Remember One Laptop Per Child? They distributed a few million cheap, brightly-colored XO laptops running a weird version of Linux called "Sugar OS," and then... what happened?
Well, I'm not sure actually. But OLPC Australia is carrying the torch, sort of. This offshoot now calls itself "One Education," and has just announced the Infinity:One. Gone are the weird bulk orders required to get your hands on an OLPC in recent years, now you can just straight pre-order a laptop for $230, which should ship in August.
But other than a distinctive green and the child-proof plastic shell, it's nothing like the XO. In fact, the laptop is hardly familiar to anyone who has been following One Education's Infinity laptop project — which was originally supposed to be modular, and run Android or Sugar OS.
Can you tell the Infinity and the XO are siblings? pic.twitter.com/26HIqIwaSK
— One Education (@One_Education) February 2, 2016
Instead, Infinity:One is just a standard Windows 10 computer, complete with a 10-inch touchscreen (and a handy pen holder, which I appreciate) which pops out from the hinge to do tablet duties. It runs on an Atom processor, not ARM, and it even has a keyboard that looks usable by human hands.
One Education still shares its modular dreams on its website as "Infinity:Concept," so that's nice. But it really does feel like the magic is all gone from the quixotic OLPC project and this Australian offshoot. Infinity:One is just too damn reasonable.