More than 50 new tablet computers are expected to debut at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. But only one is meant for people in the poorest regions of the world, and comes with a hand crank as an accessory.
Known as the XO 3.0, the rugged green and white device has an eight-inch screen and was designed by the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child, which in 2008 launched the XO laptop, a device for people who are normally far from the minds of most computing companies.
At a press preview held before the official opening of CES on Tuesday, OLPC's chief technology officer, Edward McNierney, told Technology Review that the new device could be used by children as young as five.
"We're trying to provide a low-power, low-cost environment for education," he said. "One of the things we're working on now is software experiments to see if children in completely illiterate communities, who don't go to school, can teach themselves to read."
daniel rezac on 23 Mar 12Many school buildings are in a terrible state. Even in seemingly advanced western nations many old schools resemble architectural catastrophes that, along with post-war urban tower blocks and the shopping malls of the 1950s, have largely been left to the crumble of rust. In the last few years, though, there has been a renaissance in school building design based on a reimagining of learning spaces (pdf) that has mirrored the advance in our understandings of education-oriented information and communication technologies (ICT)
