Part StumbleUpon and part Flipboard, for the past several years Prismatic has been developing a social news reader for iOS, Android, and the web. And now it is said to be in the sights of Microsoft.

TechCrunch reports that Prismatic is currently talking to a number of companies, including MS and Apple, about a possible acquisition. No party will confirm the story, but sources say MS is offering $30 million for the company.

Prismatic is an unusual choice. The company suggests content to users based on  their interests and based on the articles read by their social contacts. In addition, Prismatic also lets users promote, comment on, and share an article online.

Overshadowed by Flipboard, Prismatic reportedly hasn’t managed to build a wide userbase. Its Android app only has between 5,000 and 10,000 installs in Google play, and according to App Annie its iPhone app never managed to achieve a high rank in either the social networking or news categories in iTunes.

And after having used it, I can see why.  Frankly, it’s an underwhelming Flipboard knockoff. The app has a poor layout, a poor related content feature, and doesn’t seem to want to update the stories it is suggesting after I decide I am no longer interested in a topic.  Where Flipboard for the web has me excited, Prismatic leaves me underwhelmed.

With an uncertain financial future and a lack of traction among users, now would be a good time to sell out and let a bigger company adapt Prismatic’s tech. In the case of MS, that would probably end up being something like a Google Newstand or Flipboard competitor.

For the past couple years E-ink has been in an ongoing legal battle with German gadget maker Trekstor. The latter company was and is selling ereaders which incorporated screen tech which E-ink claimed violated its patents, but now two different courts have disagreed.

The Bundespatentgericht (German Federal Patent Court) ruled in December that one of the patents E-ink was suing over was invalid. It confirmed the October 2013 ruling of the Mannheim Regional Court that Trekstor hadn’t infringed upon this patent.

In November 2012 E-ink sued Trekstor because it was selling the Pyrus Mini.  Rather than use an E-ink screen, the Pyrus Mini used a 4.3″ epaper screen made by  Guangzhou OED Technologies. This Chinese firm had developed epaper screens with tech similar to E-ink’s proprietary tech, which it then sold to device makers.

Guangzhou OED’s screens were available in ereaders with 4.3″, 6″, and 8″ screens (the company also offered 2.1″ and 3.5″ screens). Guangzhou OED’s screens haven’t shown up in major ereaders, but a number of second-tier ereader makers have used Guangzhou OED’s screens, including Bookeen. The 8″ screen on the Cybook Ocean was made by Guangzhou OED and not E-ink.

It’s not clear to this blogger why we haven’t read of other lawsuits brought E-ink against other European companies; I suspect that the other companies quietly settled with E-ink and paid the license fees demanded.

But I do know that the lawsuit against Trekstor did not end with this ruling. This ruling of course does not affect the other two patents involved in this lawsuit; that litigation is ongoing.

One patent is being considered for invalidation, while the other is being reviewed by an expert who was asked by the Mannheim Regional Court to clarify certain issues and answer the court’s questions before the case can proceed further.

ITespresso.de

As more and more reports come in, it looks like 2014 was not a good year for the major publishers. Over the past couple weeks, both Simon and Schuster and Pearson have published annual reports and neither had good news to share.

From PW:

Revenue and profits fell in 2014 at Simon & Schuster, parent company CBS reported. Sales declined 3.8%, to $778 million, while operating profit dropped 5.6%, to $101 million.

The publisher, which saw sales and earnings rise in 2013, closed 2014 on a soft note with sales down 4.4% in the fourth quarter, compared to the final period of 2013, and operating income down 30%.

…

One reason for the 2014 decline in revenue and earnings was also a drop in digital sales. E-books accounted for 23.2% of S&S sales last year, down from 24.4% in 2013. Total digital revenue, which includes downloadable audio, generated 26.4% of revenue, down from 27.1% in 2013.

S&S CEO Carolyn Reidy attributed the decline to a lack of hit releases in 2014 as compared to 2013. (And who knows, high ebook prices may have contributed.)

