OLPC set to release a modular, hybrid laptop that borrows from Project Ara's playbook

[Shawn Knight]

Remember One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), the organization that builds educational devices for kids in the developing nations? They’re set to announce a new XO-branded system soon that looks to borrow a page from Project Ara’s playbook.

Ink, Bits & Pixels was recently poking around on One Education’s (OLPC’s partner non-profit in Australia) website and found something quite interesting. The first of a few images shows what appears to be the rear of a hybrid device with multiple modular components a la Google’s upcoming smartphone platform.

The color-coded components appear to be a CPU module, a battery module, a camera module and a connectivity module. Another photo shows the same modules from a different angle as well as another that could be an interchangeable display.

The publication reached out to One Education and received a reply back from Paul Cotton who said they’ve been working hard on the XO-infinity for the last year and things are finally getting to the point where they can show people. Acknowledging the photos, Cotton said they gives users a pretty good idea of what to expect and why they are so excited.

He concluded by noting an official announcement is coming in the next week or two and jokingly admitted that they need to cover their tracks better.

As the publication correctly notes, the OLPC initiative has struggled quite a bit since it was conceived in 2005. Between setbacks like expensive hardware, short battery life and cancelled products, what OLPC really could use is a partner like Google or Intel.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/59806-olpc-set-release-modular-hybrid-laptop-borrows-project.html

 

[Guest]

OLFM = One Laptop For Me

 

[Arris]

Doing this with a smartphone with SOC designs is somewhat of a challenge as some functionality that is currently part of the System on a chip might need to be split from it requiring cooperation from SOC makers. Doing this with a laptop to me would mean making compromises compared to the connections currently used for components. With basic models I can't see an issue with it, but there is a reason why laptops opt for CPU soldered directly to a motherboard, and desktop motherboards have the existing array of pin connections on the motherboard socket and not just a single little connection. And enclosing performance components that generate a lot of heat in colourful little enclosures wouldn't be a good move either. A better move would be getting ISO or other standards accepted for battery connections, PSU connections and such. Memory is fine, MXM graphics daughter boards are ok (although as I've found myself not always upgrade-able), MSata is fine, and also wifi modules.

To me this is just dumbing down rather than revolutionizing a device. I see one of the key benefits to the Ara project is allowing components to be upgraded so we aren't throwing away whole devices constantly, often wasting rare resources. I'm not sure this can be applied to the OLPC device as the manufacturers of the components are often changing pin counts on CPUs, wattage required for GPUs etc.