OLPC shows off absurdly thin XO-3 concept tablet for 2012 (update: XO-1.5 and XO-1.75 coming first)
By Paul Miller 
posted December 22nd 2009 11:49PM
posted December 22nd 2009 11:49PM
Still have a bit of faith left for the OLPC project? Good, you're gonna need it: designer Yves Behar has unveiled his latest concept design for the now-aiming-for-$75 vision, and it's all screen. Keeping with the newfound trend toward tablets, the XO-3 is an 8.5 x 11 touchscreen, coupled with a little folding ring in the corner for grip and a camera in the back. To keep things minimal the plan is to use Palm Pre-style induction charging, and less than a watt of power to keep an "8 gigaherz [sic]" (800MHz?) processor and a Pixel Qi screen powered. At half the thickness of an iPhone, this vision is obviously banking heavily on presumed technology advances by 2012 (the projected release date), but it's not too hard to see somebody making this form factor happen by then-ish. Nick Neg isn't all hubris, however: "Sure, if I were a commercial entity coming to you for investment, and I'd made the projections I had in the past, you wouldn't invest again, but we're not a commercial operation. If we only achieve half of what we're setting out to do, it could have very big consequences."
Update: According to our man Nicholas Negroponte, who took time out of his busy schedule to email us with the info, there are two other variations of the XO headed our way before we see the XO-3. Nick says we'll see the XO-1.5 appear in January for around $200 -- an update to the current version. As we'd heard before, the 1.5 iteration will swap a VIA CPU for the current AMD one, and will double the speed as well as quadruple both the DRAM and Flash memory of the current version. Furthermore, he says that in early 2011 the XO-1.75 (replacing that psychotically awesome 2.0 dual screen model) will make its appearance, and will sport rubber bumpers on the outer casing, an 8.9-inch touchscreen display inside, and will run atop a Marvell ARM processor which will enable two times the speed at a quarter of the power usage. That version will sell for somewhere in the $175 range. Then, no 2.0... straight on to the XO-3.0!
Update: According to our man Nicholas Negroponte, who took time out of his busy schedule to email us with the info, there are two other variations of the XO headed our way before we see the XO-3. Nick says we'll see the XO-1.5 appear in January for around $200 -- an update to the current version. As we'd heard before, the 1.5 iteration will swap a VIA CPU for the current AMD one, and will double the speed as well as quadruple both the DRAM and Flash memory of the current version. Furthermore, he says that in early 2011 the XO-1.75 (replacing that psychotically awesome 2.0 dual screen model) will make its appearance, and will sport rubber bumpers on the outer casing, an 8.9-inch touchscreen display inside, and will run atop a Marvell ARM processor which will enable two times the speed at a quarter of the power usage. That version will sell for somewhere in the $175 range. Then, no 2.0... straight on to the XO-3.0!
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Me likes
@MoonWalkerCTE Too bad it'll never see the light of day in it's current incarnation.
Add some extra depth, some extra $$ and MAYBE it'll get released for public consumption.
@MoonWalkerCTE
Looks like a tellytubby tablet, (see image below)
http://z.hubpages.com/u/49849_f260.jpg
... and broken within three minutes of use.
@Bandigolo
broken upon 1st 'keyboard' click
"Still have a bit of faith left for the OLPC project?"
No.
@Wolfticket
Its ridiculous, they keep coming out with these awesome but faintly stupid aspirations. In 2012 I might expect something like this by any of the other normal comp companies, but OLPC, costing peanuts? Not to mention this design is totally impractical for the 3rd world..
GET REAL OLPC
@Wolfticket
LOL;)))))))
I'd buy one.
@Aguiluz
Not for 75 bucks, you won't.
Looks okay but remove the tellytubby looking O ring at the top left and it'd look alot better, then make it black with dark grey keys.
If both JooJoo (CrunchPad, whatevernameitisthisweek) and the rumored Apple tablet can't get this done for under $400, how exactly is OLPC going to do it for $75? Ballzy project, unlikely possible till 2015 :)
@techlife
you have to pay for 1 million of them to get 1
@techlife We all know Apple overprices their products though.
Very cool, but no way at the cost projections.
That is the most awesome zipper pull I've ever seen.
75$ each month for 10 years?
underpowered but sexy for the children of tomorrow
see the mayans didn't predict the end of the world, they predicted a big change. Like this one.
@eruh
Even though they had only stopped the calender because they disappeared before finishing it...
Yes! You're right.
@HardToBelieve
I'd wiki that if I were you.
@HardToBelieve
id have to say the guy making the calender was just like for get this no one here is gonna be alive to see this, i quit!
