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Indeed, wasn't there a similar indian initiative that never really caught on?

http://www.amidasimputer.com/

It looks like it did catch on. Just that it looks like a PDA to us. I wish the folks that make the barbie laptop would just license that, stick a barbie case on it, and sell it in the toy department here. There would need to be a hotwheels model too, but then I could get one for each of the kids.

In 2000, Indian government and its partners launched simputer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simputer/. The license cost was too high and only 4000 units were sold. Today, another company, Geodesic, is producing low-cost computers called Amida Simputer, at Rs.12450 (aprox:$300) http://www.amidasimputer.com/. It has all the standard + fun features in a modern day laptop http://www.amidasimputer.com/features/. Rs.12000 is still a huge dent in an average Kumar's (?!!) salary. After a decade of research and development, the Indian government and IISC/C-DAC (research wing) is still unable to commercialize a cheap computer. IMHO, it is a mistake on their marketing and sales strategy. I know few developers who work on this project and they are very much skilled to implement any technology/features. If the government could spend a little more taxpayer's money and market this simputer aggressively, the cost could still go down. Also big companies and NGOs need to pitch in (they are busy minting US dollars from outsourcing). May be, they could sell the $300 amida for $100!

In 2000, Indian government and its partners launched simputer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simputer/. The license cost was too high and only 4000 units were sold. Today, another company, Geodesic, is producing low-cost computers called Amida Simputer, at Rs.12450 (aprox:$300) http://www.amidasimputer.com/. It has all the standard + fun features in a modern day laptop http://www.amidasimputer.com/features/. Rs.12000 is still a huge dent in an average Kumar's (?!!) salary. After a decade of research and development, the Indian government and IISC/C-DAC (research wing) is still unable to commercialize a cheap computer. IMHO, it is a mistake on their marketing and sales strategy. I know few developers who work on this project and they are very much skilled to implement any technology/features. If the government could spend a little more taxpayer's money and market this simputer aggressively, the cost could still go down. Also big companies and NGOs need to pitch in (they are busy minting US dollars from outsourcing). May be, they could sell the $300 amida for $100!

I like this one better:
http://amidasimputer.com/

For guys who drop jaws over using accelerometers for gaming, check out the "amida simputer" (http://www.amidasimputer.com/). It pretends to be a PDA and is not classy by any stretch of imagination, but is cool in a weird geeky nerdy sort of way. (Hey! It runs Linux :) I bought one recently and have dropped many jaws showing the "golgoli" (marbles maze) and bricks games that you can play by just tilting it this way and that!

International pricing for the Amida Simputer is $300 USD for gray-scale, $480 USD for color, shipping extra. No modem. Amida Models and Pricing.

I believe you are referring to the Simputer http://amidasimputer.com/ (link to previous Slashdot discussion here: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/27/174420 4&tid=100&tid=137

well now, even if some of these projects invite some satire or sarcasm on /. or whether people make foolish observations of "rampant anarchy", etc, the fact remains such projects have been slowly adding up to the nation's wealth, and have been contributing towards improving the quality of life bit by bit:

1. For the uninitiated, India's general elections (which is the world's largest democracy) were carried out using Electronic Voting Machines, and there were no problems relating to counting or whatever. This has previously been covered here

2. India has posted a growth of 10.2% in the last fiscal year, and the new Finance Minister is expected to target even higher growth

3. Projects like Simputer might not attract customers from more developed countries, but then they are targeted and priced for the local masses.

4. eChoupal is an initiative to provide farmers of India all the information, products and services they need to enhance farm productivity, improve farm-gate price realisation and cut transaction costs.

These are just an example of the country-wide measures being adopted as the country is slowly geared towards economic well-being

It incorporates the state of the art bio-logon metrics system from Compaq

and this one's much cheaper, and yes, it runs Linux. Simputer

Simputer has a built-in Accelerometer and it runs Linux. Since this device already has built-in support for accelerometer, it should be relatively easy to add support for more using the SDK. Also, simputer can use USB flash memory. It also is one of the rare pda-size devices that has 2 USB ports (one master and one slave; most PDA's only have a slave USB where you can not plug any other usb device). It also has IR port. I am not sure how bluetooth would fit in but it shouldn't be too difficult with a device with such features...

