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Kindle eBooks Show Up on the OLPC XO-4 Laptop

xo-4 amazon cloud readerThe OLPC project have had trouble getting anyone interested in the XO-3, their low-cost educational tablet, but the XO-4 convertible laptop is having much better luck.

Prototype units (here’s one) have already spread beyond the hands of hardware and software developers working on integrating the new touchscreen into the laptop’s existing software.

A friend and reader, Mike Lee, got his hands on an XO-4, and he posted this video. He got the XO-4 set up and then used the web browser to navigate to read.amazon.com to see if he could get the XO-4 to read Kindle ebooks.

xo-4 amazon kindle 2

This laptop runs Sugar, not Windows, Android, or some other commercial software, so there’s no Kindle app for it. But thanks to Amazon’s cloud based reading app Kindle Cloud Reader it is possible to read Kindle ebooks in the web browser.

Considering that this laptop was conceived as having minimal hardware which would sip at power, running a current web app is a pretty impressive accomplishment.

olpc-xo-4[1]The XO-4 was originally unveiled this summer. While it looks much the same as previous XO models, it has an iR touchscreen from Neonode on top of the 8.5″ Pixel Qi screens.

This laptop also uses the Marvell Armada PX2128 CPU, a faster CPU than on previous XO models. It also has 2GB RAM, 8GB Flash storage, an SD card slot, as well as 2 USB ports and an HDMI out port. That last port was added at the expense of one of the USB ports, and it was likely included at the request of teachers.

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Comments


cookie December 16, 2012 um 12:15 pm

"That last port was added at the expense of one of the USB ports, and it was likely included at the request of teachers."

Is that so the student can hook it up to their big screen tvs at home? I would presume most would not have big screen tvs.

Nate Hoffelder December 16, 2012 um 1:15 pm

It’s so teachers can hook up a projector at school.

fjtorres December 16, 2012 um 1:24 pm

HDMI ports aren’t just for TVs.
Even the cheapes PC monitors use them, too. As long as the OS has drivers for USB keyboard and mouse, that would let the laptop be used as a desktop, too.

Nate Hoffelder December 16, 2012 um 2:26 pm

Yep. That’s why I wrote projector.

When a country is going to fork over millions of dollars for lpatops it makes a lot of sense to also spring for projectors for the teachers to use in class. In fact, some OLPC projects have been doing just that, and along with the projector they have also gotten USB to HDMI converters so the teachers can use an OLPC laptop with the projector.


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