OLPC Releases OS Sneak Peek

The One Laptop Per Child initiative continues to charge forward. The latest development in the drive to get sub-US$100 laptops in the hands of tons of children worldwide is the release of the OLPC OS. (It’s available here as a LiveCD if you have the intense desire to see it now and the requisite patience to wait for the download to complete.)

The new Operating System has a web browser, although a not very sophisticated one, a basic text editor, and a messaging function (which will no doubt be very popular with users). It’s also called Sugar, which you might find sweet or sour, depending on what you’re looking for out of the environment. This kind of OS will definitely work on the OLPC, but it will also work on a handful of other devices as well, such as your PC. Don’t expect the moon, though. It’s not built for that.