Calling all xo owners in London

If you follow my photostream on Flickr, you may have noticed that a couple of months ago I excitedly posted pictures of a little green laptop that I had had posted to me from Canada. The laptop is called an xo (pronounced as the letters, ‘ex oh’), which is the laptop produced by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organisation. You may have seen a previous version in the news some time back, which had a hand crank to power it. Well, that was a marketing mockup, and the hand crank has since been dropped for a variety of good reasons (the movement might have damaged the laptop, and it’s better to allow a variety of power attachments to be used with it), but the laptop still embodies the same kind of idea: it’s designed to be a low-cost laptop for children in poorer parts of the world.

So why have I got one, and how did I get it? Well, I bought mine through eBay, which some people have said is bad, but is recommended by the organisation itself as a quick way for developers to get hold of an xo. There was an official way to buy an xo last December, when OLPC ran a ‘give one, get one’ offer where you’d buy two xos, but one would go to a child in a poorer country. I would have loved to have gotten one this way, but the offer was only open to those in the USA and Canada. So I had to turn to eBay instead, paying an inflated price (and then having to pay customs import charges).

Why have I done this? Partly it’s to show support in the One Laptop Per Child program, which I think is a wonderful, idealistic and forward-thinking idea. Partly also it’s to explore the cutting-edge technology and thinking which has gone into the laptop’s design (including a low-power screen that you can read in direct sunlight and effortless wireless networking and collaboration). As well as this though, I’d like to try and help the mission directly, by helping to develop and produce some of the programs (called ‘activities’) which sit on the laptop. In particular, I think some of the ideas and concepts that I’ve worked on at the Science Museum, including the Launchball game which has been so successful, could easily be applied to the xo. I doubt Launchball could be fully re-created on the xo (it’s pretty complicated and processor-intensive), but something similar adopting the same science-based principles could be achieved.

I’m no way near being able to produce or code any of this yet, however, which is why I’m interested in hooking up with other London-based xo users and developers, or even just anyone who wants to learn more about the project. To this end, I’ve set up an OLPC London mailing list, and will look to host a group meeting once I’ve found enough members. So, if you live in London (or nearby), and have an xo, please join the group. Alternatively you can contact me at frankie@frankieroberto.com.

I’ll keep this blog updated with progress into the future.

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