The promise of two screens for less than half price

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 21 May 2008 17:17

Opinion and Analysis

It is in this climate of a crumbling dream that Nicholas Negroponte has boldly announced the OLPC vision of a new XO model to be delivered by 2010. Incredibly, the new model is envisaged to be significantly more advanced and complex (dual touch screens and smaller footprint) but targeted to sell at the incredibly low price point of $75.

How such a machine as the XO-2 could be produced and sold for $75 is something that Negroponte has yet to explain. No doubt the skeptics who watched as the $100 laptop metamorphosed into the $200 laptop are not waiting with baited breath.

As for the time frame of 2010, well two years is an eternity in the world of high technology. It is also a long time for a rapidly fragmenting organisation that has yet to prove its worth to continue to stay afloat.

Come 2010, pardon me if I'm more concerned as to whether General Motors can deliver the much anticipated Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid car than whether the OLPC (if it still exists) delivers a $150 dual-screen laptop that was originally promised to cost $75.