The XO and the "One Laptop Per Child" project

I was lucky enough to get a hands-on play with an XO laptop at last night's Geelong web tech meetup.

The XO is a small, robust laptop computer that has been specifically designed for the "One Laptop Per Child" (OLPC) movement.

The OLPC project has a vision of getting a simple, rugged laptop into the hands of every underpriveleged child in the world to enable education and opportunities that they would otherwise not have.

The laptop itself is impressive, especially considering the mere $180 price tag. It's sturdy with a solid casing and a small screen that's made to be hardy and easily carryable. It's waterproof and dustproof and uses very little power, lasting around three hours under average usage.

From a technical point of view the XO runs a stripped-down version of Fedora linux with a python-based GUI called 'Sugar' that controls display and most of the software. A 1GB solid-state drive runs slowly but is very stable and the rest of the computer is pretty much the same. For the price it's amazing, but it's not a powerhouse by any standard.

The software that ships by default is mostly educational and fun, with maths games, tools, language apps and some standard audio and video recording.

It's also based around collaboration, with automatic networking to allow easy sharing between local XOs.

But more than just the software and the collaboration, giving these laptops to kids means that (if they've got the appropriate infrastructure available) they can access the world wide web. All those free books, encyclopedias, tutorials, lectures and just plain knowledge will be available to them.

The ease of use is great, the interface is simple and effective and the applications that we tried were straightforward and easy to use. At the meetup last night the XO kept a table full of web geeks interested and entertained, partly because we wanted to see what it was all about but also because it is simply fun to use.

If you'd like to learn more about the OLPC project or get involved, visit the OLPC project website.