At first glance, PeeWee PC's Pivot Tablet Laptop is a formidable rival to the long-standing OLPC XO.
McNierney said OLPC envisions the tablet being used, via battery, while the solar panel charges.
FORBES: A Look At OLPC's XO 3.0 Tablet's Solar And Kinetic Chargers
In addition to losing funding, Negroponte says Intel also provided technical support to OLPC.
The OLPC isn't the first group to make a small, cheap and rugged PC.
When I started One Laptop per Child (OLPC), the first person I went to was Steve.
FORBES: Nicholas Negroponte: Steve Jobs - Influence, Not Influenced.
However, he said, this did not mean that he did not support OLPC's activities.
Ultimately the OLPC initiative will be remembered less for what it produced than the products it spawned.
Even the OLPC XO-3 plans to eschew the clickity keyboard in favor of a touchscreen version.
ENGADGET: Acer working on frameless laptop with touchscreen keyboard?
Part laptop, part tablet, the XO-4 Touch will represent a huge leap forward in what OLPC can offer.
ENGADGET: One Laptop Per Child's XO-4 Touch 'expected' to be released in Q1 2013
But OLPC News is now telling us that there's a few new updates from everyone's favorite pastel-colored lappy.
ENGADGET: OLPC Update: Brazil to get test machines, Thailand pulls out
In fact, quite a few have gone from ridiculing the OLPC project to trying to emulate or join it.
It also hearkens back to the first concept designs for OLPC which had built-in hand cranks on their sides.
FORBES: A Look At OLPC's XO 3.0 Tablet's Solar And Kinetic Chargers
Last week Intel admitted defeat tacitly by asking to join the OLPC association.
OLPC's XO laptops currently run on chips from Intel competitor Advanced Micro Devices.
And while the project was created out of philanthropic impulses, the OLPC now sees a consumer market for their machines.
Unfortunately, OLPC's problems, which can be distilled into four main areas, risk turning a wonderful idea into a plastic paperweight.
In their zeal to rewrite the rules of computing for first-time users, OLPC shipped machines with a cumbersome operating system.
In mid-May the OLPC group unveiled a deal with Microsoft to put the Windows XP operating system on the XO.
Now, a few weeks out from its official June 1st online availability, OLPC's finally got its hands on the shipping product.
The question now is when can the rest of us get laptops as cheap and clever as the OLPC's radical design?
"The industry is going to have to change the way it does things, " says Walter Bender, OLPC's president of software and content.
That history may make OLPC customers leery of the new hand cranks.
FORBES: A Look At OLPC's XO 3.0 Tablet's Solar And Kinetic Chargers
The OLPC organisation claims it sold almost 190, 000 machines via the scheme.
The OLPC laptop was designed for poor children in the developing world.
Marvell and OLPC also announced that the XO 1.75 laptop will begin shipping in February, with initial orders benefiting education programs in Rwanda and Uruguay.
Despite the success of the scheme, it drew criticism because the OLPC group had trouble delivering machines to those who had ordered one.
OLPC's XO laptops currently run on chips from Intel competitor Advanced Micro Devices (nyse: ADM - news - people ).
Brasil reports that the country will receive 50 test laptops from OLPC, making it the first nation to have actual, live, working models.
ENGADGET: OLPC Update: Brazil to get test machines, Thailand pulls out
This leads to the final problem that has done the most to disappoint OLPC's fans: the hubris, arrogance and occasional self-righteousness of OLPC workers.
On the pro side, OLPC has big-ticket partners, including Google, key Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices, Linux distributor Red Hat, and RupertMurdochRupert Murdoch's News Corp.
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