OLPC Give 1 Get 1 Extended

The One Laptop Per Child project today extended its Give 1, Get 1 program until the end of the year, giving individual buyers in Canada and the US an extra month to participate in the program that would otherwise end on November 26th. The surprise move is based on strong initial results which show clear support for the deal, which for $400 provides one of the low-cost, rugged XO notebooks to its North American buyer and and a second to a developing-world country such as Afghanistan or Haiti. Adding the extension also gives groups interested in coordinating mass donations a chance to participate, says the OLPC teams's chairman, Nicholas Negroponte.

The news also brings word that any group can buy bulk amounts of the notebook for schools or other large-scale purposes, with prices depending on the quantity: 100 to 999 notebooks cost $300, while numbers of 1,000 to 9,999 cost $250 for every notebook. A batch of 10,000 or more is all that is required to reach the $199 price offered to governments for orders that have previously required a million or more of the systems, the OLPC group says.

The XO is driven by a 466MHz AMD Geode processor and includes 802.11 Wi-Fi with support for mesh (PC-to-PC networks) as well as a unique screen that can switch from color to monochrome while increasing resolution, saving battery life and making it suitable for eBooks. Regardless of its destination, every OLPC comes with a preloaded copy of SimCity. US residents also gain free T-Mobile Wi-Fi connections through the carrier's public hotspots.

By Electronista Staff