Talk:XO-2

learning

Q. Other than the lower price, how will the new features impact the learning experience? --Walter 06:30, 22 May 2008 (EDT)

A: Perhaps the interaction between two children sharing or playing every one at one touch screen. MEXICO, AGS dagoflores

UI

Q. Will XO-2 run a next-gen version of the Sugar UI. -- 12:13, 22 May 2008 (EST)

Congratulations

Maybe this is not the proper place but I must voice or type my opinion, the OLPC team is doing a great JOB, and the redesign is GREAT...THANKS... -- MEXICO -- AGS -- --Dagoflores 21:58, 28 May 2008 (EDT)

HI I WANT 2 KNOW THE EXACT RELEASE DATE OF THE XO-2 BECAUSE MY B-DAY IS COMIN UP AND I WANT IT

It looks as if APPLE took the idea of XO-2 for its i-PAD???

Other questions

Q. Will XO-2 have a...

• GPS unit?
• built-in handle?
• repositionable camera?
• longer battery life?

thank you. 20:27, 22 May 2008 (EDT)

What is the power source..??? This being a concept device can use an alternative power source like solar cell instead of a lithium ion cell or a mechanical crank that can be hooked and taken off if done charging...

yet more questions

Q. will the XO-2 ...

• be as physically durable as its forerunner?
• have the same mesh range without the ears?
• come with a tablet pen?
• be scratch-resistant/easy to keep clean, considering all the finger- and (likely) dirt-touching going on?
• be able to adjust the brightness of each screen separately, to account for the glare of the monitor?

-- 1:15, 23 May 2008 (EST)

screen specs?

• Same pixel format as the XO-1 or something else?
• Good pixel count? 1920x1080 (HDTV) is good for media compatibility, and the 960x540 you get with 2x upscaling is good for the web
• Resolution? 254 DPI is pretty much ideal. It's 0.1 mm pitch, allowing the screen to be an exact size in mm.

• Touch resolution?
• Pressure sensitivity? (so kids are encouraged to crack the screen)

USB

I don't recommend that you put in USB. Extensions like mice and keyboards probably won't be necesary anyway. For external memory, xD or SD would be better. 68.144.170.184 18:51, 23 May 2008 (EDT)

what about upgrading off usb? if this is removed that could be bad. USB should be included in my opinon, make a controler that can switch off the power to it manually or something.

I agree, USB is the defacto for add-on peripherals. Think being able to hook up medical monitors, or ethernet, or some engineering devices. But should have ability to manually turn off usb to conserve power.

I have to say USB is mighty useful. If there's a way to give the user away to power the port up only when used. Dose the USB draw alot of power when no device is connected? If that is the case, could there be more efficient USB devices.

>>If you eliminate the USB there's no simple way to get +5 volt power for MEASURE-like activities. Here's my thought (I've done some thinking about this, actually, with respect to the feature-creeped, overdesigned XO-1). Provide exactly ONE port. This will at least take care of (i) a mouse, and (ii) more than enough power for MEASURE-like activities, and (3) you can use it to provide for memory I/O via a flash "dongle", (iv) a USB expansion "hub". You definitely need some kind of high-speed port. The product will be a gonner without it. (I'm not kidding). Bill Wvbailey 23:54, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

In the words of Paul Polak from his book Out Of Poverty, "the design needs to be infinitely expandable". If you take out USB, you have destroyed its ability to expand, and that is bad "practical design". There are many devices that are currently available, and yet to be made, that can work in unison with the XO laptops that will benefit individuals as well as communities. Please do whatever you must to allow for at least one USB port, that will make a world of difference.

Suggestions

What about covering the outside with solar cells, so that it recharge when not in use.

neat idea, but would that not wear out the battery quicker?

What about a card screen to avoid the player at each screen to peek into other player screen when playing lets say "Submarines"? MEXICO -- AGS -- Dagoflores at Cyber café-

How about adding a CD/DVD/Blu Ray disk player?

Optical media players tend to be very easily broken by dust, dirt, high humidity, and vibration. They would be perpetually failing, thereby raising the costs of a deployment above what would be budgeted for by the government concerned. An external USB player would be sufficient for those situations where one is required. -- Quozl 04:27, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Follow-on or Replacement?

Is the XO-2 meant as a follow-on to the current product or as a replacement for it?

To me the two seem quite different. The XO-2 seems more 'book-like' It seems more designed for more passive 'reception' of information (browse and read) rather than creation (etoys and pippy).

It also seems to be aimed younger -- smaller, lighter, simpler.

If this is an add-on, I see nothing wrong in this. They could be pitched to different markets and needs, and it demonstrates another direction that child-friendly computing can go.

As a replacement, I'm more concerned. Due to what I see as its more passive nature, I wonder if this represents a backing away by OLPC from the 'constructionist tool' approach of the original XO.

Rmyers 16:40, 27 May 2008 (EDT)

To me it does not look passive, in fact I visualise two children playing an educational competitive game, each child typing in each screen (see photos of XO-2) ---MEXICO---AGS--- --Dagoflores 22:04, 28 May 2008 (EDT)

It is passive. Typing on a hard surface is far more damaging to the hands than typing on a keyboard. It's also far more difficult, error-prone, and slow.