And earlier today Pearson reported similar disappointing earnings from their stake in PRH. There’s no news on digital revenues, but Pearson did report that:

Pearson reported 2014 earnings of £69 million, after taxes, from its 47% stake in Penguin Random House. This figure is down from £78 million in 2013. PRH’s 2014 earnings contribution was lower because of taxes. For the year Pearson reported total revenues of £4.8 billion and operating earnings of £720 million.

According to Pearson’s preliminary, unaudited 2014 financial report, Penguin Random House results benefited from strong performances in children’s publishing and a variety of million-copy bestselling film and TV tie-ins. Bertelsmann will report full Penguin Random House results at the end of March.

Penguin Random House is the single largest trade publisher in the US, and one of the larger conglomerates in the world. Is it just me, or does that make the £69 million in profits sound awfully small?

image by perpetualplum

Barnes & Noble announced today that they were splitting the 700 plus college stores operated by B&N into its own wholly owned company called B&N Education.

For the past 3 years Barnes & Noble’s college store division has been bundled into its digital division, Nook Media. As Nook Media’s fortunes waned, it’s been clear that B&N was going to have to split off the still financially healthy college stores from the toxic digital unit.

And today B&N finally acted.

According to the press release and SEC filing, B&N plans to split the college stores from the rest of the company, turn it into its own company, and then distribute the stock in the new company to B&N stockholders. The split will be complete by August 2015.

That’s a rather curious move on the part of B&N. The retailer had previous announced plans to split Nook Media off into a wholly owned company, but now the digital unit is going to remain part of B&N.

Clearly that plan was derailed by the quarter after quarter of declining digital revenues, resulting in a company which no one would want to invest in, so B&N is instead going to split off the relatively healthy college stores.

B&N Education is going to include the stores as well as Yuzu, the digital textbook platform which B&N launched last year. Given that students are reporting that Yuzu is utterly useless, I’m not sure what value it adds, and it would seem B&N doesn’t think it’s ready for prime time either.

B&N mentions in the prospectus that they plan to "pursue growth opportunities more broadly in the education sector, including by enhancing and expanding our digital assets. Achieving these goals will likely require acquisitions or mergers funded, in part, with capital raises and strategic alliances with other companies."

The new B&N Education is estimated to be worth $775 million. That’s far less that the billion and a half value hung on Nook Media when it was announced 3 years ago, but it is still more than the $436 million which B&n spent to buy the college stores unit from B&N founder Len Riggio in 2009.

Publishers Lunch

image by Brad Clinesmith

There are many publishers who sell direct, but Bastei Lübbe is going where few have dared tread. The German publisher told Handelsblatt on Tuesday that it plans to launch an ebook subscription service next year.

Bastei Lübbe bought the German ebookstore Beam last September, and it plans to adapt that store for a new purpose. The publisher will offer both a paid (like Kindle Unlimited) and ad-supported (like Readfy) service with ebooks and audiobooks. It believes that around a quarter of subscribers will opt to pay for the which is expected to cost around five euro per month.

Bastei Lübbe Chairman Thomas Schierack has set ambitious goals for the service; he wants to have 24 million users by 2020, with annual combined revenues of around 400 million euros. He plans to expand the service internationally and offer titles in German and English in 2016, adding Spanish and Portuguese titles in 2017 and Chinese titles in 2018.

This is not the company to offer an ad-supported ebook service, nor the first publisher to offer a paid subscription service. Readfy has been developing a similar ad-subsidized service in Germany since around this time last year. And there is also the paid subscription service Skoobe, which is owned by Bertelsmann (Penguin’s parent corp) and von Holtzbrinck (Macmillan’s parent corp).

But this is the first time in a long while that I have heard such improbably goals from an ebook company.

The last such example was Zola Books, which launched in July 2012 with the plan of supplanting Google Play Books by the end of the year, and then defeating Amazon in 5 to 10 years. Needless to say, that didn’t happen, and I don’t think Bastei Lübbe has much of a chance of achieving its goals either.

There are simply too many competent competitors in the market right now, including established ebook companies like Oyster, Scribd, Amazon, Skoobe,and Blloon. Bastei Lübbe is late to the race, and the head start gained by its competitors will be hard to overcome.

Lesen.net

 image  by susivinh

Vancouver’s own digital publishing services company Wundr announced on Wednesday of last week that it was launching a new Mac-only Epub3 creation tool.

