In recent days the press and mailing lists around the OLPC project (including that of OLPC France ) echo the recent interview with Nicholas Negroponte on xeconomy.com .

I must say that it is not less than three versions of XO that are mentioned! It therefore seemed necessary to make a little explanation text and specify what those different versions of the XO that hide very different realities.

It should be noted first that this article is that our analysis, and does not correspond to a "roadmap" official OLPC Foundation.

A small diagram will help clarify the issue already (click to view details):
(Note: This article and the following diagram is updated regularly with the latest announcements of the foundation)

Existing machines

Two versions of the XO currently exist: the XO-1 and XO-1.5.

The XO-1 machine is the first series was produced by the foundation. This is the machine that you all know, which was produced almost 2 million copies.

The XO-1 is equipped with an AMD Geode 400Mhz in, 256MB RAM, 1GB of flash memory, a dual screen mode and WiFi mesh (see the features detailed here ).

The XO-1 was announced in November 2005 at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis. At that time he had his little crank

Before it is available in its final version, the XO-1 was preceded by five pre-series models (1 and 4 Alpha Beta versions):

• A in April 2006
• B1 in November 2006,
• B2 in February 2007,
• B3 in May 2007,
• B4 in June 2007.

Three updates were minor technical took place:

• C1 in August 2007,
• C2 in November 2007,
• CL1A in June 2009

The XO-1.5 is a technical evolution of the XO-1 which contains the complete design.

The XO-1.5 is equipped with a VIA C7-M 1GHz, 1GB RAM, 4GB Flash, the same dual-mode screen that XO-1 and WiFi. Its detailed specifications are available here .

The XO-1.5 was announced on the mailing list OLPC in April 2009 but there are already traces on one of the first posts of this blog in May 2008 !

The XO-1.5 went into production in May 2010. Several pre-production models have been developed previously:

• A1 in May 2009,
• A2 in July 2009,
• B1 in August 2009,
• B2 in September 2009
• [UPDATE 15/11/2009] B3 in November 2009

A first test of the machine B2 was produced by OLPC France.

Three updates of the production model have occurred:

• [UPDATE 16/12/2009] C1 in December 2009
• [UPDATE 30/05/2010] C2 in January 2010
• [UPDATE 30/05/2010] C3 in May 2010

It is important to note that the XO-1.5 replaces the XO-1 whose production has ceased. In short, future deployments will therefore use the XO-1.5.

[UPDATE 20/07/2010] The XO-1.5 HS is the declination of XO-1.5 announcement for older children.

Future directions

Chronologically the next generation of XO, which was announced in May 2008 is the XO-2.

The XO-2 has a lot of attention with its innovative design of dual-screen e-book. An overview is available on the Foundation wiki . A "mock-up", ie a non-functional model, has also been seen at the economic summit in Davos in January 2009.

Since the announcement of the XO-2, several manufacturers, such as, Asus , proposed prototype netbook with a dual screen.

Alas, in the interview xeconomy.com , Nicolas Negroponte said the idea to develop the XO-2 was abandoned because its production cost is too high.
Instead of the XO-2, Nicolas Negroponte announced two other concepts: the XO-1.75 and the XO-3.
The XO-1.75 is an evolution of XO-1/XO-1.5 but with an ARM processor instead of a processor based on x86 architecture.

One of the main advantages of this type of processor that is specifically designed for low power computers. Indeed, this type of processor that the team most of the SmartPhone : Nokia, BlackBerry, Palm and even the famous iPhone .

It is interesting to note, especially for those who still believe that Microsoft is the devil behind the OLPC, Windows 7 does not run on ARM processors and is compatible with Windows 8 is far from certain.

Instead, Sugar based on GNU Linux is already running on ARM processors. Moreover, as it relies primarily on interpreted code (Python), it is insensitive to changes in architecture.

The XO-1.75 is quite close to the XO-1.5 and less ambitious than the XO-2, it seems reasonable to think that he could emerge. The foundation actively working on the XO-1.5, it seems nevertheless difficult to imagine that a prototype is available before the last quarter of 2010.
[UPDATE 21/11/2010] A first prototype A1 was launched in October 2010.
[UPDATE 02/08/2011] A second prototype A2 was launched in January 2011.
[UPDATE 31/12/2011] A third prototype A3 was launched in June 2011.
[UPDATE 31/12/2011] A machine beta B1 was launched in July 2011.
[UPDATE 31/12/2011] A pre-production version of C1 was launched in September 2011.

The XO-3 was described succinctly by Nicholas Negroponte . It would be great as a single sheet of paper, plastic thin, tight, with a reflective and transmissive color display without opening. It consumes just one watt and cost $ 75.

The XO-3 could be available in 2012.

Clearly, the XO-3, as was the XO-2, is only a concept, direction studied by the foundation. So do not expect more information at this time. The next step is probably a "mock-up" of the type used for the presentation of photos of XO-2.

[UPDATE 23/12/2009] Images of the mock-up have been published by Yves Behar on his site .
[UPDATE 30/05/2010] The foundation announced a partnership with Marvell to produce by January 2011 a first version of a tablet that is the basis of the XO-3.
[UPDATE 31/12/2011] A first prototype A1 (just the motherboard) was born in December 2011.

Or olpc OLPC?

Now that we have completed this overview of hardware and tracks studied to date by the foundation, it is useful to understand how it works, to emphasize a different part of the interview with Nicholas Negroponte : the separation of the foundation in two different entities. As well commented our friend Christoph Derndorfer in OLPC News , this is important to understand the view that we have just presented.

The foundation has indeed split into two entities:

• The association supports olpc deployment, developments and support,
• The OLPC Foundation support to publicize the project and performed research and development.

The XO-1, XO-1.5 and, soon, the XO-1.75 are the responsibility of the association olpc which will probably be under the supervision of Chuck Kane which is the current mission.
The XO-2 and XO-3 are each the responsibility of the foundation that Nicholas Negroponte is the visionary. The foundation then feed the association, in the same way that the engineering departments of car manufacturers supply them with "concept cars". All "concept cars" do not see the day (that's what happened to the XO-2) but the ones who breathe the dynamics in the automotive industry.
One can only hope that the OLPC foundation will continue to inspire ideas that will achieve a little dream of one computer per child.

Note that the diagram at the beginning of the article is freely available here in PDF format and we will try to update it regularly as and when announcements of the foundation.