The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Project is asking software coders to develop free, open-source educational computer games for the XO laptop, continuing its push toward a September launch date.
OLPC on Thursday offered a laptop prize for software teams who create new games during a three-day “game jam” scheduled to begin June 8 on the campus of Olin College, an engineering school in Needham, Massachusetts.
By increasing the software available for the XO, OLPC hopes to encourage governments of developing countries to order more laptops, pushing the group to its sales goal of 3 million units by May 30. OLPC had collected 2.5 million orders by late April, but needed to boost sales enough to order bulk computer parts and stick to the manufacturing schedule. An OLPC spokesman was sanguine about the goal, calling the date an arbitrary deadline that could also be affected by software and hardware changes as developers put the finishing touches on the beta version of the XO laptop, according to an e-mail from OLPC’s public relations agency.
However, production has already slipped from an original date in July, and could be set back further by spiraling prices. Last month, OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte said the price of the “hundred-dollar laptop” had risen to US$175. Negroponte also says that his nonprofit effort is being hurt by well-funded competition from Intel Corp.’s Classmate PC, also a low-budget, power-efficient PC designed as an educational tool for children in developing countries.
Source: PC World