[IAEP] [support-gang] Questions about the new XO Tablet and Software

[John Watlington]

On Jan 9, 2013, at 2:03 AM, C. Scott Ananian wrote:

> These questions deserve a complete response, but I don't have all the answers myself.
> (I'm "OLPC Foundation", not "OLPC Association".)

As OLPC Association, I can't do much better.   The engineering team (sitting around Scott)
hasn't seen this software either...

Scott talked about the software.   In a likewise manner, the OLPC engineering team had
nothing to do with the hardware of the OLPC Learning Tablet.  It is a Chinese design,
probably running on a Rockchip SoC (that is the company name, not the SoC name).

The XO-4 Touch was also announced at CES!   This is where we are currently
focused.   Place your orders now!

Cheers,
wad

> The short version of the story is that OLPC-A has licensed out the XO name to two groups, in an effort to increase the penetration of the OLPC ideas.  One group created the "XO Learning" environment, which is a skinned version of Android loaded with a bunch of licensed educational software (from sesame street, little pim, etc).  The other group created the "XO Learning tablet", which is to be sold in large quantities at Walmart.  The "XO Learning tablet" runs the "XO Learning environment", and I think the idea is that eventually there may be multiple hardware licensees running the "XO Learning environment" being sold by various retailers.  This would allow price competition to bring down the price of educational tablets for 1st world retail sale.
> 
> The software isn't really "by OLPC", more like "inspired by and licensed from OLPC".  That said, it doesn't look half-bad in the demos.  I'm cautiously optimistic this might get some good educational content in front of another 200,000 or so kids.  Fingers crossed...
>   --scott
> 
> -- 
>       ( http://cscott.net )
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