One Laptop Per Child Frames Next Generation of Revolutionary XO Laptop

Second-generation XO laptop will continue to break through
technology and cost barriers to deliver affordable learning tools for
children in the poorest countries
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(Business Wire)--
One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a non-profit organization focused on
providing educational tools to help children in developing countries
"learn learning," announced today that work is already underway on a
second- generation version of its revolutionary XO laptop computer.
Leveraging new advances in technology, the primary goal of the "XO-2"
will be to advance new concepts of learning as well as to further
drive down the cost of the laptop so that it is affordable for volume
purchase by developing nations.

"Based on feedback from governments, educators and most important,
from the children themselves, we are aggressively working to lower the
cost, power and size of the XO laptop so that it is more affordable
and useable by the world's poorest children," said Nicholas
Negroponte, founder and chairman of One Laptop per Child. "The
delivery of the first generation XO laptop has sparked tremendous
global interest in the project and provided valuable input on how to
make the XO laptop an even better learning tool moving forward."

"One Laptop per Child and the XO laptop are crucial to the
fulfillment of the proposed UN Ninth Millennium Goal: to ensure that
every child between the ages of 6 and 12 has immediate access to a
personal laptop computer by 2015," said Nirj Deva, Member of the
European Parliament. "It's only through access to education that young
people will be able to develop the skills necessary to compete
globally and to develop the solutions required to break the cycles of
poverty, disease and malnutrition. Learning unites the child with the
world, binds the village into a community, and joins that community to
the global village."

The first generation XO laptop went into production in early
November 2007, and there are approximately 600,000 units in deployment
in a number of countries including Peru, Uruguay, Mongolia, Haiti,
Rwanda, Mexico, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the
US and Canada (as a result of the Give One Get One charitable giving
campaign that ran last November 12 - December 31, 2007). Key goals for
the XO-2 include:

-- Cost Reduction - Set in early 2005, the original target price
of the XO laptop was $100. Although that target has not yet
been met (it is now at $188), it is clear that OLPC must aim
for an even lower target price of $75. New developments in
display, processor and other hardware and software
technologies will make it possible to achieve the $75 target
in the future.

-- Lower Power Consumption - While the first generation XO laptop
already requires just one-tenth (2-4 watts versus 20-40 watts)
of the electrical power necessary to run a standard laptop,
the XO-2 will reduce power consumption even further to 1 watt.
This is particularly important for children in remote and
rural environments where electricity is scarce or
non-existent. Lowering the power consumption will reduce the
amount of time required for children to generate power
themselves via a hand crank or other manual mechanisms.

-- Smaller Footprint - The XO-2 laptop will be about half the
size of the first generation device and will approximate the
size of a book. The new design will make the XO laptop lighter
and easier for children to carry with them to and from school
or wherever they go. The XO-2 will continue to be in a green
and white case and sport the XO logo in a multitude of colors
that allow children to personalize the laptop as their own
possession.

-- Enhanced Book Experience - Dual-touch sensitive displays will
be used to enhance the e-book experience, with a dual-mode
display similar to the current XO laptop. The design provides
a right and left page in vertical format, a hinged laptop in
horizontal format, and a flat two-screen wide continuous
surface that can be used in tablet mode. Younger children will
be able to use simple keyboards to get going, and older
children will be able to switch between keyboards customized
for applications as well as for multiple languages. The
dual-touch display is being designed by Pixel Qi, which was
founded in early 2008 by Mary Lou Jepsen, former chief
technology officer of One Laptop per Children and a leading
expert on display technology.

"It's crucial that the design of the XO laptop produce something
that is both highly functional and a lot of fun for children to use,"
said Yves Behar, founder of the fuseproject, a San-Francisco-based
design and branding firm, and the industrial designer of the XO
laptop. "Children have an amazing capacity to let us know how they use
the laptop and what they want. The design of the next-generation XO is
in response to their passion for learning, for sharing with each
other, and for self-expression."

Availability of the XO-2 is planned for delivery in 2010. XO-1.5
will be released in the spring of 2009 with the same design as the
first generation but with fewer physical parts and at a lower cost
than XO-1.

About One Laptop per Child

One Laptop per Child (OLPC at http://www.laptop.org) is a
non-profit organization created by Nicholas Negroponte and others from
the MIT Media Lab to design, manufacture and distribute laptop
computers that are sufficiently inexpensive to provide every child in
the world access to knowledge and modern forms of education. These XO
laptops are rugged, open source, and so energy efficient that they can
be powered by a child manually. Mesh networking gives many machines
Internet access from one connection.

Media:
For One Laptop per Child
Kyle Austin, 781-487-4603
Jackie Lustig, 781-487-4664
press@racepointgroup.com

Copyright Business Wire 2008