After hearing concerns about the ease of typing on a touch screen, I was wondering if it would be possible to make slight indentations on the lower screen, indicating where each key would go by feel. This, of course, would not affect use in book mode or what I'm going to call, "Scrabble mode". Another Idea would be to mount the lower screen on some kind of spring/membrane/squishy-thing to simulate the tactile sensations of actually pressing down keys to type. SolarDirigible

I'm not sure that concerns about "poor ergonomics" of touch screens are entirely insurmountable, certainly neither Apple nor MS think so. [1][2][3] Cjl 02:03, 5 June 2008 (EDT)

I think a hand writing recognition would be usful for this. However, it must operate at the hardware level or it will turn out to be garbage. the same with the keyboard operation.If these are on top of the OS on the main processor were just asking for trouble. I've been playing with a coolrunnerII CPLD development board. It's supposed to be power efficient. I think a similar combinational logic device should be used for the recognition operations for the touch screen. It's reflashable too. The advandage here is parallel operation. no program counter. no colliding interrupts.Script Cat 16:07, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Redesign of the software environment?

I realize this might be a restatement of one of the below questions, but anyhow.

What exactly are we going to do to Sugar? Are we going to redesign the Journal? Rewrite it? Are we going to keep it the same? Is the XO-2 going to run the exact same Sugar as the XO-1? What changes will Activity developers have to make for the XO-2?

--->>> Important question, somebody, please reply.

My personal opinion: Redesign the Journal. The existing system for the XO-1 is nice, but it is tedious -- I have several hundred entries. Finding anything is a pain. Even a rewrite with better searching capabilities (exclude all entries of type Write, for example) would be terrific. Also, while Sugar is good as-is, ATM, it needs improvement. My XO takes about three seconds to turn on, start to finish. There is absolutely *no* reason it should take so long to turn on. My old laptop, a PII (400MHz) with a 5400RPM hard drive takes less than 90 seconds, with apache, cupsys, gdm/gnome, and dozens of other programs that are not required for the XO . . . Why? Why not, for a change, does the Sugar dev team take a step back, and actually try profiling Sugar? Making it more efficient? Removing some features that are not 100% necessary? The #1 thing computer users hate is waiting, in my experience . . . Why should a child in Peru be any different.

Anyhow, my two cents. --kawk 23:28, 10 June 2008 (EDT)

It's the Journal itself that bugs me. I wish the journal would just disappear. (No offense to it's skilled creators.) 76.70.116.200 14:14, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Redesign in progress

There is a redesign occurring, and it should hit long before the XO-2. Look at pages starting at Design for details. A lot of this is currently in joyride. Performance is also supposed to be improved. Gee, I wish I had a second XO so I could put Joyride on it without worrying about affecting general utility of the one I have. Rmyers 11:21, 11 June 2008 (EDT)

Screen

Will the XO-2 also have the ability to be read in sunlight without backlight? Would be very important, I think...

Compatible with existing activities?

Will an activity written for the XO-1 even function in the XO-2 environment or will the activity have to be re-coded for the XO-2? -- Davewa 19:53, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Sugar APIs are pretty high-level, activities already should re-lay out for different screen orientations and run on other screen resolutions. So, maybe?! -- skierpage 01:03, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Power over USB, not Power over Ethernet

I see under "Some other features that have been discussed":

• Power over Ethernet (so laptops charge while networked, in school)

I was a big fan of PoE in the early 2000s, but apart from telcos it has completely failed to take off and the 48V power supply is no longer relevant. PoE doesn't even seem to be in use in data centers.

It would be much better to make a laptop that can run from powered USB. Then the laptops don't need to ship with a wall wart power supply, they can leverage an entire sub-industry of USB generators, multi-connector power supplies, etc.

USB provides 5V 500mA supply (in high-powered mode). XO power draw indicates a max XO-1 power draw of 6 W, so if the XO-2 consumes 40% less power it might run off USB power alone. Battery and power says "XOs need a DC input ranging from 11 volts to 25 volts to charge the battery inside" and presumably much more watts. I understand there are hacks and options like doubled connectors to get more power off USB. If USB power plus hacks isn't enough, Green Plug universal power adapter extends the USB connector to provide up to 24 V. Green Plug is trying to get it adopted in the face of Intel's pathological Not Invented Here syndrome. Die Wall Wart power supplies, DIE! -- skierpage 01:02, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Processor

This page mentions "suggestions from the audience" regarding the processor choice. I am certainly biased, but I would love to see an ARM Cortex-A8 used. In particular, the OMAP3 series, but any ARM Cortex-A8 would be much faster than the XO-1 processor and most would be much lower power. Since I haven't seen the public discussion (and I'm sure there has been some) I'll look for the flames now. --Jkridner 02:38, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Pen support?

"Tablet mode - when flat, the handbook provides a surface for drawing, writing, and games." Does that mean pen support? --Jhartmann 20:35, 30 June 2010 (UTC)