Nonprofit organization One Laptop Per Child on Thursday said it is adding a multitouch screen to the upcoming XO-1.75 laptop and is modifying software to take advantage of the new hardware. The XO-1.75 with a touch-sensitive 8.9-inch screen will start shipping next year. The laptop will run on an Arm processor and is the successor to the current XO-1.5 laptop, which runs on a Via x86 processor. OLPC will also add a multitouch screen on the next-generation XO-3 tablet, which is due to ship in 2012.
Customers could be interested in buying XO-1.75 laptops as low-power replacements to existing XO-1 machines, which don't have touch capabilities, said Chris Ball, lead software engineer for OLPC, in an e-mail. However, OLPC will also sell less-expensive XO-1.75 machines without touchscreens, he said.
OLPC XO-1.75 laptop to get multitouch screen
Posted on Friday, July 09 2010 @ 21:56 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
ComputerWorld reports the next laptops from the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project will feature a 8.9" multitouch screen: