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The One Laptop Per Child operating system is now available for free downloading for "any" PC or Netbook, according to its maker.

The XO-1 user interface

(Credit: Sugar Labs)

Sugar Labs, responsible for building the low-cost device's XO-1 operating system, released it online last week for loading onto any USB flash drive greater than 1GB.

Called "Sugar on a Stick v1," Sugar Labs hopes it will help spread the use of the OS in classrooms, without the need for the OLPC machine.

An IDC analyst said earlier this year that the OS would be one of the OLPC's more attractive aspects that vendors would be interested in copying for the Netbook market.

It is based on the Fedora Linux kernel and can be booted from the USB stick without needing to be installed over the hard drive's existing OS.

According to Sugar Labs, its OS is used by almost a million students ages 5 to 12 in some 40 countries. Its social-oriented interface recognizes other Sugar-based PCs around it and interacts with them without the need for Internet connection.

Sugar Labs was spun off a year ago after Walter Bender, now its executive director, left the OLPC initiative to start the nonprofit spinoff.

Victoria Ho of ZDNet Asia reported from London.

The One Laptop per Child initiative's "Give One, Get One" scheme is to come to Europe.

Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of OLPC, told ZDNet UK in an e-mail interview Wednesday that version two of "Give One, Get One" (G1G1) would enable European users to participate in the scheme.

"(The) popularity of G1G1 expanded in the USA," wrote Negroponte. "We are taking G1G1 global this time."

Under the G1G1 scheme, people will be able to purchase an XO laptop, the price of which will also buy and send an XO to a child in a developing country. The scheme ran last year in the U.S. and is due to restart there on November 17. People in the U.S. will be able to purchase the laptops for $399 and donate through Amazon.com.

No official details were available at the time of writing about U.K. cost, availability, or when the scheme will launch in Europe.

Negroponte wrote that technical support for users is still being worked out and that Amazon will not be selling a dual-boot version that runs both Windows and OLPC's open-source Sugar operating system.

"We will not sell the dual-boot," wrote Negroponte. "Microsoft is making that version for the developing world only."

The next stage of the OLPC project will depend on the popularity of the G1G1 scheme, the results of which are due at the end of December, wrote Negroponte. If the results are good, the project will expand to distribute the laptops among displaced people, conflict regions and the 50 poorest countries.

After that, OLPC will "make the laptop available to the rest of the world through a partnership of some sort," wrote Negroponte.

Negroponte added that he believed the price of an OLPC laptop could drop to $75 by 2011, "as long as the dollar does not sink."

Tom Espiner of ZDNet UK reported from London.

Starting on Monday, One Laptop Per Child's XO laptop will be available through the Give One, Get One program again, this time facilitated by Amazon.com.

For $400, the nonprofit low-cost laptop program will send one XO to the purchaser and one to a school-age child in a developing country.

OLPC said in September that it wanted to revive last year's successful program, but didn't have the infrastructure to support the program alone.

Although Microsoft has started making Windows available for the OLPC, that extends only to those in developing markets like Colombia and Peru, not folks taking part in Give One, Get One.

For more about the upcoming Windows XP version of the XO, see the video below.

CNET News' Ina Fried contributed to this report.

The One Laptop Per Child project is bringing back its two-for-one deal on its low-cost laptop.

It has tapped Amazon.com to handle its Give One, Get One program, launched initially last year. Through the program, anyone can pay for two XO laptops; one is shipped to the buyer, and the other is sent to a school kid in a developing nation. It will run from late November to late December this year.

(Credit: OLPC)

An OLPC official told PC World the group is working with Amazon because the nonprofit just doesn't have enough manpower to handle the program.

In other OLPC news, the nonprofit also said that the delayed dual-boot version of the XO should arrive next month. Originally expected in August or September, the delivery date was pushed back.

The device will come loaded with both Windows XP and the Linux-based Sugar operating system created for the XO. The inclusion of XP stemmed from pushback that OLPC got from developing nations that wouldn't buy the laptops for its classrooms without the world's dominant OS on it.

Looking ahead, the XO maker has also said that the next version of the low-cost laptop, the XO-2, will be available beginning in the second quarter of next year. The XO-2 will have a two touch screens, and no keyboard.

Last week, the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organization announced its new XO-2 laptop design, which will likely replace the XO-1 design I've written about before on this blog. There are images of the XO-2 on the OLPC wiki and a video clip from the announcement on Joanna Stern's blog for Laptop magazine.

The OLPC XO-2 laptop features two touch-screen LCDs with a hinge in between.

