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20 April 2009, 09:20

OLPC XO 1.5 Laptop gets a new VIA processor

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The OLPC project developers have announced an upgraded version of their XO-1 laptop, the XO-1.5. The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project is a non-profit organisation who's mission is to provide children across the world with low cost laptops for the purposes of self-education.

The current OLPC, the XO-1, uses an x86 Geode chip from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). The XO-1.5 is based on the design of the XO-1, but will use a new VIA C7-M processor with clock ranges from 400MHz to 1GHz. The OLPC Tech Team's goal with the re-design is to match the XO-1 power consumption. The refreshed model will use the new VIA VX855 chipset that includes the memory interface, 3D graphics engine, USB, SDIO and video decoder on a single chip. The memory in the XO-1.5 has been increased to 1 GB of RAM and 4GB of flash storage, with an option for 8 GB. The OLPC XO laptops use the Sugar Learning Platform from Sugar Labs, an open source desktop environment, designed for use by children. The updated XO-1.5 is expected to ship with an OLPC 8.2.x software release, modified to support the new hardware.

An early sample of the new XO-1.5 motherboard for developers is expected to be available at the end of May. Several hundred prototypes for software development and testing are expected to start shipping in late August of this year.

The next version of the OLPC, the XO-2, will be a dual-screen device and will released under an "open source hardware programme" according to Nicholas Negroponte, the leader of the OLPC project. The XO-2 is expected to be released in 2010.

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(crve)

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