In recent days the press and mailing lists around the OLPC project (including that of OLPC France ) echoed the recent interview with Nicholas Negroponte on xeconomy.com .

It must be said that not less than three versions of XO mentioned here! It therefore seemed necessary to explain a little text and to clarify what these different versions of the XO that hide very different situations.

It should be noted first that this article is that our analysis, and it is not a "roadmap" official OLPC.

A small diagram will help clarify the issue already (click to view details):
(Note: This article and the following diagram is updated regularly with recent announcements from the foundation)

Existing machines

Two versions of the XO currently exist: the XO-1 and XO-1.5.

The XO-1 is the first machine series that was produced by the foundation. This is the machine that you know all that has been produced almost 2 million copies.

The XO-1 is equipped with an AMD Geode processor at 400Mhz, 256MB RAM, 1GB flash memory, a dual-mode screen and WiFi mesh (see the detailed specifications here ).

The XO-1 was announced in November 2005 at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis. At that time he had his little crank

Prior to being available in its final version, the XO-1 was preceded by five pre-series models (1 Alpha and Beta versions 4)

• In April 2006 in
• B1 in November 2006,
• B2 in February 2007,
• B3 in May 2007,
• B4 in June 2007.

Three updates were minor technical took place:

• C1 in August 2007,
• C2 in November 2007,
• CL1A in June 2009

The XO-1.5 is a technical evolution of the XO-1 which includes the design completely.

The XO-1.5 is equipped with a VIA C7-M 1GHz, 1GB RAM, 4GB Flash, the same dual-mode screen that the XO-1 and WiFi. Its detailed specifications are available here .

The XO-1.5 was announced on the mailing list OLPC in April 2009 but is already on his track one of the first posts from this blog in May 2008 !

The XO-1.5 is coming into production in May 2010. Several pre-series models have been created previously:

• A1 in May 2009,
• A2 in July 2009,
• B1 in August 2009,
• B2 in September 2009
• [UPDATE 11/15/2009] B3 in November 2009

A first test of the machine B2 was achieved by OLPC France.

Three updates of the production model have occurred:

• [UPDATE 16/12/2009] C1 in December 2009
• [UPDATE 30/05/2010] C2 in January 2010
• [UPDATE 30/05/2010] C3 in May 2010

It is important to clarify that the XO-1.5 replaces the XO-1, whose production has ceased. In short, future deployments will therefore use the XO-1.5.

[UPDATE 20/07/2010] The XO-1.5 HS is the declination of the XO-1.5 announced for older children.

Future directions

Chronologically the next generation of XO, which was announced in May 2008 is the XO-2.

The XO-2 has been much talk of him with his innovative design of dual-screen e-book. An overview is on the wiki foundation . A "mock-up", ie a non-functional model has also been seen at the economic summit in Davos in January 2009.

Since the announcement of the XO-2, several manufacturers, like, Asus , proposed prototype netbook with a dual screen.

Alas, in the interview xeconomy.com , Nicolas Negroponte has announced that the idea of developing the XO-2 has been dropped because its production cost is too high.

In place of the XO-2, Nicolas Negroponte has announced two other concepts: the XO and the XO-1.75-3.

The XO-1.75 is described as an evolution of XO-1/XO-1.5 but with an ARM processor instead of a processor based on x86 architecture.

One of the main advantages of this type of processor that is specially designed for low power computers. Indeed, this type of processor in the majority of SmartPhone : Nokia, BlackBerry, Palm and even the famous iPhone .

It is interesting to note, especially for those who still believe that Microsoft is the devil behind OLPC, Windows XP does not run on ARM processors. Microsoft has specifically indicated that Windows 7 would not be focused on this type of architecture . [UPDATE 10/11/2009 Confirmed by the vice president of Windows platform ]

Instead, Sugar based on GNU Linux is already running on ARM processors. Moreover, as it relies primarily on interpreted code (Python), it is insensitive to changes in architecture.

The XO-1.75 is fairly close to the XO-1.5 and less ambitious than the XO-2, it seems reasonable to think that he could see the day. The Foundation actively working on the XO-1.5, it seems nevertheless difficult to imagine that a prototype is available before the last quarter of 2010.

The XO-3 was described succinctly by Nicholas Negroponte . It would be great as a simple sheet of paper, plastic, very thin, waterproof, with a color screen reflective and transmissive, without opening. It consumes just one watt, and cost $ 75.

The XO-3 could be available in 2012.

Clearly, the XO-3, as was the XO-2, is a concept, a direction studied by the foundation. So do not expect more information at this time. The next step is probably a "mock-ups of the type used to display photos of the XO-2.

[UPDATE 23/12/2009] Pictures of mock-ups have been published by Yves Behar on its website .
[UPDATE 30/05/2010] The foundation announced a partnership with Marvell to produce by January 2011 a first version of a tablet which would be the basis of the XO-3.

Olpc OLPC or?

Now that we completed this overview of equipment and trails studied so far by the foundation, it is useful to understand how it works, to emphasize another part of the interview with Nicholas Negroponte : separation the foundation in two different entities. As well our friend commented Christoph Derndorfer in OLPC News is an important point to understand the view that we have just presented.

The foundation has in fact split into two entities:

• The association supports olpc deployments, developments and support,
• The OLPC foundation support to publicize the project and performed research and development.

The XO-1 XO-1.5 and, soon, the XO-1.75 is therefore the responsibility of the association olpc likely to be under the responsibility of Chuck Kane which is the current mission.

The XO-2 and XO-3 are themselves the responsibility of the foundation that Nicholas Negroponte is the visionary. The foundation then feed the association, in the same way as the research departments of car manufacturers supply them with "concept cars". All the "concept cars" does not see the day (this happened to XO-2) but the ones who instill the dynamic automotive industry.

One can only hope that the OLPC foundation will continue to inspire ideas that will solidify a little dream of a Child by Computer.

Note that the diagram at the beginning of the article is freely available here in PDF format and we will try to update it regularly as and announcements from the foundation.