According to the press release, Playwrite offers an  easy-to-use interface and powerful toolset with a WYSIWYG interface that cuts down on the work required to produce an Epub3 ebook.

Authors can choose from prepared style templates, including novel, textbook, academic journal, and more. They can easily add video, audio, and images simply by dragging and dropping the files.

The app integrates with Upub, Wundr’s distribution platform, enabling authors to create a single file and upload it to all of the major ebookstores, including Kindle, iBooks, Kobo, and Google Play. Authors can then manage their ebook across the stores, including adjusting the price, suspending a listing, and updating the metat data.

While there’s a plenitude of apps for creating Epub ebooks, the ones which also boast of making Epub3 files are rather thin on the ground.  I only know of one, PubCoder; it launched in December 2014. (And of course there is Adobe Indesign.)

You can find Playwrite in the Mac App Store. It costs $50.

Wundr via MobileRead

Here’s a bit of news which could make the net neutrality advocates wince.

Opera announced on Tuesday that it is expanding its year-old Opera Max data compression service and adding a new option for mobile carriers. Originally designed to let users get the most out of their mobile data plan by compressing their downloads, Opera Max now enables telecoms to offer free access to apps of their choice.

The new feature is called App pass, and it builds on Opera’s Web Pass service. Web Pass lets mobile carriers sell limited access data plans and charge either by the minute, MB, or trade access in exchange for watching an advert.

The new App Pass service lets telecoms offer free, sponsored, or low-cost access to selected apps.

It’s basically a single-app data plan, and according to Opera, "App Pass lets operators present offers to users when they open any app on their phones. With two clicks, users can gain free access to the data that app consumes via Opera Max: they can then return to the app knowing that any data consumed while using it will be zero-rated for the duration of the App Pass."

Opera is launching this service today, and they’ve already signed a partner: Norwegian telecom Telenor. According to its statement, it will be testing App Pass in some of its Asian operations. "We’re eager to see how this service is received in our markets," said Telenor digital chief Rolv-Erik Spilling.

So what’s the problem?

Well, as you might know, there’s this little thing called net neutrality.  This is a principle which states that all data passing through a telecom’s pipes should be treated equally, and App Pass violates it.

App Pass gives telecoms the tools they need to strike special deals with certain apps. This type of deal is called zero-rating, and it’s growing popular with certain telecoms and apps.

To be fair to Opera and its partners, they’re not the first to take this route, nor are they the most widespread. That title would go to Facebook’s trojan horse effort , aka Internet.org.

While Internet.org is styled as bringing the internet to the third world, as we saw when it launched in Columbia last month what this program really does is bring access to Facebook and a handful of other sites and services (mainly government services).

That limited access may satisfy many users who think that Facebook is synonymous with the internet, but it is still far from the open internet access you and I enjoy every day.

Even though App Pass is good for Opera and the telecoms in the short run, in the long run I think it will be bad for the internet as a whole.

TNW, GigaOm

When Lenovo was caught last week in the process of corrupting its customers safety and security in the name of selling ads, I thought they had committed such an outrageous act that no one would be able to match it.

Today I’ve learned that I lack sufficient imagination.

Ars Technica is reporting that two security software firms have been caught releasing security tools that incorporate  Superfish-like man-in-the-middle code to the apps they publish.

And just so you know why I’m feeling poleaxed, we’re talking about companies that make apps which are intended to protect you when you go online but in reality put you at a terrible risk of being attacked.

The first company, Lavasoft, offers an app called Ad-aware Web Companion. It’s intended to complement firewall and antivirus tools and protect users from phishing, browser hijacking, and other attacks, but in reality this tool opens up users to just as many issues as it prevents.

Like the Superfish adware bundled with Lenovo laptops, Lavasoft incorporated SSL-interception technology sold by Komodia when they made the Ad-aware Web Companion.

According to security researcher Filippo Valsorda, Komodia’s proxy software compromises a user’s security by tricking web browsers into trusting any self-signed SSL certificate. This drastically reduces the work a malicious hacker would need to do to exploit a target’s computer, making it easier for the hacker to convince a victim’s computer that it is visiting (for example) the real Bank of America website when in reality the user was directed to a site where the hacker is collecting personal info.