Simputer has a built-in Accelerometer and it runs Linux. Since this device already has built-in support for accelerometer, it should be relatively easy to add support for more using the SDK. Also, simputer can use USB flash memory. It also is one of the rare pda-size devices that has 2 USB ports (one master and one slave; most PDA's only have a slave USB where you can not plug any other usb device). It also has IR port. I am not sure how bluetooth would fit in but it shouldn't be too difficult with a device with such features...

I think that the idea of a Perpetual Gift Computer System would also be an expression of this new paradigm.
The Simputer is designed for community ownership and would be an ideal candidate for becoming a PerpetualGift.

I posted just after you in this thread on the same subject. We both posted at 2004.03.30 7:32. How's that for synchronicity?

You could try this. Here's another article (give it some time to load) on it.
You can use any portable USB keyboard with it and it has full featured browser and much more and you can plug it into any phone jack to connect to web to send emails etc.
Here and here are some features...

You could try this. Here's another article (give it some time to load) on it.
You can use any portable USB keyboard with it and it has full featured browser and much more and you can plug it into any phone jack to connect to web to send emails etc.
Here and here are some features...

You could try this. Here's another article (give it some time to load) on it.
You can use any portable USB keyboard with it and it has full featured browser and much more and you can plug it into any phone jack to connect to web to send emails etc.
Here and here are some features...

...and the amida simputer (covered elsewhere on /, recently) has a hardwired google button -- for all those users, if it doesnt turn up on google, it doesnt exist... "Google Integrated: Google is just about every Internet user's favourite way to find new websites. Which is why Amida's Internet Browser has a one-tap hot-button to take you straight there"

The low-end model is only 240$, high-end is 480$. Prices here.

The group of scientists "Bangalore Seven" developed the Simputer with the average user in mind. The average user lives in a indian village and is much different from the western users. So the design is also different to fit the specific needs of it's customers:

# Power supply in rural India is pretty bad, with frequent "load-shedding" blackouts. Without an UPS you can't run a desktop. The simputer runs on three AAA batteries.

# Your average user may has never used a computer before. So you'll have to keep the design as simple as possible.

# Desktop PCs consist of many parts that fail too easily under rough conditions. You need air condition or other internal sophisticated cooling equipment. Indian summers are hot and humid during the monsoon season. See the a chart of Delhi an an example. If something fails it's hard to get a replacement.

# The simputer is still much to expensive for customers with an average income of 40$/month. So expect that many people in a group (family, friends, collegues) will share one simputer. The desing makes sharing easy. Private data is saved to smartcards.

I think there're still many issues with the simputer. It's much too expensive. The price will have to drop to 50$, so they'll need to get the indian government to invest in this thing. Language support seems to be quite good with Hindi, Kannada, English already supported. Bengali , Tamil, Maharathi, Urdu also need to support. And Sanskrit would be nice for high-tech pundits =). But what to the illiterate people do? They need an icon-based GUI, speech output, or even speech recognition. Easy to set up printing would also be a nice feature.

As for the motion-controlled features we'll just have to wait for first-hand reviews. There're already games preinstalled based on this feature.

If all these requirements are met then there'll be a big market for the simputer - the whole india subcontinent in fact. And there's china that has similar requirements to get a majority of people to use computers. So India wouldn't have problems to export large quantities of the simputer to other emerging nations.

By the time you get to considering purchasing the Amida 4200 it behooves you to start looking into an iPAQ or some other handheld.

I think that gallery would be a hell of a lot more useful if it showed pictures of the device itself rather than grandpa in his pyjama's. Why not show what's happening on the screen instead of models posing with the thing in their hand?

I think he's talking about the first picture in the series: http://www.amidasimputer.com/gallery/amida_teen_mg road.jpg

Not exactly the Indian housewife in a sari..

How do I go about getting one of those Indian arranged marriages?!?

Amida: "I know this is a bad neighborhood and you are not wearing much, but we need you to pretent like you are using the product and you would do this in your free time."

I know few people read the articles, but why don't people read the articles before they complain about the article's percieved lack of information?

Try the buy link. Or just compare models.

And next time, make sure you read the article and not just the Google Cache when somebody says a website was updated.

I know few people read the articles, but why don't people read the articles before they complain about the article's percieved lack of information?

Try the buy link. Or just compare models.

And next time, make sure you read the article and not just the Google Cache when somebody says a website was updated.