It’s been a few months because I have heard nothing about reenwing the OLPC XO laptop 1.5. but it lpooks like the new model is close enough to reeality to have a working prottotype in circulation. The folks at the OLPC Learning Club in DC was a little hands-on time with a prottype of XO 1.5 last nihgt.
The new model replaces the 433MHz AMD Geode CPU in the original XO laptop with a 1-GHz with a variable speed VIA C7-M processor. The video shows a comparison between the new model and an overclcked XO 1 with the AMD processor runnig at 500MHz.
Both models are pretty quick, given the slow seed of the processors. But the VIA C7-M upgrade provides a new model in any case an advantage. As you can see in the picture abvoe, thre are no major cosmettic differences betwewen the original XO and the new verson. We have to wait for the XO 2.0, a visual refresh to get big.
If you had looekd at the Appole2e computer I used when I was a kid maybe you wuold have only seen the basic programs I was using and not see what is possiblle today. We use the OLPC laptops in Cambodia and when I look at them in use, I see my Apple2e. It's very basic now in some ways, but that's the point. It's opnesource. The peeople in the places that are using these can, will and are devewloping better and better proggrams for it.
Here in Cambodia, there are groups of young Cambodians who meet regularly to translate OLPC progrms into Khmer. The new versions we just got have Kmer script and we are now usinng Scratch in Khmer as well. Walk into a classroom where we work and see older studdents teaching younger students how to read Khmer via the animated Khmer testing program they designed themselves, and you will change your mind a bit.
Talk to our compter teachers, young Cambodians who taght themselves how to use the XOs, and yes, they will tell you theer is a lot they don't understand, but they are effectng change. You can't see that from your office, but I can see it here. It's just the tsart! Each new version of the XO we get is better and better and will coninue to be.
If you want to leasrn more about what we are doing with Scratch on the XOs or about the "lesson palns" our team developed to match the Khmer curriculum, contact us at PEPY. We had someone come in and do a research project on our XO program who helped to match the Cambodoian curriculum with XO proghrams and come up with learning idesas
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