Behind Your Business

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), the nonprofit organization that created a radical, inexpensive laptop for children in developing countries, is working on another vision. It wants to build a $75 tablet computer to succeed its XO laptop.

Called the XO-3 and targeted for release in 2012, the 8.5-inch by 11-inch concept is entirely a thin touchscreen with no physical buttons. The tablet was designed by Yves Behar, founder of FuseProject, which also designed the XO.

'Simple and Practically Frameless'

Behar told news media that OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte "asked for something extremely simple and practically frameless," with the content "the prime visual element." The XO-3, with an eight-gigahertz processor, is intended to be rugged, all plastic, waterproof, half the iPhone's thickness, and requiring less than a watt of power.

Other planned features include an ultra-low-power screen, a camera on the back, and a fingerhold ring in the corner. Instead of a charging port, wireless induction through the rubber frame is envisioned.

OLPC's original vision, the XO, has had some impact in the developing world, although not the huge footprint once envisioned. Originally touted as a $100 laptop, its price is now closer to $170, and it hasn't reached its original goal of placing computers in the hands of tens of millions of schoolchildren.

Negroponte blamed Intel, among others, for undercutting OLPC's efforts in the third world by offering its own low-end model. Costs, third-world politics, and issues of long-term support have also impacted the organization's sales.

'Threaten to Build It'

OLPC is trying another route for its newest vision. The XO-3 will have an open architecture and other PC makers will be encouraged to make the device. "We don't necessarily need to build it," Negroponte told Forbes magazine. "We just need to threaten to build it."

In the history books, OLPC's success might be weighted...