Lavasoft apparently licensed this tech from Komodia (and then failed to perform basic security testing to make sure it was safe). But the good news is, Lavasoft is in the process of updating the tool to replace the dangerous code.

The other tool, PrivDog, isalso in the process of being updated.

PrivDog is the creation of Comodo CEO Melih Abdulhayoglu, and it is intended to protect users from malicious adverts by replacing the untrusted ads with safe ones. That sounds like a great idea, but it turns out that at least one version of PrivDog has an even bigger security flaw than Superfish.

According to Hanno Böcke, PrivDog will replace any SSL certificate it receives  with its own certificates. This includes all certificates, including ones which weren’t valid in the first place. So not only is this tool compromising your security by bypassing a basic security step, it’s not even bothering to check to see who it is vouching for.

And do you know the really fun part? PrivDog is notable for not using even one line of code from Komodia, meaning that this bungling was entirely the fault of Comodo.

Luckily, the version of PrivDog which comes bundled with Comodo Internet Security does not contain the critical security flaw. Only the standalone version (which was released in December 2014) has this security issue, and Privdog has already released an advisory which warns of the issue and promises that it will be repaired. The notice says that 57,568 users are running the flawed version of Privdog, which will be updated tomorrow.

I’m sure both companies are serious about releasing updates, but if I were using these tools I would simply remove them and go find something else.

And then I’d fumigate my computer a half dozen different ways.

That’s not hysteria, but simply good sense. The only way to know you’re safe after having used these tools is to treat this as if it were a real attack and respond accordingly with all the necessary steps to repair the security holes.

image by johnvoo_photographer

Originally created to replace PDFs, fixed layout has become one of the standard methods to build an ebook. This format is used for everything from textbooks to cookbooks, and while it hasn’t actually supplanted PDF it has been made the centerpoint of Apple’s ebook efforts (iBooks Author).

But even though fixed layout is widely used (or perhaps because of it), FXL has its detractors.

On Saturday Alberto Petterin posted a critique of  fixed layout ebooks and asks whether FXL is accomplishing its original goals:

What are the advantages of a FXL eBook over the corresponding PDF?

…

The really interesting answer here is that (EPUB) FXL, being built with Web technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), allows the author/publisher to semantically tag the contents, which in turn allows the user to personalize the "reading" experience according to her needs.

That is true, in theory.

In fact, almost all the FXL files currently on the market are not really fulfilling that vision. Even worse, they are limiting the user freedom, rather than augmenting it. Sometimes they are even inferior to their PDF version.

Pettarin goes on to detail two of the problems with FXL, including that it’s used in situations where it’s not necessary and that the code inside most fixed layout Epub files look like it was written by  a middle-school student.

He missed a couple of FXL’s shortcomings, namely that the major platforms have made poor decisions in developing support.

For example, Amazon’s fixed layout can’t be used in the same ebook as embedded audio and video. Also, Apple’s iBooks format can’t be read on the iPhone, meaning that all those pretty textbooks don’t even work across Apple’s entire platform.

All in all, his critique is a good read, and it’s worth your time.

But before you head over and read it, I have one last thought.

As I was reading his post earlier, it struck me as rather odd that digital publishing was using the latest web technologies to support a concept which most web developers no longer accept as valid.

At one point the standard for website design was to build websites with fixed width (this is similar in concept to FXL ebooks). But that started going away about 4 years ago as the idea of responsive design, or building websites that work with any screen size, became the standard.

It’s now 2015, and almost no web developer will make a fixed width website if they can avoid it (I have no explanation for why DBW chose to do so). The new standard is for websites to support visitors no matter the size of the screen they use.

And yet in 2015, FXL ebooks are one of the accepted ways to make an ebook.

Folks, it’s almost as if the digital publishing industry is fifteen years behind the cutting edge of web design. It’s gone from simple reflowable designs (circa 1995) to fixed width designs (circa 2000).

Don’t you think it would be a good idea for the industry to skip the subsequent 15 years and join the rest of us in 2015?

