The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) foundation announced plans to work with Marvell in an effort to launch the XO-3 $75 tablet computer sometime in early 2011.
OLPC plans to have a working design before the end of the year, with the official launch expected during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in 2011.
"While devices like e-readers and current tablets are terrific literary, media and entertainment platforms, they don’t meet the needs of an educational model based on making things, versus just consuming them,” said Nicholas Negroponte, OLPC founder, in a statement. “Today’s learning environments require robust platforms for computation, content creation and experimentation -- and all that at a very low cost.”
The tablet will offer 1080p HD encoding and decoding, 3D graphics, Adobe Flash 10 support, and use just one watt of power for all supported functions. The screen is expected to be 9-inches, and the tablet will include Marvell 11n Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, and a video camera. Marvell said the tablet will be able to run Microsoft Windows Mobile, Google Android and Ubuntu Linux.
Even though OLPC products have very little real-world value here in the United States, the gadgets are extremely popular in developing nations. It's good to see OLPC able to develop a tablet for children in Africa, South America, and other locations where PC access is limited -- and will find a way to keep the manufacturing costs down.
OLPC originally wanted to see 100 million notebooks used by children worldwide, but just 2 million are in use. Even so, I've always enjoyed playing around with the older XO model -- but understand why they haven't seen widespread use in western markets. This tablet will likely see the same fate, but it’s still worth the gamble for Negroponte and OLPC.
