In a noble mission to bring technology access for every child, one Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is planning a strange distribution tactics: XO-3 tablet to be airdropped into remote areas to kids just pick up and start using, without instructions or people to guide them.
Speaking at the Open Mobile SUMMIT yesterday, OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte revealed that the group will be "literally take a tablet and dropping them from a helicopter."
OLPC designed a 10-inch XO-3 tablet to be child-friendly. Pixel Qi Tablet sports a hybrid screen to both read the e-ink LCD for normal mode and video, and will come preloaded with one hundred books. Apparently the tablets will also be able to withstand a drop of 30-foot and can be left out in the rain.
XO-3 is cheap–projected to cost under $ 100-but still throw them out of a helicopter seems a bit extreme.
Negroponte showed confidence in the approach to the XO-3 is quite easy to use for the kids to just take it without any instruction at all. He cited the "hole in the wall" experiment which previously supported this hands-off approach to teaching kids computer literacy. OLPC will check back in a year to see how the work plan for the program.