There’s some really interesting ideas floating around right now which would make nifty ebooks, including smart ways to reflow complex content based on the geometry of a device’s screen. (Plus, we have cookies).

Really, what’s holding you to fixed layout? Is it the similarity to print?

That strikes me as a poor justification, resulting more from a lack of vision than from any useful features which fixed layout may bring to the table.

image by Sergei Golyshev

Kobo ships its ereaders with a half dozen dictionaries (including English, German, Italian, French, etc). That’s more than enough for this ebook lover, but if you need more options then I have two pieces of good news for you.

Kobo lets you sideload dictionaries – including the many dictionaries that users have been making for themselves for the past few years. (You can even make your own Kobo dictionary out of a StarDict file, although that is a lot more work.)

Here’s how.

Tl;dr

Installing a dictionary on your Kobo ereader is as simple as downloading one of the ZIP files listed here and then copying the ZIP file to the .kobo/dict folder on your Kobo ereader.

You might want to also want to go into the settings -> language menu and uninstall the dictionaries you won’t be using; this will force the new dictionary as the default.

If you’re reasonably tech savvy, the process is that simple. But for those who need more details, here’s the longer version.

How To

1, Find a dictionary listed here which you would like to install. Download it to your computer.

2, Plug your Kobo ereader in to your computer over USB. Find and open the .kobo folder, and then find and open the dict folder.

If you can’t see the .kobo folder, your computer might be hiding them from you. The following links will explain how to reveal the hidden folders.

• Windows
• OSX

3, Once you’ve opened the dict folder, simply copy the entire ZIP file you downloaded into the dict folder.

And you’re done. You can unplug your Kobo ereader from the USB cable now.

The ereader should recognize the dictionary automatically. (At least that is how it worked for me.) When you next look up a word, you should be able to select the dictionary you just installed and read its definition.

Addendum

If you can’t find a dictionary for the language you read, you can roll your own. A blogger by the name of zalima has posted detailed instructions.

The act of making a Kobo dictionary from a Stardict file is simple, but the set up process is a bear. It requires a much higher level of technical skill than simply installing a dictionary, but it can be done.

Credit

That list of links to dictionaries was gathered by Alberto Pettarin, who has also been maintaining the list and updating it. He’s also the one who wrote penelope, the conversion script you can use to make your own Kobo dictionary.

Remember that modular education laptop which I scooped earlier this week?

It officially launched today.

One Education sent out a press release today with the the news that it is working on a modular laptop. They also gave an exclusive interview to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Pretty much everything I wrote about the XO Infinity on Wednesday was accurate.

The XO Infinity does exist, it is modular, and it looks exactly like the leaked renders. Or rather, the XO Infinity will look like that when the first prototypes arrive later this year (the first shipments are scheduled for early next year).

According to the details shared so far, the XO Infinity is designed to grow with the student. It’s simple enough that a 4-year-old can assemble one, and as the kid grows and parts break, new parts can be swapped in. A child can start with just the tablet component, and as they progress academically they can be issued the keyboard component. And as their needs expand, they can swap in a faster CPU, better screen, or additional storage.

or at least that is how it’s supposed to work. All we have at this point is a 3d-printed mockup based around the planned 9.7″ screen. But at least now we know what it could look in person:

When the XO Infinity is released, One Education plans to offer multiple OS options, including Windows, Android, Sugar, and Linux.

Many details, including partner tech companies, possible screen tech used in the display module, and even the CPU, are apparently still up in the air (I asked).  This is going to be a nifty gadget when it is finally available. But right now, it’s still just a great idea.

But at least now we have a better idea why One Education decided to develop it. As they see it, the current ten-year-old XO laptop project has reached the end of its life cycle, and since development has largely stopped (I share that opinion) One Education decided to step in and come up with a new and better design. That is going to be the XO infinity, or so I hope.

But one thing they haven’t done (yet) is come up with funding to make it. One Education plans to launch a crowd funding later this year campaign to raise money.

In a move that surprises no one, the government of France announced today that subscription ebook services, including Kindle Unlimited, violated France’s fixed price book laws.

