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Get Ready For The Simputer
EccentricAnomaly writes: "CNN is reporting that the Simputer will roll out next month. The Simputer is a handheld computer running GNU/Linux starting at around $214 and is aiming to be an affordable computer for the third world that can be used even by the illiterate with its text-to-speech features. From the Simputer website: "The Simputer is a low cost portable alternative to PCs, by which the benefits of IT can reach the common man." Slashdot ran a story in May 2001 reporting the launch of the Simputer project." The same Reuters story is also found at the Hindustan Times.
The article quotes the designers as wanting to bring the fruits of India's software revolution to the poor. But the Simputer still costs more than a year's salary even for the average Indian. Imagine a $40K computer (US per capita income) being touted as a way the American poor could use computers! Even though the Simputer supports smart cards so people can share the device and store personal info on the card, I suspect this will merely make it affordable for (Indian) middle-class families rather than the poor. I suspect the poor would have more appreciation for clean water, reliable sources of electricity, a working health care system, and a food stamp program than a Simputer that costs more than a year's pay.
Make cheese not war 8:)
Anyone else think of the femputer from futurama when they hear the name "simputer"?
... After lengthy simputations I, Simputer, have decided the fate of the men. Simputer sentences them... to death!
Simputer: That does not simpute. Simputer will return after deciding your punishment
Does the thing come standard with a solar battary charger and a satellite dish to connect to the Internet? Most of these people don't have reliable electricity, never mind a reliable data connection. And what good will such a device do if they can't connect to the 'net to learn things. They'll just have a fragile piece of equipment to which they can transcribe their existing database (books and papers).
They have a nice idea, but I just don't see it working in the environment they target.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
That too, but a computer gives people a chance to teach themselves. For instance a computer was mounted in a wall of slum in India. Within a couple of weeks the local children had all learned how to use it. People would need to be taught a few basics of simputer use, but after that they can learn themselves. This is important because most countries in the third-world don't have many resources to teach people.
I know enough people that are literate but shouldn't be using a computer. Just today I had to walk an older lady through an IE Connection Wizard.
ME: Choose the option "I want to setup my connection manually".
HER: It's not there.
ME: Check again, I'm sure it's there.
HER: No, it's not here.
ME: Ok, read me the options you have.
HER: [option 1], [option 2], "Setup my connection manually". Ok, I found it.
I'm sorry but it's a waste of resources when you allow people to be as ignorant as they want.
The last time I heard about the Simputer I was put off by the license, which treats the specs as if they constituted trade secrets. I don't know how you can publish specs and still expect trade secret protections.
It reminds me of Microsoft tying a license to their version of the Kerberos protocol. Although different in intent, the basic legal mechanism, if recognised as valid, is very, very dangerous.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Let me tell you one area where it could be useful. Many, many times in the past, there have been growth of some vegetable or fruit, in quantities much larger than usual. Normally this follows a period of scarcity of that item (perhaps due to some disease). Once the farmers see that the price of some particular produce is very high, all of them start growing the same. Note that farm holdings are extremely fragmented in India. So when the harvest comes in, compared to the amount available, there is little demand. Most of the produce just rots on the plant, as it cost of picking the produce is more than the sale price. I have seen this happening many times. Imagine, if you will, an index of areas of cultivation of a particular crop. This would not be too difficult to make, at least on a rough basis, say per village. If all the farmers could see this information, then they could avoid these periods of excesses and scarcities.
The above was just one example where it could be useful. There are some organisations planning wireless internet through buses!!! Every time the bus passes through the village, the people in the village could download information off the bus. So they would get 'up-to-date' information say twice a day. Since long distance phone calls are expensive, emails could and probably would be quite a killer app there.
Even now, there are pilot trials going on where eye doctors, remotely view the patients' eyes with web-cams and recommend medication or ask them to come for further diagnosis/treatment.
In this case, I truly believe that once this becomes popular, there can be very useful applications benefitting the common people.
All bow to his Noodliness!! His Noodle Appendage has touched me!
Most of the people fail to understand that the small portion of 'literate' people in countries like India alone outnumber the population of several countries combined. That number by itself is very tempting to introduce a product of this kind.