@eruh
2012 is merely the end of one long cycle in the Mayan calendar, and the beginning of the next. That's it. Period. The Mayans never predicted anything about the year. The year is about as significant as the start of a new millennium in our calendar (read: not remotely significant as far as nature is concerned). This whole myth that some world-changing or world-ending event was predicted to occur in 2012 by the Mayans is absolute rubbish, and I can't wait for January 1st, 2013 to bring an end to all this ignorant nonsense.
@Gad Get
Thank you! I was always trying to find ways to find that. (The fact that Dec 21 or 23, 2012 doesnt mean anything)
worst tho is that Some of my family members believe all hell is gonna break loose on that date. Ill be laughing and drinking my champagne on Jan 1, 2013.
By 2012. Will we really need OLPCs in 2012, Around December 21st-ish or something.
nah, im just joking. Cool looking concept.
The smaller the bezel, the better.
ah, projected release of 2012.. so basically when the world ends.
I see what they're doing now..
8 GHz lol
@AndroidRokz
So really.. they're saying... "It WILL run crysis"
With induction charging, this could be make waterproof. With the upcoming color E-Ink technology, it could run on very little power. Maybe w'll finally get the cool tablets they were using Start Trek NextGen.
I like the first one better. Why people hate keys? Nothing like pressing a key.... ! Would you change a nipple for a virtual one?
@TikiTeko
Yeah actually. I do everytime my girlfriend walks out the door, it's called porn...
Shouldn't it be renamed OTPC now?
@Volker What does that stand for?
@AndroidRokz
One Tablet Per Child
Duh????
@Volker
moar like Over the Top PC, amirite????
Still qwerty? FLAIL.
Seriously. This is the 21st century. It's a fricking touchscreen anyways, time to switch to colemak.
I'm sure the 8GHz wasn't a mistake but illustrative of the guy's knowledge of technology and its cost
Call it OTB, and put horse races on it
vaporware
@htd
Yep
And this is supposed to be 75 bucks on launch? I wouldn't bet on it.
@ch3burashka
$75 seems a bit too high..
$ 5 for 1 GB DRAM (found it online at this price already)
$10 4 GB flash (half today's price)
$20 1 Ghz ARM System on Chip (snapdragon competitor)
$20 PixelQi display (estimated cost)
$ 5 Assembly cost
$ 5 Miscellaneous parts such as plastic/circuit board (which costs pennies today btw)
$10 Overhead such as shipping (and retailer profit?)
The key cost breakthrough is that the touchscreen display is only going to cost $20 thanks to PixelQi technology. The 1 GHz ARM System on Chip contains a GPU and that's about half what the 1 Ghz Snap dragon system on chip costs today .. but considering what's on the wings .. I dont think it's ambitious to expect it to cost 50% less by 2012).
@JS
OK .. i screwed up .. i forget the cost of the battery which is actaully a bit expensive .. maybe they are hoping the system on chip and display cost will be less.
@JS
You forgot the battery, case, charger, box, marketing, distribution, wifi / bluetooth, PCB, manufacturing etc... The closest thing on the market is the JooJoo which starts at $500 or iPod Touch ($200) (smaller) $250 is about the lowest this thing is going to get $175 for really high volumes to 3rd world (nonprofit).
Nicolas Negroponte is a smart motherf--ker (ever read his book "Being Digital"?) and I would love to have an 8½-by-11 Pixel Qi device; just make sure it supports PDF files and I will be happy as a clam, especially if it costs $75!
He's smart - and at the same time, monumentally stupid.
This has zero chance of happening, from a cost, industrial design, durability, and any number of other standpoints.
@(Unverified)
Comparing this to the iPhone is not a fair comparison. The iPhone has an OS and other proprietary design that has a higher cost. Open source technologies tend to not be as cutting edge because it is difficult to motivate people to contribute to it due to low/no pay-off.
The OLPC 3.0 will have a better chance as a commercial product first but designed with the intent to take it to less developed parts of the world - solar charging, etc.
There are many bets being made on the cost of technology in 2012. I think that those bets are reasonable. We will also have color plastic displays (if Plastic Logic ever delivers). I doubt that the resolution is going to be as high as implied the pictures but the technology will be there.
The bet that I see coming more at play is that cost of manufacturing. Manufacturers will have to reserve capacity to build this devices at the cost of not building other profit generating products. The cost of not being focused on the core products and services to corporations is not insignificant. The worldwide economic downturn forced many companies to reduce efforts on OLPC type activity. If anything in the world is going on in 2011 and 2012 this will be pushed out.
You still would need a reset button in hw...
Or maybe thats what the ring is for, pull it and the machine reboots?
Im sure the 8 gigaherz cpu reboots in a sec. :)
Make it reboot when you shake it vigorously, that way the kids also learn to treat devices with respect :)