Laurence Engel, la Médiatrice du livre (the Mediator of Books, kind of a leagal ombudsman for France’s book pricing laws), has released a legal opinion which says that Kindle Unlimited is not legal under French law. This opinion also applies to KU’s local competitors Izneo, Youboox, and Youscribe, and effectively requires them to reevaluate how they operate.

Kindle Unlimited launched in France in early December 2014 with 20,000 French language titles out of a catalog of around 700,000 titles (now 830,000 plus titles). Its competitors had been operating for years, but the launch of KU brought the subscription ebook model to the attention of Fleur Pellerin, the French Minster of Culture. She proclaimed that it was illegal, and sought a legal opinion from Engels.

According to Le Figaro, KU in particular is illegal because it violates the French laws which require that publishers set the retail prices for their books.

To be clear, the subscription model itself is not illegal; a publisher could launch a service with just their own titles and pass legal muster. Another possible example would be a service which sold credits which could be applied to read ebooks in a catalog, or a service which let readers pay to subscribe to specific publishers (similar to premium cable channels).

Following the release of the legal opinion, the various operators will have a month to discuss the legal issues with the mediator of books, and 3 months to bring their services in compliance with French law.

Curiously, Pellerin told Le Figaro that self-published ebooks as well as books by foreign publishers would not be affected by this opinion, just books published by French publishers.

Given that KU draws upon primarily non-French sources, that would give Amazon an advantage. The point concerning self-published books, however, adds a complication.

While we may say that the majority of ebooks in KU are self-published, that’s not completely accurate. The ebooks are drawn from KDP, Amazon’s ebook distribution portal, but since that platform is used by both publishers and the self-published it is a little hard to distinguish between the two groups.

Actualitte, Le Figaro

images  by Mike Licht, Osbornb

Fresh off a pyrrhic legal victory over its used ebook marketplace, the  Dutch site Tom Kabinet has launched a new ebookstore this week. Readers can now buy legitimately distributed Dutch ebooks, and should they so choose, sell those ebooks to another user.

Tom Kabinet was launched in June 2014 with the goal of offering a marketplace where users can resell the ebooks they had previously purchased. It was subsequently sued by Dutch publishers, and after winning the initial court case, the site won a partial victory on appeal.

The higher court ruled that used ebook sales weren’t necessarily illegal in the Netherlands, while at the same time also ruling that Tom Kabinet hadn’t taken enough steps to block the sale of pirated ebooks. The site had previously limited sellers to only offering DRM-free Epub ebooks or ebooks with digital watermarks, and it also added digital watermarks to the ebooks which passed through its marketplace, but that wasn’t enough for the Amsterdam court.

For a short time it looked like Tom Kabinet would have to shut down, but instead its developers decided to comply with the ruling by limiting the marketplace to just Epub ebooks which carry a digital watermark when they are uploaded to Tom Kabinet.

It’s not clear whether the judge signed off, but I do see that my source is reporting that Tom Kabinet is launching an ebookstore today in order to offer its users a legal source of ebooks which they can later resell. (This is possible because the majority of ebooks published in the Netherlands are sold either DRM-free or with digital watermarks.)  It sounds like an ebook purchased elsewhere might not meet the requirements set by the judge at this time.

Given that there’s no real way to guarantee that the seller actually deletes the ebook after it is sold (this would require a type of DRM stronger than digital watermarks), I’m not sure that Tom Kabinet can take enough steps to fight piracy.

But that’s for the courts to decide.

Nu.nl, Volkskrant.nl

image by Visit Greenwich

One Education, OLPC’s partner non-profit in Australia, has been quietly working for the past year on a new educational laptop which it plans to launch in the next couple weeks (this has been confirmed).

Details are still scarce, and the entire story is still quite secret, but based on what has leaked and the two teaser images posted online I am very excited. If you thought Google’s Project Ara smartphone was a nifty idea, you’re going to love the XO Infinity.

Based on the background image posted to One Education’s email notification page (here), the OX Infinity is a hybrid laptop/tablet convertible:

As you can see, the design takes certain design elements now available in commercially available tablets and applies them to the XO laptop. A user will be able to use the XO Infinity as a laptop, or, pop the tablet out of the dock and use it by itself.

This is not the first tablet to come with a dock, and it’s not even the first educational tablet to have one. Intel shipped a similar reference design last April.

