OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) was also at CES 2011 in Marvell stand with their third generation OLPC XO laptop named OLPC XO-1.75, after the first generation using AMD and the second Via Technologies.
Charbax interviewed Ed NcNierney, Chief Technology Office at OLPC. They only changed the PCB in this version, i.e. the casing, keyboard, monitor is the same as the previous generations.The processor used in OLPC XO-1.75 is the ARM based Marvell Armada 610 (single core) running at 1GHz with 1GB RAM and 4GB Flash. The laptop can be recharged with a hand crane for 1 minute, then the laptop can be used for 10 minutes (color) and about 12 minutes (black and white). With the third generation, the price is only marginally cheaper than the previous generation (<200 USD), but the power consumption is now 2 Watt (instead of 4 Watt) and it is the most important part, as electricity costs are high where OLPC laptops are used. At first, the PCB seems very large with an embedded solutions, but the reason is that it needs to fit in the existing casing and doing separate smaller PCBs with connectors would end up being more expensive. The OS is Sugar OS and most application are based on Python. Ed NcNierney does not see the use of using Android in such devices, but said it’s possible to run any OS from the SD card thanks to their open source firmware. OLPC XO-1.75 will be mass produced Mid 2011. Watch the interview below.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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