The chipmaker has already sold 7 million of its rugged Classmate PCs, and now it is taking aim at tablets. On Monday, it announced the Studybook, a 7-inch tablet capable of running either Windows 7 or Android.

Intel’s tablet packs a multitouch LCD screen, front and rear cameras, light sensor and, of course, an Intel Atom processor. Other features include 1 gigabyte of memory and up to 32GB of solid-state storage.

And, since it’s aimed at students, it’s designed to be dust- and water-resistant, and able to withstand a pretty good-sized drop.

Intel isn’t alone in going after this market, of course. In addition to the traditional PC and tablet makers, the One Laptop Per Child project has taken aim at the same area. OLPC also got its start in rugged laptops, and is moving on to tablets.

Sound good? Then take a gander at the XO-3, a tablet that the people from One Laptop Per Child think they’d like to have available in 2012.

Since it’s pretty much purely conceptual at this stage, the details don’t really matter all that much. But for what it’s worth, according to Forbes, OLPC says the thing will be thinner than the iPhone, may use components from the likes of Plastic Logic and Pixel Qi and will sell for $75.

The gadget, like OLPC’s other projects, is aimed at kids in the developing world. But if the tablet ends up looking–and performing–anything like the concept stuff, then it’s not a stretch to imagine that ordinary consumers would want to get their hands on it too, just as they did with OLPC’s first computer.

Or not. Gizmodo politely suggests that the OLPC guys are about as likely to produce the thing as I am. But then again, the OLPC guys don’t necessarily think they’re going to produce it either; they think that if they make the tablet an open-source project, they can spur someone else into actually producing it.

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Meanwhile, an update on the tablet everyone is most eager to see: The Wall Street Journal, following up on Apple’s (AAPL) plan to get into the TV subscription business, says that “people briefed by” the company expect its legendary tablet to show up  “by the end of March.”

And you weren’t shy! And by the time I was done tallying your crowd-sourced tips, I had a pretty comprehensive list of everyone who plans to make, or is rumored to be making, a competitor to Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle. But many of you were sure that News Corp. (NWS) must be talking to iRex Technologies, the Dutch company that is already producing a line of Kindle rivals under the “Iliad” brand.

And you were correct, says iRex CEO Hans Brons. iRex plans to sell its devices in the U.S. using a “private label” strategy–it will make the readers but sell them under someone else’s brand–and it has talked to News Corp. about the possibility, he says.

But to be clear, Brons isn’t saying his company has a deal with News Corp. (which owns Dow Jones, the owner of this Web site). For the record: “It is definitely a logical path, and a logical conclusion, but I cannot confirm that we are working with News Corp.,” he says.

Fair enough. And no comment from News Corp. But imagine that iRex did end up building something for Murdoch and company. What would it look like?

A lot like the one Murdoch described earlier this month: iRex has a machine in the pipeline that will feature a big screen and full color, Brons said. The difference between his color screen and those of his competitors? Most of the latter take the e-Ink technology that powers the Kindle and Sony’s (SNE) Reader and add a color filter on top of that. That reduces the brightness of the screen, Brons said. But he promises that the iRex color screen, which he hopes will be on the market in 2010, will solve that problem.

And if News Corp. doesn’t do a deal with iRex? Well, as I mentioned above, there is no shortage of folks working on would-be Kindle killers. Thanks again to readers who helped me round up this list:

Fujitsu–Already selling an e-reader with color e-paper

Bridgestone–Also has a color display

Endless Ideas–Dutch company behind the black-and-white BeBook reader

Samsung–Its Papyrus reader features a touchscreen

Pixel Qi–Start-up focused on making cheap color screens; run by Mary Lou Jepsen, former CTO of the One Laptop Per Child project

Anyone else I should be looking at? Let me know.

So it was only a matter of time before the project was forced to rejigger its operations, which it did this week. Just weeks after administering its “Give One, Get One” holiday season drive, the OLPC slashed its workforce by half, reduced salaries for its remaining staff and began restructuring operations.
Like many other nonprofits facing tough economic times, One Laptop Per Child must downsize in order to keep costs in line with fewer financial resources,” OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte said in a post to the foundation’s Web log. “While we are saddened by this development, we remain firmly committed to our mission of getting laptops to children in developing countries.”

That’s nice to hear, I suppose. But given the OLPC’s track record with social innovation–and business realities–it’s difficult to put much faith in such assertions. “OLPC promised a product, a sub-$100 laptop, it simply can’t deliver based on underlying economics of the computer industry,” a spokesperson for OLPC competitor Ncomputing told CRN. “And it asks governments already unable to provide basic services to not just buy these laptops but pay to ship them from the factory in China, truck them throughout the countryside to the schools and then support and maintain them. The hidden costs were a nightmare.”