$100 laptop lands at MaRS
Check out the lean mean green machine
It’s cute and green and can withstand a monsoon.
A month shy of its official product launch, the world’s first $100 laptop (OK, it’s actually US$186) made an appearance at MaRS last week in the capable hands of developer Mike Fletcher, who offered a spirited demo to a meeting of Toronto’s Overlap group, a collection of experimental thinkers dedicated to innovation in design and business.
Aiming to put a literacy tool in the hands of 50 million children in the developing world, the Boston-based One Laptop Per Child project came out of the famed Media Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is designed around the free sharing of knowledge.
Two and a half years after MIT’s Nicholas Negroponte first floated the idea of the $100 laptop at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, OLPC’s first-generation hardware is now ready for market. A host of countries have already been part of pilot workshops, including Nigeria, Ghana, Uruguay and Peru, and have signed on for millions of units.
Fondly known as XO, the Linux-based system and its iconic plastic-handled hardware has been designed and engineered for the cognitive capabilities and rough-and-tumble world of an active six year old. XO can be dropped, dragged behind an oxcart and used under the blazing midday sun thanks to the only piece of patentable technology in the unit, the full-sunlight screen. (The patent expires in nine months, Fletcher says, and OLPC welcomes the expected rush to compete. That rush has already started, in fact, as big-name manufacturers have begun their move into the low-cost laptop market.)
XO’s genius begins with its six-hour battery, which can be charged by solar cell, hand crank or electrical adapter, and its quirky little buddy “ears” that flip up to offer double the standard wi-fi range and fold down to protect the ports from water and sand. There’s a built-in upstream network link and a range of collaborative software for reading, writing and music-making, as well as a video and still camera and, arguably most interestingly, a probe-enhanced port designed to connect with any inexpensive recording device. Think oscilloscope or video microscope slide and science class becomes visual, tactile and a lot more fun.
If XO breaks down (and it can, Fletcher says, especially if it drops flat), the kids themselves can take it apart for repairs. If it’s stolen, its advanced security system “turns it into a brick.”
The evolution of the project itself will make a fascinating case study in collaboration as XO represents the efforts of about 300 developers working full-time through a virtual network – and another 3,000 or so offering additional input.
As Fletcher says, it’s less about making laptops than providing an open platform to educate and empower children around the world – and, superior design aside, that’s where the transformative economic and cultural potential of this technology truly lies.
Linda Quattrin worked as a long-time newspaper reporter and editor before applying her interest in science as a medical research communicator. A member of the Canadian Science Writers Association, she is responsible for media relations and corporate communications at MaRS.