14 DAY TRIAL // Having had a glimpse at Yves Behar's concept / mockup of the new top-to-bottom XO laptop, we couldn't help but wonder: could it just be that Apple is planning on introducing something like this in the nearby future? Could it just be that Apple's next announcement is something close to this?
It may very well be. If you have some idea of how Apple does business, and how much the company loves to innovate, this is pretty much what they'd come up with, and soon.
The designer of this concept "One Laptop per Child" is Yves Behar, who not only has vision when it comes to graphics, but also to specs. In his opinion, this is what the next "$100 laptop" should be like:
“We pushed the boundaries of what a laptop could be by lowering the cost dramatically, being green (no heavy metals, lowest energy consumption ever), and a human-driven unique design approach,” goes his description of the redesigned XO, sounding much like Apple's own advertising material. The tablet is also “a true departure from the traditional keyboard and screen layout, a new way to interface and play with data, information and communication,” Behar explains.
An ebook-like laptop, such as the new XO, would sport a continuous display, the designer says – a feature that would allow two students to play board games, or carry out educational tasks together, using just one of these devices: “imagine if your learning machine was an un-interrupted screen one could interface with from any direction [...] imagine if children could play board games sitting across from each other (or computer games)”.
Being the simple device that it is, the concept “100” laptop would also lack “keyboards, buttons, speaker holes, input devices and visible connectors,” all in favor of a continuous display that is “soft to the touch, like a piece of luggage...”
As far as the UI goes (never-mind the OS, we can all agree Apple's would be the best choice for this), it would adapt to the orientation of the device, while control would (obviously) be done through an advanced gesture-based system (may we suggest Apple's Multi-touch?).
We dare add one last feature ourselves, where students could actually simulate reading a book, by holding the device accordingly, swiping with their finger the upper right corner of the screen, as they'd move on to the next page.
Softpedia believes that, “the next learning object of desire,” planned for an early 2010 release, should be an Apple.