(Credit: One Laptop Per Child)

The new design uses two touch-screen LCDs flanking a central hinge. This approach allows the unit to be used as a book with facing pages (shown here), as a conventional laptop using a virtual keyboard on the lower display, or as a single system shared by two users.

This is just a conceptual design so far, and the images are computer-generated, but OLPC announced some goals for the redesign-- smaller overall size (about half that of the XO-1), lower weight, 1W power consumption, and a volume price of just $75 in 2010.

These will be difficult goals to achieve, principally because of the doubling of the display area. The XO-1's display is its most expensive component and probably also its heaviest, most fragile, and most power-hungry. As a result, I think the XO-2 design concept is a little too ambitious in a few specific ways.

First, the bezels around the outside of the displays are too narrow. Although modern PC laptops have aesthetically pleasing narrow bezels, this advantage comes at a significant price in the manufacture of the LCDs-- the driver chips have to be mounted on the back of the display glass and connected by flexible circuits. I don't think the XO-2 price target can be achieved without sacrificing the narrow bezel.

Also, LCD touch screens need to be more heavily built than non-touch screens. This is even more true when they're meant to be used by young children, who may use much more force than necessary and may not keep their fingers clean. The XO-2's "keyboard" screen had better be almost bulletproof... and that means more size and weight.

The thin, light, small-outline enclosure also impairs ruggedness. A system intended for use by young children in austere conditions needs to be more heavily built. For example, thin case halves mean thin hinges. Though thin hinges can be strong enough when made with heavy or expensive materials, that solution conflicts with the XO-2's weight and price targets.

The 1W power-consumption target will be especially difficult to hit. The XO-1's LCD consumes about that much power all by itself, and at least twice that with the backlight on. If the OLPC folks mean that the 1W figure is for outdoor e-book reading (CPU idle, backlight off, no network activity), they ought to say that. Giving that figure along with images of brightly backlit displays is misleading at best. (And the color in the simulated images is much better than that available from the XO-1's relatively washed-out display.)

Also, the OLPC people talk about Windows compatibility-- Windows XP, at least-- and it's unlikely there will be any Windows XP-compatible hardware platform capable of achieving a 1W average power consumption figure in 2010... never mind the 1/4W or less that would be available to the processor and chipset with two LCDs running (even without the backlight).

The XO-2 could be based on some cellphone-like chipset, but that would sacrifice Windows XP compatibility. And if there is an XP-capable low-power chipset on the market by 2010, it's likely that it will also be used in more traditional laptops and mobile Internet devices. Similarly, the technology behind the XO-1's LCD is likely to be more widely used in the next few years. In other words, the XO-2 isn't likely to gain any meaningful advantage in this respect over competing platforms.

To me, none of this bodes well for the OLPC initiative in spite of the publicity it has received from these announcements. The organization still seems committed to a strategy of over-promising and under-delivering... not exactly a path to success.

OLPC users meeting at Baycon

(Credit: Peter N. Glaskowsky)

Incidentally, over Memorial Day weekend, I met with several XO-1 users at Baycon, an annual science-fiction convention here in Silicon Valley. This was the largest collection of OLPC users I've ever seen in person. The crowd was a mix of individual users, OLPC developers, and people interested in getting an XO-1 of their own.

OLPC developer Ed Cherlin (shown here on the right in the blue and white-striped shirt) recapped the announcements from last week, described new XO-1 software under development, and answered questions. (I asked him why browser bookmarks disappear after a reboot-- he said this was by design, but that previously visited URLs can be found in the Journal. Sure enough, that works.)

The meeting was also a recap of the shortcomings I've seen in the XO-1. Several of the systems people brought to the meeting had dead batteries because of previous use that day, networking activity while the machines were apparently in standby, or because they hadn't shut down properly. Of the eight or so working machines present, no more than three or four were able to get networked together, probably because of incompatible software versions. Nobody was satisfied with the keyboards. Of course, these were all older users with hands larger than the children for whom these systems were designed, but if OLPC can't get adults interested, there'll never be enough software to meet these kids' needs.

Nevertheless, it was a fun and informative get-together, and it probably persuaded some of the non-owners in the group to get XO-1s of their own when the Give One, Get One program starts up again in August or September of this year.

(Credit: OLPC)

With all the attention we lavish on Netbook-style laptops such as the Asus Eee PC and the HP 2133 Mini-note, it's easy to forget that all these systems owe some of their DNA to the One Laptop Per Child project and founder Nick Negroponte's dream of getting a low-cost XO laptop into the hands of any student who needs one.

The original XO ended up having more impact as an influence than an actual product, as it was plagued by delays, price increases, and lowered expectations. But even if there are more Intel Classmate PCs and Eee PCs in the wild, don't count OLPC out just yet.

