The first Netbooks to arrive on the scene back in October 2007 had tiny screens, dinky keyboards, limited processing power and many in the computer industry laughed.
The public didn’t though; they snapped Netbooks up like hotcakes leaving those that had laughed standing on the side lines with their mouths open in absolute shock.
Little did anyone know back then that these little things were going to shake up the computer industry in a way that hadn’t happened before and start a raging netbook war.
Now we see Netbooks in all shapes, sizes and colours, with all sorts of specs, as each company does their best to produce the one that will capture the imagination of the public in the way that the first Asus Eee pc ones did a couple of years ago.
So ok you might be sick of hearing about this new netbook or that new netbook as you’ve heard it all before but the One Laptop Per Child Group caught my attention with their news of new versions of the XO Netbooks, one of which includes an unbreakable netbook.
Apparently the new unbreakable netbook, the XO 3.0 will cost well under $100 but it won’t be available until 2012. This one will be made from a single sheet of flexible plastic and will be “unbreakable and without holes it” said the OLPC press release.
The Inner workings of the XO 3.0 will come from another netbook, the XO 1.75, the new version of which will be available in 2011 and which follows on from the XO 1.5 which is due out next month.
The XO 1.5 is the same industrial design as the XO 1.0 and will run both the Linux and Windows operating systems.
“The first version of OLPC’s child-centric laptop, the XO, is a revolution in low-cost, low-power computing. The XO has been distributed to more than 1.4 million children in 35 countries and in 25 languages,” said Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of One Laptop per Child.
“To fulfil our mission of reaching 500 million children in all remote corners of the planet, OLPC will continue to innovate in design and performance. Because we are a non-profit, we hope that industry will copy us.”
The OLPC have a mission to help every child in the world have access to modern education, including those in the remotest and poorest communities and to provide them with laptops that are robust, functional and affordable.
