As for touch typing. Anyone my age isn’t qualified to comment because we are too vested in the old way of doing things. I learned to touch type on a manual keyboard which had (and still has) the keys arranged to slow the typist down so that the hammers wouldn’t get stuck. Attempts with more efficient arrangements, like the Dvorak or Maltron layout never took off. Such physical devices were too personal to share and not portable. Back when I worked on desktops systems all day, I had a split keyboard that worked well, but now I use a laptop, which means that typing is harder, once again. Fortunately, I have a Wacom tablet to ease the the cut, paste, and arrange tasks.

With a dynamic keypad, multi-touch, and some coding Python, I will personally make sure that such a device has a Maltron-style layout, where each finger has one column and each thumb has one row. Match that with predictive autocorrect, and you’ll have text input arrange that is *easier* than the status quo, not less!

personally I think its a great idea, however its a bit to little to late. now before you all start jumping out of your seat pulling hair and calling me an idiot, read to the end…

the dual screen PC is not an innovation, there were attempts to produce just such a device in the past by Asus and other companies. now that doesn’t mean its not a good idea, just a good old idea.
second, i see a lot of people saying the low power device availability is a problem. well i have to disagree, there have been and will be in the future many low power consuming devices out there that can be integrated into this kind of device and today processor technology is making advancements at an astronomical rate so is not difficult to imagine this computer in action well sooner then 2010.
three, people can complain all they want about DVD screens been low rez and low quality, but i for one think that portable DVD screens are good enough. there are many models out there that can be used and besides, there are plenty low cost solutions out there.
four, multi touch… well for some reason people think that multi touch is some sort of miracle invention that cant be duplicated since apple came out with the iphone, well brothers and sisters here it is. multi touch IS SIMPLE SOFTWARE, if a 14year old kid on youtube can make his tablet become a multi touch with just a few software changes, or a guy can make a multi touch sketch pad out of a shoe box then its that simple!

in short, the guys at OLPC have promised to give us Star trek like computer of the future.. well i salute them for that. but lets all remember that the technology to do so was around for far longer then we realize, the reason it wasn’t implemented till now is pure economics, why bother market a new type of invention if the old one has not yet paid of its dev. costs…

First why don’t use a cheap longrange radio transmitter for the datacommunication (As an alternative to the wireless chipset.) Back to basic cheap FM/AM transmitters, coudn’t you use a built in “CB-Radio / WalkiTalki” and lower the transmission rate to 75 or 300 baud to get a longrange wireless chat network?

Or maybe just build in an AM and RTTY receiver that gets information and news feeds/updates world wide on some fixed frequencies around the globe….

Then information and news would be easy to distribute at a low cost!

In the 3′rd generation i guess a “XO-3 model” would also incorporate a LCD projector as the sizes of those now are really small, a GPS receiver and Memory card reader to hold add on programs / books etc

/J