Continuing its mission to put connected educational technology into the hands of children worldwide, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) announced today the release of its new XO-4 Touch touchscreen laptop running Android and the Dreams Store, a dedicated XO-Learning App Store that will launch with over 500 apps for OLPCs line of mobile learning devices. The announcement was made today at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
“The new XO-4 Touch is our most evolved laptop yet and provides an unique experience through its dual boot for Linux and Android,” noted Rodrigo Arboleda, CEO of OLPC. “We’ll begin manufacturing the XO-4 in the next few weeks and the first 50,000 are earmarked for Uruguay, which is the first country to adopt OLPC laptops at full one-to-one saturation.”
The XO-4 Touch’s touchscreen interface and Android operating system enable users to take full advantage of the XO-Learning System content that launched with OLPCs award-winning line of XO Tablets last year. The XO-4 Touch announcement continues the momentum of OLPC in the mobile device marketplace following the recently announced expansion of its XO Tablet, designed for OLPC by Yves Behar and the San Francisco-based design studio fuseproject, the latest versions of the affordable XO Tablets making their debut are a new 7-inch XO Tablet and a new 10-inch XO Tablet with Bluetooth keyboard.
To insure direct access to the robust programming developed for the XO-Learning System and support its new XO-4 Touch laptop and new XO Tablet Models, OLPC is launching the Dreams Store, a dedicated XO-Learning App store and the first Android App store customized for children. Curated by OLPC, the Dreams Store will provide access to more than 500 educational apps for children of various ages and skill levels. In addition to new apps, OLPC continues to expand the XO-Learning Systems interface and recently added educational content and activities for new “dreams” such as, XO Banker, XO Entrepreneur, XO Nutritionist, XO DJ and others.
“We’re thrilled by the warm embrace our XO-Learning System has received from parents and educators,” said OLPC Executive Vice President, Giulia D’Amico. “In just twelve months, the XO-Learning System — and its new way of learning via our educational ecosystem — has been adopted by 10 countries and is available in 5 languages. It’s been an amazing first year and we’re looking forward to greater global expansion and user access to our XO-Learning content through the Dreams Store.”
At the heart of OLPC’s laptops and tablets is the XO Learning System. This child-centric interface gives children, parents and educators access to state-of-the-art educational content that has been curated and selected for age-appropriateness and learning value by OLPC. Through OLPC’s unique “Dream” Interface, the XO-Learning System encourages children to create their own learning adventure driven by what they want to be today, or when they grow up. And, to insure that educators are able to take full advantage of the power of the XO Learning System, a new Teacher’s Guide will be available shortly from OLPC.
Famed designer and longtime OLPC collaborator, Yves Behar, Founder and CEO of Fuseproject, noted, “We wanted the user interface and the tablet design to deliver a unified experience that encourages breakthroughs, while still inspiring wonder the same way the first OLPC laptop did for children around the globe.”
The world-class partners currently creating educational content and activities for the XO-Learning System include Barnes & Noble, Oxford University Press, Discovery Kids Puterbugs, TED, Bankeroo, Educatina, Magma Mobile, Square Iglu plus many, many others. OLPC continues to attract new partners to create content and educational activities for the XO-Learning System and several additions will be announced shortly. OLPC continues to attract new partners to create content and educational activities for the XO-Learning System and several additions will be announced shortly.