The group has said it is working on the next generation of XO laptops, and has released a few very intriguing photos and details for the XO 2.0. The most interesting part is clearly the dual touch-screens in place of a traditional keyboard and monitor. The publicity photos look a bit too sci-fi, and the final product (much like the original XO's early design mockups), will probably be somewhat more pedestrian.

The official press release points out four different areas where the new OLPC laptop will improve on the original:

Cost reduction - Set in early 2005, the original target price of the XO laptop was $100. Although that target has not yet been met (it is now at $188), it is clear that OLPC must aim for an even lower target price of $75. New developments in display, processor, and other hardware and software technologies will make it possible to achieve the $75 target in the future.

Lower power consumption - While the first generation XO laptop already requires just one-tenth (2-4 watts versus 20-40 watts) of the electrical power necessary to run a standard laptop, the XO-2 will reduce power consumption even further to 1 watt. This is particularly important for children in remote and rural environments where electricity is scarce or nonexistent. Lowering the power consumption will reduce the amount of time required for children to generate power themselves via a hand crank or other manual mechanisms.

Smaller footprint - The XO-2 laptop will be about half the size of the first generation device and will approximate the size of a book. The new design will make the XO laptop lighter and easier for children to carry with them to and from school or wherever they go. The XO-2 will continue to be in a green and white case and sport the XO logo in a multitude of colors that allow children to personalize the laptop as their own possession.

Enhanced book experience - Dual touch-sensitive displays will be used to enhance the e-book experience, with a dual-mode display similar to the current XO laptop. The design provides a right and left page in vertical format, a hinged laptop in horizontal format, and a flat two-screen wide continuous surface that can be used in tablet mode. Younger children will be able to use simple keyboards to get going, and older children will be able to switch between keyboards customized for applications as well as for multiple languages. The dual touch-display is being designed by Pixel Qi, which was founded in early 2008 by Mary Lou Jepsen, former chief technology officer of One Laptop per Children and a leading expert on display technology.

The chairman and founder of the One Laptop Per Child initiative said in an interview Tuesday that the XO laptop may switch from using Linux to eventually running Windows XP, according to several reports.

Windows XP could soon be available on the XO.

(Credit: OLPC)

In an interview with the Associated Press following the departure of the OLPC project's president, Nicholas Negroponte said the open-source Sugar software, developed expressly for the XO, could run on top of XP. Negroponte cited weaknesses in the XO's current open-source operating system (right now the XO can't support the latest versions of Flash animation) as well as the Linux community itself (for being too "fundamentalist") as the reasons for a possible future shift.

He said the laptop's open-source software had actually scared away potential adopters.

An XP-only version of the XO could come soon enough. In December Microsoft said it would begin running limited tests in January to see if the operating system would be a good fit for the low-cost device. At the time, Microsoft said it could have XP running on the XO by the second half of the year.

More low-cost laptops are headed to a retailer near you.

Intel plans on expanding the distribution of its inexpensive, school children-friendly Classmate PC to U.S. and European retail outlets, according to a Reuters report on Wednesday.

Intel's Classmate PC

(Credit: Intel)

The Classmate will sell for $250 to $350, Lila Ibrahim, general manager of Intel's emerging market platform group, told Reuters. Apparently Intel has already been conducting pilot programs using the devices in classrooms in the U.S. and Australia.

Though the Classmate is already available on the retail markets of India, Mexico, and Indonesia, this will be the first time the device has been for sale to consumers in the developed world.

Intel designed the PC for use in schools in developing nations. Local manufacturers build them with customized software configurations for the needs of specific local markets.

The XO from the One Laptop Per Child initiative, which also builds low-cost notebooks for the same markets, has been available via retail in the U.S. for a while. OLPC had a promotion where consumers here paid $400, which bought one XO for them and one for a school kid in the developing world.

But they're not the only ones jumping into this fray. Asus launched its low-cost, stripped-down Linux-based Eee PC last fall specifically for the U.S., Japanese, and European retail markets, and caused quite the stir. It sold 350,000 units in the first quarter it was available here, and is making some of the biggest names in computing a wee bit nervous. It's giving pause to worldwide PC leader Hewlett-Packard, and second-largest notebook manufacturer Acer, both of whom are said to be readying their own low-cost, small form-factor laptops for sometime this year.

The Eee PC certainly is bringing cachet to the tiny, Linux-based laptop segment, but will that translate to the cheaper Classmate PC? The Classmate is a bit clunkier looking, and has a silly-looking (though great for kids) handle on the spine, whereas the Eee comes in a variety of colors and looks like a laptop an adult wouldn't mind being seen with at his or her local coffeehouse.