And I'm really surprised everytime I read people saying "oh why would a third world country bring a [product/service] etc when they can't even feed their citizens". Sometimes it is best to help the people indirectly like bringing in a tool to help them learn and bringing new computer technology is the best way to do it.
India is the fourth largest economy in the world. This product is geared towards the the middle to upper class of the populace whose spending power is growing. And they are obviously educated. So this would make a good idea to bring a linux powered pda to the market.
Partly, this is the first production run: probably half the run will go to aid agencies for evaluations ;-)
;-)
Once they get economies of scale going, cost will drop quickly - and in any case the cost of all micro-electronics manufacturing is constantly dropping (except for Apple's LCDs it seems
Plus, we're talking about a one-per-village item, not an individual use device, which is why it takes smart cards. Think of expert systems for microcredit loans, medical diagnosis, first aid, farming and the like - deployed with a voice interface in the back of beyond.
It's early stages yet, but give it time.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
- Management of microcredit loan systems
- Medical expert systems
- Useful Science Education
- Email
- Trade
- Mapping
Microelectonics is the only thing I know of which has a sustainable exponential curve anywhere in it's makeup. If we can figure out how to make our current computer technology help the poor a little, as prices drop and the gear gets better, it will help a lot more. Fifteen years down the line, it helps hundreds of times as much, if the mapping from (price per transistor) to (human benefit) holds.Microcredit loans (of a few tens of dollars, repayable by a group rather than an individual) are rapidly turning into a key aid strategy, but finding people to run the schemes and do evaluations for who should get the loans is difficult. A simputer application could help with data and loan application gathering, and keeping track of repayments. You'd essentially run the local microcredit loan office on one, or perhaps have a traveling bank officer.
Have been proven to improve medical diagnosis in trained doctors by respectable margins. Even a simple database with appropriate treatment instructions for, say, the 100 most common ailments in the region the machine is in, plus some first aid, could really make a difference. Particularly if it had a preventative medicine bias.
People do not know what they do not know. A simputer app which contained a basic science and appropriate technology education (concepts like germ theory, designs for things like fuel efficient cooking stoves), which people could query easilly, could be very useful.
Dumb as it may sound. Just wait for the "Help, I'm 9 years old, live in Andhar Pradesh, and my family is starving because the harvest failed again. Please do something" emails to begin.
More seriously, with email, and a little time, we could see things like pairing of western high-schools with third world villages - they have a question, the highschoolers find the answer for them and email it back.
Similarly, trade becomes possible once you have information, financial structures and transport of goods (and, perhaps, rule of law). There are a lot of skilled crafts people in India - wouldn't you like to be able to order custom-made clothes or furniture for a fraction of what it would cost for generica at the Gap or Ikea?
Just amortize the shipping costs (by the container, of course) across a large enough set of trades and this begins to make sense.
One problem in governing places like India, even in the most basic distribution of help to the poor, is inaccurate or incomplete data about what is going on in the field. If we do end up with a simputer per village at some point in the future, and people log events on the box, mining that data stream may tell us how to help ten times more effectively than before.
It may also help the poor organize: PeasantDot.Org - where the rural poor get together to help each other out.
Even if it doesn't, making what we're really good at help the people with nothing makes a lot of sense.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
For all of the strange ramblings about who in India could or could not afford one of these things, I cannot help but be intrigued by a new machine and concept that originated outside of the US, Japan and China.
It makes me think of Henry Ford rolling out the Model T in the early 20th century. Up until then, automobiles (at least in the US -- I'm not familiar with elsewhere) were marketed to the well-to-do. The Model T was marketed to the ordinary. In fact, one of Ford's goals was that every worker in the Ford factory be able to buy one.
Does that mean everybody in the US could buy a Model T? No, it didn't. But the Model T made automobiles much more accessible than they had been, for both individuals and for businesses.
I will trust that the developers know their own country better than I do, and wish them well. It will be interesting to see what comes of their efforts.
To learn to read. It's got text to speech.
From the FAQ:
/.er; in which case you know the answer!
# Q: Can I create a Beowulf cluster using many Simputers?
A: You must be a
W
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Does this mean we must r00t it and install Windows?
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
The idea is cool, but the market orientation of Simputer is really not that clear to me.
