One Laptop Per Child comes back with tablet, new OS, and touchscreen laptop

At CES today, One Laptop Per Child unveiled a revitalized line of gadgets for learning, including an education-specific tablet.

Other announcements include a new touchscreen version of the organization’s green-and-white laptop and a new software suite called the XO Learning System, an Android-based collection of apps for “child-centric learning.”

The XO tablet is a fairly standard Android tablet, but it features content — including a custom-built app store and an e-reader application — for young learners. The tablet is a 7-inch design from Sakar International, which will license the unit for online and in-store sales.

As for the XO Learning System, it seeks to capture students’ imaginations and aspirations, bringing books, multimedia content, interactive games, and content from big-name partners like Sesame Street into the educational mix. The tablets will also have full access to the Google Play marketplace of books, apps, and mobile games, but strict parental controls will be available

From the OLPC press release:

Every child has dreams, and XO Learning directs the child’s passion, creativity and energy for these dreams into a new user interface that has 12 dreams. Such dreams include “I want to be” an artist, a musician and a scientist. Each dream features a rich learning experience and applications, books, games, and videos that allow children ages 3 to 12 to naturally explore their dreams and learn at the same time.

The new laptops represent the fourth generation of OLPC hardware. It features a Marvell ARMADA multicore running at 1GHz as well as a Neonode touchscreen with multitouch capabilities. The dual-screen feature allows kids to use the laptop in full sunlight, and these devices will ship with Sugar educational software. Sugar gives students access to more than 300 apps and three programming environments for kids.

[Photo credits: OLPC, Dean Takahashi]