Design revamp for '$100 laptop'

[Camy]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7411904.stm

The wraps have been taken off the new version of the XO laptop designed for schoolchildren in developing countries.

The revamped machine created by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project looks like an e-book and has had its price slashed to $75 per device.

OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte gave a glimpse of the "book like" device at an unveiling event at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The first XO2 machines should be ready to deliver to children in 2010.

It looks amazing, and I'd be tempted - except, what else will be around in 2010? Two years is a long time in computing.

[colinian]

Maybe amazon.com should take a look at this new XO design and see if it could be used as the basis for a new low-cost Kindle.

Colin

[The Pecman]

Boy, who knew the Kindle would be such a hit! My personal computer guru, Leo Laporte, has been singing the praises of this thing for months now. I have to admit, the Kindle has some neat features -- one of which is free internet access, at least of a sort. With the Kindle, you can automatically log on to Amazon, check out new books and publications, and then instantly buy and download them -- instant gratification. Very cool.

[colinian]

There are two features and one uh... marketing decision? ...missing from the current Kindle. One feature is a high resolution OLED color screen. The current screen is B&W and the resolution doesn't do an acceptable job with graphics. The second feature is support for loading my own Word doc and docx and pdf files, onto the Kindle. The "marketing decision" isn't all in Amazon's camp: I want textbook on the Kindle. Yeah, I know, that's self-interest because I'm a university student, but it would be so cool to be able to have my textbooks on a Kindle instead of in my backpack. Do you know how HEAVY textbooks are? And the ability to bookmark, and highlight, and have multiple textbooks and trade books open simultaneously makes me salivate! Anyway, if these three things were included I'd buy a Kindle immediately.

Colin