The One Laptop Per Child project launches this year. The BBC is reporting that the first ‘XO’ machines could reach users by July.
The XO will work in a different way to ‘normal’ laptop computers in that they will have no hard-disk, just ‘flash’ memory and most of it’s functions are designed for operating in a wireless network environment. The operating system, ‘Sugar’, is a cut-down version of Linux and is designed to work differently from either Windows or Apple machines.
I think this is going to be a very interesting machine. I’m wondering though how the internet connectivity is going to be achieved through the ‘Mesh’ network. Presumably they will have to be plugged into a server somewhere in the wireless network generated by the machines. Who is going to provide this? Are arrangements being made with ISPs? Am I getting the wrong end of the stick?