The next generation XO Laptop will be a smaller, dual-touchscreen device consuming just 1W of power and is scheduled for launch by 2010 says Nick Negroponte of the OLPC project.
Laptop Mag were at the launch event today and report that the device will take on a dual-format design that can be used in book or notebook PC modes.
Its an interesting concept although at 1W, which I assume is without Wifi, you’d have to build this on an extremely low power platform. Moorestown or ARM would be the only contenders which means XP or Vista is out of the question. [Vista won’t run on Moorestown due to architectural limitations around the lack of a PCI bus] Which leaves either the Moblin distribution or something new from Microsoft.
Laptop Magazine. First Look: OLPC XO Generation 2.0
wussy.
I actually wrote a specification for a Pocket PC using this idea. Basically you get maximum screen size and maximum keyboard size. I wish somebody would make one now (with a higher watt requirement is fine.) Make it the same size as the new Sharp and add in a phone spec. and it would blow iPhone out of the water.
If OLPC isn’t not expected to ship this until 2010, and it is now collaborating with Microsoft, perhaps it’s considering Windows 7? (Of course, I think OLPC’s current software stack looks interesting, especially for its intended target. i.e., not most of the people reading this blog.)
I expect that microsoft will be launching 2 seperate operating systems in the near future. 7 is expected to break backwards compatibility (similar to the way OSX broke older mac programs and used an emulator instead) I think microsoft will have a legacy version of the software out as well, for lower performance computers and what not.