Simple Inexpensive Mobile Computer: The Simputer

Sachin Karol links to this Time Asia report about the Simputer. A snippet from the article: "It's not a PC, but rather a microcomputer, a "Simple Inexpensive Mobile Computer." In short, a Simputer. It's the latest attempt to reach a kind of techno-humanist grail: a computer priced and designed for the billions of people who have yet to set foot in the wired wards of the Global Village. A computer, say its creators, for the masses." (Read more.)

A week ago, the prototype Simputer was successfully demonstrated at Bangalore's National Institute of Advanced Science. Here are some pictures from an earlier demonstration of Simputer prototypes; there is a section on the Simputer site which is supposed to show details about the architecture, but which promises more information by September of last year; there is information about the guts of the machine in the FAQ, though.

Sounds like a potentially useful tool, but how much impact do you think such a computer could have on the other problems faced by rural Indians? How much of the balance can be swung by such a device?

Comments

The FAQ mentions Bewoulf... and a surprise

[Doodhwala]

This one took the cake


10.Can I create a Beowulf cluster using many Simputers?
You must be a /.er; in which you know the answer!

It's still too expensive

[scotpurl]

I mean, the thing is estimated to sell for 9000Rs, which is about $200 U.S. Considering the "minimum" wage in India is supposed to be around 2000Rs per month, and the actual wage people are paid is down around 1000Rs per month, then how the hell are they supposed to afford this?

Not the poor illiterate farmer...

[dolanh]

...but the poor, illiterate farmer's son or daughter might want one, and potentially benefit from one. I'm very glad my mom had the foresight to buy me a computer in 1984; for me it helped lead me towards a well paid high tech career.. How about you?

World hunger and the Simputer

[timholman]

This is a great idea! I would love to see a computing device in the hands of every person on the planet. But first I would like to see full stomaches on all of them. How are they going to market these to people who can't afford to feed their children? [Free bag of rice with every purchase.] I am not saying these are a bad idea. Or that they cannot work. Hell, I would love to see them all over in countries that could afford them. But I believe that we should at least try and be socially conscience of the thousands of people who not only have never heard of a computer -- they are dying because of starvation.

Okay, I realize that I am endangering my karma here. I am taking a stance that may be seen as flamebait. But I really believe that this should be said by someone. But anyway, what are our plans to bring food to people who need it? Those should be more important than computers.

This is a specious argument. Everyone on Slashdot could sell their computers right now and send the money to feed the starving children. Guess what? Six months from now they'll -still- be starving.

If civilization waited until everyone was fed and happy before investing resources in new ideas, we'd still be squatting in caves. It's the investment in those ideas that makes real advancements in the quality of life possible.

Unfortunately, world hunger is a much harder problem to solve than building a Simputer. Making a Simputer is just a matter of engineering - solving world hunger is more an economic, cultural, and political problem than a matter of growing more food. However, building a Simputer might help some of the best and brightest in Third World countries help themselves, and in the long run that will be the only viable solution to mass starvation.

A final point for everyone to consider - are the creators of the Simputer overestimating the market for these machines? Remember the guy who created the hand cranked radio a few years ago? He designed it to bring modern communications to remote Third World villages. The problem was that no one in the Third World wanted to buy them (or could afford to do so)! Nowadays they sell them as camping gear in the U.S.A. Somehow I think the Simputer may have a bigger market in the First World rather than the Third World.

May I suggest a better idea?

[Junior J. Junior III]

Maybe it'd be better to "seed" the Third World with inexpensive, minimalistic computers with the approximate capabilities of, say, an 8086 PC, or an Apple II, or a Commodore 64, but an architecture which is intuitively easy to program for. Price it at, say, $1.50 USD or so.

Let the people teach themselves to use these computers; they'll be forced to teach themselves how to program in order to do anything useful with the machines, (and it's a lot easier to learn to program on a computer that only has around 64k of RAM and, say, 512kb of storage space.) In about 20 years or so, the Third World will be a nation of budding hackers, cleverly designing their own IT infrastructure.

My sig is quite appropos to this situation.

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Indian villages already use computers

[MaximusTheGreat]

There have been lot of questions by a lot of posters as to what would poor rural India do with this computer. So, I will try to explain here what's already being done and how this new simputer can help.
Let's get some facts straight here. In India the development is very uneven. So, there are a few states which are very poor and most which are ok and some really well off.
What's happening out there currently is that the ok and the well off states actually have started giving computer access to people in villages. As to what they use it for --- An example from actual usage -- A soyabean farmer finds out price of soyabean in chicago, because the price in chicago effects the price in India in a few months, so , he can decide how much to sow. Also, when he is ready to sell his soyabean, he finds out which market gives him the best price and rentsa atruck to sell there. A widow is not getting pension for her husband because of beauracracy, she goes to the village computer and pays 5/- (about 10 cents) to send an e-mail to an high up official. He responds and she starts getting the money. Both of these examples are real life and actually happened.
So, what this computer will do is that it will make usage of computers in regional language easy and will give them a cheaper linus computer rather then the Windows one that is more common out there.
See these links to find out more about how computers are changing rural India.
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20010 409&fname=Cover+Story+%28F%29&sid=1
http://www.india-today.com/itoday/20001211/offtrac k.shtml

Real nice, but...

[krugdm]

...why does the "poor illiterate farmer" out in the fields need a computer? Just because you can mass-produce an inexpensive computer for the masses, doesn't necessarily mean that everyone in the masses actually needs one. Or wants one for that matter.