India has released a Rs.1,500 ($35) Laptop / Tablet PC for students and teachers in Schools, Colleges and Universities. The $ 35 laptop was unveiled by Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal on Thursday.
“Our target is to bring it (the price) down to $ 10 a piece and our research teams are engaged in that project. In the meanwhile, we have developed this low cost access-cum-computing device,” Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal told reporters. “Our learners should get it in 2011 and the government will provide a 50 per cent subsidy per computer,” the Minister added.
The computer has been developed by a research team comprising IIT professors and experts from IISc, does not have a hard disc and uses Linux… but it has every function, which a normal computer has, the minister claimed.
The device has support for video web conferencing facility, multimedia content viewer for example pdf, jpeg, zip, etc, and computing capabilities such as Open Office, SciLab and internet browsing with flash plug-in, JavaScript. It also has wireless communication for Audio/Video, Cloud computing option, remote device management capability, multi-media input output interface option. “Since there is no hard disc, the computers have lesser memory, but one can use add-on memories. There are solar panels also with the computers,” the Minister said.
Initially it may be manufactured in Taiwan or somewhere else, but ultimately manufactured in India.
Specifications:
- Operating System: Linux
- Display: Touch Screen
- Keyboard: Built in
- RAM: 2GB
- Connectivity: Wifi, USB
- Power: 2 watt.
The laptop is currently not available for sale in the market as the Government has decided to launch it for students in 2011.
If India can give a $2,000 car, a $16 water purifier and $2,000 open-heart surgery, why not a $35 computer?
