This fall: OLPC to ship school servers, multibattery chargers, antennas and solar-powered repeaters, not just XO laptops (the e-book angle)
“We are shipping five products this fall: (1) the XO laptop; (2) a school server; (3) a multi-battery charger; an active antenna; and (5) a solar-powered WiFi repeater. Much of the emphasis has been on the laptop, but a push from Quanta this week has resulted in firmer plans for the other products.” – Walter Bender to an OLPC mailing list. Go here for other current OLPC news from the past week.
The TeleRead take: I wonder if Intel and friends will be using such a thorough and comprehensive approach—which could make a major difference in cost and usability for cash-strapped schools in developing countries. From a general e-book perspective, too, going beyond K-12, the new information is exciting. OLPC in effect is creating a library infrastructure—and hopefully a publishing infrastructure, too—in remote regions of the world. Rather than e-books alone, we need ways to make them ubiquitous.
Related: OLPC History: Senegalese Failure in Implementation and No Comparison: OLPC XO is the Low-Cost Laptop for Teaching, in the unofficial OLPC News. The second article is by a guest writer.
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