June 11 - 4:40pm EDT   In addition to the headline-grabbing unveiling of the Windows 7-based Archos 9 tablet, Archos has also released the Archos 13 notebook, Archos 10s netbook and the Archos Digital Satchel educational PC for children on Thursday. The Archos 13 is the French company's first notebook PC, sporting a 13.3-inch, 1280x800 screen. Specs include a 10-cell battery, 120GB hard drive and 1.2GHz Intel Celeron Ultra Low Voltage CPU. Thickness is said to be just 1.08 inches, while weight is fixed at 3.3lbs. [full story]

May 13 - 5:55pm EDT   Apple has hired the former director of security architecture at One Laptop per Child, Ivan Krstic, according to ZDNet. Krstic developed the Bitfrost security specification for the OLPC project, which he considers a foolproof system to protect against malware attacks. With the new position at Apple, Krstic will be working on core OS security. [full story]

April 23 - 12:20pm EDT   Indirect OLPC offshoot Pixel Qi is developing a new display that would fulfill three different roles at once, the company's chief Mary Lou Jepsen said today. The panel is characterized for CNET as more advanced than that on the XO-1, which can only switch between an efficient black-and-white mode and a color screen. The new model would have these two features but could also assume an e-paper mode suitable for reading. It's not clear whether this would let images remain on the display when power is shut off, as with most e-book readers. [full story]

April 18 - 12:35am EDT   The One Laptop Per Child project tonight said it would overhaul the XO-1 with a major internal upgrade. The Gen 1.5 update will drop the AMD Geode processor that has been used since launch and instead use a VIA C7-M with a clock speed that varies between 400MHz and 1GHz depending on the amount of heat. By making the swap, OLPC also gets a new chipset that adds 3D acceleration, HD video decoding and surround sound. The combined design is meant to consume no more energy than the current XO-1 while active but to use less power while idle, run faster, and (through component cost drops) ultimately reduce the price. [full story]

March 12 - 10:15am EDT   The One Laptop Per Child project's CTO Ed McNierney today said that the organization's XO-2 notebook will most likely drop AMD's Geode processor in favor of an ARM-based, all-in-one processor. OLPC is "almost" set to implement a new chip and would make the switch both to reduce the power draw as well as to give the portable accelerated graphics and wireless without needing separate chips that would boost the cost. AMD's design is older and simpler by comparison. [full story]

February 27 - 4:50pm EST   The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project announced on Friday it is launching an internship program that will involve as many as 100 teams of university students distribute the XO laptops to children in Africa during the summer of 2009. Undergraduate and graduate students from around the world will be eligible to participate, with each student team receiving 100 XO laptops and related accessories as well as $10,000 to cover operating costs. [full story]

February 20 - 8:10am EST   Pixel Qi on Friday said it's closer to shipping LCD displays that should significantly extend the battery life of notebooks. The technology reduces the dependence on a backlight and instead draws on nearby light from both human-made and natural sources to create the illumination itself, potentially extending a portable's run time by letting the backlight stay off in a brightly-lit environment. Pixel Qi estimates that a notebook with three hours of battery life today would get about 4.5 hours on one of its displays, or about a 50 percent boost, without compromising on display quality. [full story]

January 28 - 5:20pm EST   Computer chipmaker AMD said on Monday it will not be replacing its low-power Geode CPU currently used in devices such as the XO laptop made by the One Laptop Per Child project, UMPCs and set-top boxes, according to a Tuesday report. An AMD spokesperson did reassure those who depend on the current CPU that the company will continue to offer the product as long as there is demand for it. [full story]

November 17 - 9:00am EST   As promised back in September, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) on Monday announced it will once again launch its Give 1 Get 1 program that aims to put a simple, Internet-connected laptop to children in developing countries to help in their education. Anyone can participate in the program by buying two XO laptops for $399, one for themselves and another for a child in a poor country. The other option involves donating as many XO laptops as they want at $199 each. The nonprofit organization's program aims to put more than 1 million laptops into the hands of children in 2008 in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Cambodia, among others, or more than double of what it ... [full story]

October 24 - 4:05pm EDT   A recently performed informal experiment saw an eight-year-old American student pick the Linux version of the XO laptop over the Windows XP version. The eight-year-old, representative of the target audience for the educational notebook, spent an afternoon exploring each notebook, finally picking the Linux version mostly because it had more software that was not yet explored. Each iteration had its pros and cons, however, including the Linux version's slower web browsing and more complicated user interface, at least to those used a Windows interface. [full story]

September 10 - 5:00pm EDT   An ultra-low cost PC was unveiled by HiVision at the IFA show by Chinese manufacturer HiVision, prompting comparisons to and fresh criticism of the OLPC notebook, as the former offers many of the same features at the latter's originally intended price. The Linux-based notebook, called the HiVision miniNote Linux Laptop, reportedly features a MIPS-based processor and 128MB or RAM along with built-in Wi-Fi and just 1GB of flash memory. The paltry amount of memory will be offset with an SDHC card reader and three USB ports. An Ethernet jack will also be standard fare, along with audio inputs and outputs. [full story]

September 8 - 12:55pm EDT   A second run of the One Laptop Per Child project's Give 1 Get 1 program will begin on November 17th, writes Laptop Magazine. The founder of OLPC, Nicholas Negroponte, has announced that beginning on that date, shoppers at Amazon.com will be able to pick up an XO notebook of their own for $399, with a second system being sent to one of the poor countries it was designed for. The first 100,000 to 150,000 people to buy an XO will get theirs immediately, claims Negroponte. [full story]

September 4 - 12:45pm EDT   With Microsoft having finished a version of its Windows XP operating system for the One Laptop Per Child notebook in July, the computer should be nearing its launch date, and a Thursday report seems to confirm this. Citing an OLPC official, the report alleges both Linux-based Sugar and Windows XP operating systems will be available on the low-cost XO laptop, which was designed to help educate kids in developing countries. While the laptop is estimated to launch in about a month, another story from the same source has Amazon selling the laptop in November. [full story]

July 25 - 12:40pm EDT   Microsoft has finally completed the OLPC version of Windows XP, the company has announced. The scaled-down operating system has been released to manufacturing, and is being installed on select versions of the OLPC group's XO notebook, intended mainly for schools in poor countries. The computer uses bare-bones components to reduce cost to approximately $200, such as a smaller screen and flash-based program storage. [full story]

May 27 - 2:35pm EDT   The One Laptop Per Child project's XO2 notebook will use an improved form of multi-touch display when it ships, says Mary Lou Jepsen of the display's creator company, Pixel Qi, in a new interview with Laptop. Instead of using an iPhone-like technique that sandwiches the touch-sensitive layer in between the glass and an LCD, the XO2 will use an in-cell touchscreen where the receptors are woven into the display itself. The process both saves money by reducing the production to a single part and also produces a brighter screen without the need for a surface layer. [full story]