Posted 04/28/09 at 09:15:31 AM by Paul Lilly

The ambitious One Laptop Per Child project was started with high hopes of bringing low-cost connected laptops to children in developing countries, an idea that so far has struggled to spread the way it was originally conceived. Giving the project a big boost, the government of India plans to purchase 250,000 of OLPC's XO laptops.

The big order comes as somewhat of a surprise. OLPC had once before tried to win favor in India with a pilot program that saw 20 XO laptops distributed to students in Khairat-Dhangarwada village in the state of Maharashtra, Arstechnica reports. Despite being a success, the country's Ministry of Human Resource Development raised concerns about what adverse health effects might arise from prolonged laptop use.

This time around, the 250,000 laptops will be sent to 1,500 schools, and that might be only the tip of the iceberg. OLPC India CEO Satish Jha said he hopes to ship 3 million laptops in India this year.

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Posted 01/27/09 at 02:06:49 PM by Andy Salisbury

Yesterday AMD announced that they had no plans to replace their aging Geode chip. Its low power consumption made it an ideal candidate for the XO laptops, but now the future for this deal remains uncertain.

“There are no plans for a follow-on product to today's available AMD Geode LX products, but we expect to make this very successful processor available to customers as long as the market demands,” stated Phil Hughes, a spokesman with AMD.

Reportedly AMD is working closely with OLPC to remain the chipmaker for the XO-2 laptop. But, it is expected that given their lack of next-generation low power consumption chips, it will be difficult.

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