a vigorous debate on whether this is a good idea or not; whether it is better to spend $200 per child on a laptop or on a cow. I am not going to address that question, because I don't know enough about it. I am just going to give my impressions of the box as a work of engineering. The box only arrived a few days ago, so these are first impressions.

To summarize: Wow!

Apple is no longer the only game in town in the area of innovative PC design. The OLPC project rethought the PC from the ground up. The particular constraints of their target users forced some novel design decisions, but many of these innovations are equally applicable in many other situations. I hope other computer makers (including Apple) are paying attention.

Most laptops, no matter how small, are heavy for their size. The XO is unexpectedly light. Not that it feels delicate or fragile. Its skin is a pretty rugged plastic. When it is closed, the screen and all the data ports are protected. It has a sturdy plastic handle. It feels like it can handle being treated casually.

What makes the XO lightweight, of course, is what it is missing. It has no hard disk, no CD-ROM. It has a relatively slow processor. It has a pretty small LCD display (7.5 inches, but, 1200×900 pixel so lots of detail). Since it is missing all these things, it needs no fan. And, voila, a lightweight rugged little go anywhere box.

But, missing all those heavy fragile accouterments of a modern laptop, the XO has plenty of features. A microphone and camera are embedded in the screen. The battery is lightweight, contains no toxic materials (indeed the whole box is pretty eco-friendly), and can be charged with a hand crank or a solar panel. It natively supports a mesh network. Here is a cool little demo of how a mesh network works, but the basic idea is a self-forming dynamically extensible network (downright subversive.) It has a new simplified window manager called Sugar to support the smaller screen. The screen swivels to operate in tablet mode. The screen/windowing system have been designed to operate well out doors in natural light. A number of cool educational applications (called activities) come installed. These applications seem to be designed mainly to encourage collaboration.

The camera, the power system, the mesh network, the table support, all of these things, of course, relate specifically to the XO's intended purpose. These are not extras or frills.

Unfortunately, for us, there is a compatibility issue with our wireless router. Linksys WRT54Gs are not supported, yet. So, we haven't yet been able to fully explore the little box's capabilities.

Its pretty impressive, though.

- J