In the hardware world, the first-mover strategy only works if you get it right.

For example, let's consider Palm's Foleo. Introduced last May at the D: All Thing Digital conference, the Foleo was supposed to be a $499 lightweight "mobile companion" with a full-size keyboard. Sure, it looked like a 10-inch laptop, but it was woefully underpowered, and it was designed to only work with Palm's Treo smartphones at first: modifications would have to have been made to support other phones.

Faced with mounting criticism, Palm made the correct decision in September to postpone the Foleo project and focus on more pressing priorities. But late last year, something interesting began to happen. After watching the early interest in a different design, Asus' Eee PC, the PC industry began taking another look at the idea of low-cost lightweight laptops that couldn't handle Crysis but could get you up and running on the Internet.

Palm's Foleo is not what designers of the latest subnotebooks have in mind.

(Credit: Palm)

My colleague Erica Ogg, a smart and thoughtful person despite her baffling support for the Los Angeles Dodgers, thinks that Palm and Hawkins deserve more credit for coming up with this concept. Earlier today, she wrote, "but the Eee wasn't the first to employ the broader concept of a mobile Web device that looked like a notebook PC, but was meant to function more as a secondary device. That was the idea brought to us by Palm founder Jeff Hawkins with the Foleo."

I'm not sure I could disagree more. Just for a moment, I'll leave aside the fact that Asus announced the Eee PC just days after Hawkins introduced his "best idea ever," meaning company executives probably didn't throw together a blueprint for the Eee PC on the plane ride back from Carlsbad, Calif., to Taiwan.

This idea has been around for ages. Gateway had one. Toshiba had one. Sony had one. The problem with all of those designs was that they were too expensive, too underpowered, too clunky, or all three. Most were released well before wireless networking became ubiquitious, as well.

These days, with the price of processing power and storage at an all-time low, it stands to reason that people would be interested in compelling devices that won't replace your main home or work PC, but provide a decent experience running today's software.

Unfortunately, that does not in any way describe the Foleo.

Palm designed the Foleo as basically one thing: an adjunct to Treo smartphone owners who wanted a larger keyboard and screen for working through a day's e-mail. It featured a processor designed for 2004-era PDAs, and it was unclear whether it could play video. It came with just 256MBs of storage, nearly four times less capacity than a $49 iPod Shuffle. Toshiba's Libretto 20, a subnotebook introduced 12 years earlier in 1995, used a 270MB hard drive.

Chances are, the Foleo wasn't even as powerful as the smartphones it was designed to work alongside. The only thing it brought to the table that you can't find on an iPhone was a keyboard and a display. And the iPhone is cheaper, with a more powerful processor and boatloads more storage, and it can play movies, television shows, and music with ease.

Now consider the Eee PC (for the record, an even dumber name than the Foleo). It uses a 900MHz processor made by Intel; no powerhouse for sure, but at least it was designed to run PC applications. The base model comes with 2GB of flash memory for storage, and models with 8GB are available.

You're not going to edit home videos on this thing, but you can surf the Web, read and write documents, install third-party software written for Linux clients, and play songs and movies. And priced at $299 to $499, it's also cheaper than the Foleo.

Yes, the Foleo was also a small Linux-based notebook for around $500. That doesn't mean Palm and Hawkins deserve credit for correctly predicting the need for smaller notebook-style computers, because that's not what they designed. The only similarity between the Foleo and the Eee PC is a price tag, the Linux operating system, and a hinge.

Regular readers of this blog might be surprised at the following sentence, but it's true. The person who really deserves credit for the recent miniboom in small low-cost Linux laptops might just be Nick Negroponte.

If you think about it, the XO laptop has spurred far more development than the Foleo.

(Credit: OLPC)

I've had my disagreements with the One Laptop Per Child project and its methods, but those do not extend to the XO laptop itself. It's been a long and winding road, but Negroponte first outlined his idea for a low-cost open-source laptop in January 2005 at the World Economic Forum in Davos (click for PDF).

In the months and years that followed, Intel and AMD each scurried to come up with their own proposal for a portable low-cost Linux-based system. The two chipmakers have scored more points slagging each other's ideas than they have in the marketplace, but their efforts working on these types of projects spurred other PC companies to get involved.

And the XO laptop has actually received some interest from regular folks in developed countries intrigued by the interface and design of the laptop. The XO is likewise not a very powerful system, but at least it can do more than read e-mail and browse the Web.

Let's give Palm and Jeff Hawkins credit for a lot of things--perhaps most importantly, the notion of truly mobile computing itself. But if the race to develop The Next Mobile Computer really centers around the Eee PC and its offspring, it won't be because of the Foleo.