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.
(Credit:
OLPC)
Just a friendly reminder: the two-week Give One Get One OLPC promotion got under way today, which means you have until November 26 (should you be a resident of the U.S. or Canada) to plunk down $399 to purchase an XO laptop for yourself while donating another to a child in a developing nation. If you want yours by the holidays, it's probably best to act sooner than later; OLPC doesn't guarantee delivery in time for the holidays but states your odds are greater the earlier you order. Two other notes: you can write off $200 of the order, and T-Mobile is throwing in a year of free HotSpot access for U.S. participants.
Workers at Quanta Computer's manufacturing plant in Changshu, China, begin mass production of the XO laptop.
(Credit: One Laptop per Child)Following a number of delays, the One Laptop per Child Foundation's much-awaited XO laptop for needy kids has finally gone into mass production. Early Tuesday (local time), Taiwan's Quanta Computer started producing the green-and-white computer in its new Changshu manufacturing center, two hours northwest of Shanghai.
The commencement of mass production means children in developing nations could have the rugged, open-source laptops in hand starting this month. The OLPC has already announced orders for kids in Uruguay and Mongolia. (Residents of the U.S. and Canada participating in the Give 1 Get 1 program--which donates an XO to a child in a developing nation for every machine sold online--are expected to start getting laptops in December.)
"Today represents an important milestone in the evolution of the One Laptop per Child project," MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of the nonprofit One Laptop per Child, said in a statement Tuesday. "Against all the naysayers, and thanks to great partners such as Quanta, we have developed and now manufactured the world's most advanced and greenest laptop and one designed specifically to instill a passion for learning in children."
Quanta has recently increased its manufacturing capacity, and says XO production will ramp up over time.
The XO laptop, while generally heralded by many for its good intentions and potential impact, has hit its share of snags on the road to adoption. In addition to production delays, which give competing low-cost machines time to gain traction, the price point, originally set for $100, has crept up closer to $200.
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