, with its 8.9-inch touchscreen, will start shipping in the second quarter of this year to countries around the world trying to bring schoolchildren into the computer age. OLPC was formed by professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop a low-cost laptop for kids in poor countries to help make sure nobody is left behind in the computer age.

"The biggest obstacle has been power. We are pretty excited about getting a lower power laptop out there," said Edward McNierney, chief technology officer of OLPC, at a booth at CES.

The XO-1.75 is the first OLPC laptop to use chips based on processor technology from Arm Holdings, which has been a huge factor in reducing power on the laptop, McNierney said. The previous XO used an x86-based microprocessor, the kind made by Intel, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Via Technologies.

Using Arm-based chips halved power consumption to just 2-watts, he said.

The upcoming OLPC tablet, the XO-3, will come out in 2012 and use just 1-watt of power, he said.