But this could be the first educational device to combine a laptop/tablet hybrid design with modular components.

Do you see how the units shown in the image above have a colorful shell? If you pop the rear shell off, you might see something like this:

I found the above image buried on the One Education website. I do not know if that is what the XO Infinity will look like, but I did find the image via a search for the XO Infinity.

What we’re looking at is a tablet with modular components. The green module is probably the CPU (and RAM, storage), the blue one is the battery, the maroon one a camera, and the orange one  is probably Wifi (or other connectivity).

In short, One Education has taken the XO infinity a step beyond the design of the original XO laptop.  Rather than simply be repairable, a child will be able to repair the XO infinity by pulling a module and plugging in a new one.

Or at least that is what I am speculating.

All of this is based on but a couple images which may or may not have anything to do with the actual XO Infinity.

Update: And here’s a third image which shows the modular nature of the tablet from a different angle. As you can see, there’s an extra module (which I think contains the screen).

But what I can report with absolute certainty is that I have been informed that the XO Infinity will be launched in the next couple weeks. Paul Cotton of One Education sent me this email statement last night:

We’ve been working hard at the XO-infinity for the last year or so, and things are finally getting to the point where we can show people. We’re due to make the official announcement sometime in the next week or two, at which point we’ll be able to talk about it all day, every day. Up until then though, we need to keep mum or our media partners may be upset with us.

Cotton also pointed me at the page on Medium where the official announcement will be posted, and he suggested that I sign up for email updates (here).

And when I told him I had the second image, he replied:

Hah, good find! That picture probably tells you quite a bit already, and tells you why we’re so excited. We need to cover our tracks better 😉

But aside from that, I have no other solid info to report at this time – at least, not about the new device.

I do however have a few things to add about the history of One Laptop Per Child and its repeated mistakes in developing educational hardware.

I’m going to have to take you through a bit of history, but rest assured that I do have a point to make.

***

As originally conceived in 2005, the XO laptop was a low-cost, easily repairable educational laptop with a long battery life. But by the time it actually shipped in 2007, the laptop had a short battery life and cost a minimum of $200. When it was first available to the public, consumers could pay $400 in a "buy one, give one" program and take one of the devices home.

The XO underwent several hardware revisions over the next 8 years. It was followed up by the XO-2, an early failed attempt to replace the original with a better design, and the XO-3, a tablet version which was launched at CES 2012 and cancelled in December 2012.

Coincidentally, there was also an XO Tablet which ran OLPC’s educational software on a commercially available 7″ Android tablet. It was released in 2013, and was going to be updated in 2014. The replacement tablet never shipped.

The original XO-1 was also updated, first with the addition of a faster and more energy efficient CPU (XO-1.5), and then again to the XO-1.75, which had an even faster ARM CPU and a slightly lower cost ($188). (There was also the XO-1.75HS, but that merely replaced the rubber keyboard with a more traditional KB with plastic keys.)

And of course let’s not forget the current model, the XO-4. This model looks almost identical to the XO-1, only it sports a dual-core CPU, touchscreen, and swaps one of the 3 USB ports for an HDMI port. And as I reported yesterday, One Education is distributing a version of the XO-4 Touch. They call it the XO Duo, and it runs Android Jelly Bean.

And that brings us to the current day, and an edtech market which looks very different from the one which existed in 2005.

Many companies, ranging from Google to Apple to commercial device makers like Dell are invested in this market.

Google is promoting its educational platform; Intel is pushing a number of laptops, tablets, and other classroom hardware, Apple sells the iPad, and Dell (plus other companies) make tablets and laptops for the edtech market.

My point, folks, was to help you better understand the landscape of the edtech market, and to make this one final point.

Given OLPC’s past failures and marginal successes, One Education would be well advised to find a partner.

I expect that the upcoming announcement will include at least one major tech company as a partner/sponsor. My leading candidates are Google and Intel, in that order.

Google’s interest in Project Ara makes them a particularly good partner for One Education, but Intel would make a nearly as ideal partner.

But of course, that is pure speculation.

We’ll have to wait and see what is officially announced.

Stay tuned.