Friday, August 22, 2008

OLPC provides one laptop per student in Niue

By Mass High Tech Staff

One Laptop per Child reports it has achieved the message behind its name by deploying its XO laptop computers to all students in the island country of Niue.

Niue issued the XO to its primary and secondary school students, according to OLPC. The laptops are designed for primary school children aged six to 12 but have also been given to high school students in Niue.

According to the CIA’s World Factbook website, Niue, a small island near New Zealand, has a population of about 1,400.

In May, Charles Kane became president and COO of OLPC, a position for which he receives no compensation.

Also in May, the nonprofit unveiled the design of the XO 2.0. The new model is a touchscreen tablet that can be folded for use as a paper-book-mimicking e-book or a standard-shaped laptop with a touchscreen keyboard. The XO-2.0 is planned to be available in 2010. XO-1.5 will be released in the spring of 2009 with the same design as the first generation but with fewer physical parts and at a lower cost than the first version. The display is being designed by Pixel Qi, which was founded earlier this year by Mary Lou Jepsen, former chief technology officer of OLPC. 

The same month, OLPC partnered with Microsoft Corp. to make Windows XP available on its XO laptop. The same day, former OLPC president Walter Bender announced he had founded a new nonprofit, Sugar Labs Foundation, to develop the XO’s original interface, called Sugar.