
One Laptop Per kid program would be showing off its long-awaited OLPC XO-3 pill at CES. We’ll be obtaining a hands-on then, however they were kind enough to send out one or two photos of the device this morning, and that they appear value sharing.
As you will recall, the pill has an 8? screen, therefore with that for scale, it’s to be regarding 3 quarters of an in. thick. the brilliant inexperienced material seems to be silicone, and therefore the remainder of the development are going to be plastic. The project’s founder, Nicholas Negroponte, needed the device to be “indestructible,” and it actually doesn’t look dainty, however it additionally doesn’t seem to be waterproof — though the front half might actually be waterproof.The silicone case is good, and certain produces the indestructibility Negroponte covets. It’s not merely a box-top; you’ll be able to see within the image on top of (high resolution versions below) that one facet contains a curved cut in it; this may permit the user to decide on whether or not the ports on the highest are exposed or protected. helpful for all manner of things, I’m sure. The pattern on it’s sort of a solar cell, however it appears unlikely that an array of any potency may be shipped for as low a value as they’d wish.

Lastly there are the ports themselves: power, full-size USB (good for accessories), 2 ports that are seemingly audio out and in (or presumably each out, I will see that being a requested feature), and one thing that appears sort of a MicroSD slot, though I can’t make certain. There additionally seems to be a front-facing camera at the highest.The pill can run a version of Linux with OLPC XO-3 instructional Sugar software. A Marvell representative told us that OLPC XO-3 ARM processor may be used to run Android however that it’ll roll out with a distinct Linux flavor. There’s no word on alternative options like ports, cameras, or screen resolution. The image on top of is an artist’s concept rendering from the OLPC web site, not a photograph of the particular OLPC XO-3, which can be shown for the primary time at CES.

In addition to the OLPC XO-3, OLPC and Marvell announced that the most recent version of its laptop, the XO 1.75 can begin shipping in March, with 75,000 already headed to colleges in Uruguay and Nicaragua. The XO 1.75 can use identical Marvell Armada PXA618 system-on-a-chip processor because the OLPC XO-3, which can use the ability of the one-GHz Via C7-M processor on the current-generation XO 1.5 notebook.

In addition to serving to students learn at school, the OLPC XO-3 also will be employed in a study to seek out out how students will learn from slates.