If the Simputer is supposed to be shared by villagers, I will suggest them to buy a cheap PC instead. Sharing a PC is much easier than sharing a PDA size device (more expandable, easier to service, not that easy to get stolen or squashed by a careless user...). According to Price Watch, a completed Duron 750MHz system with 128MB RAM, 20GBHDD, CD/modem/ethernet/video/keyboard/mouse/MS tax costs US$255. Adding a 14-15 inch monitor, the price is still around $350, on par with the Simputer ($214 to $469).
If you really think the handheld form factor is important, get this Linux PDA for US$160.
I am saddened to see so many racist comments about developments in a country that is half the way across the globe from people who have never been there. If you don't know anything about a topic, please shut up - and I say this with all respect. In all the urban and sub-urban parts of India, here is how computers are used - the rich have PCs at home, just like in USA. (BTW, there are rich people in India, Tarzan!) There are thousands of Internet cafes all over the major cities and towns, where people time-share computers. At about a dollar an hour, it is very affordable for people to visit hotmail or yahoo. Atleast, a lot more affordable than making international or long distance phone calls. The poor in rural areas do not know much about computers. The only thing they get from the wealthy white people is a bunch of missionaries trying to convert them. The simputer is an indigenous effort to reach them and for that, it should be applauded. I was surprised to see such arrogant and rampant racism in slashdot, as this forum is supposed to be for technical guys. And I somehow assumed that /.ers would have visited Silicon Valley atleast one or know what percentage of NASA engineers are from India. Apparently not.
Apparently, you don't need to know anything to post here - all you need is a computer (a powerful one, not a simputer) and an internet connection!
All your favorite sites in one place!
The Simputer is ridiculous. Its designed ostensibly to provide computers to people who can't afford computers and help people learn and communicate. There is not a snowball chance in hell it can effectively meet either of these tasks.
If they think they have a reasonable price for some third world country to buy for schools they are putting themselves on. A pricetag of a "mere" $216 in US dollars is beaucoup cash for some family in the middle of nowhere on a dirt farm. They'd be lucky to sell just one per small village let alone one per person. People would be better off buying anti-biotics or flu shots rather than one of these things.
They get cool points among Linux zealots for even mentioning GNU or Linux but in reality having Linux on it means very little. It's like having Linux on a TiVo, nothing the user interacts with is Linux-y so to the user they aren't using something called Linux. You don't turn on a TiVo and watch a Twilight Zone marathon rerun and think "holy peepants this uses Linux and it is so cool because of that", well sane sociologically adjusted people dont. The Simputer isn't going to win over a bunch of third world Open Source zealots or some stupid shit like that. The software running on the Simputer will be all they really know or care about with regards to the system.
Instead of a stupid idea like the Simputer they should have stuck with something like a Dreamcast. The late edition DCs had a bunch of components packed onto a handful of chips and Sega even had a DC on a chip worked out ready for fabrication. They intended to stick DC guts into DVD players like the Matsushita/Panasonic DVD capable GameCube. They would be much more flexible than some handheld toy that is itching to be dropped or otherwise lost. Plus it could hook up to a television which a place likely to have the ability to plop down $50 for a DC based console ought to have at least one television in town. A number of people could use the thing at once which makes it much more cost effective.
Educational material is easy to ship off to people, a CD or DVD can store instructional material in the form of animated or live action movies for people who can't read. A student's entire lifetime curricula could be stored on a single CD. A class of students could use a single CD-ROM for several years worth of education. Textbooks from elementary to a high school level (or whatever your local equivilent is) could be stored at HTML or PDF files or some other format friendly to your particular language. As for languages, a single disc could contain the same information in multiple formats so a bunch of people speaking different languages or dialects only need to buy a single disc. Using CD-ROMs rather than semiconductor memory cards is scores cheaper and people could afford to not only buy more software but multiple copies in case one ends up ruined.
The goal of the Simputer would be more easily met by a much simpler and cheaper machine. Its creators might have the right mindset but they don't seem to have thought through the implications of the hardware they developed. Even if there was some requirement for a portable device people would be better off putting tough rubber cases on a bunch of Palm m105s or Handspring Visors and handing them out to people.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.