India Officially Launches Simputer

aravind writes "The Communications and IT Minister, Pramod Mahajan, has launched India's indigenously developed low-cost handheld Personal Computer -- Simputer -- at an IT and Communication expo, SMAU 2002, in Milan. A low-cost handheld PC on GNU/Linux working through a browser for international markup language IML, priced at Rs9000 (less than $200). 200Mhz StrongArm processor, 32MB DRAM, 24 MB flash, touchscreen, speakers, USB, text-to-speech, MP3 capability ... " Look here for some of the previous stories we've run on the Simputer.

Comments

Re:Average montly salaries

[rovingeyes]

Well, even though the average monthly salary might be low, you are forgetting the point that even if 2% of more than a billion population plan to buy (believe me there are people india who are filthy rich) it'd be lot more than the simputer guys could hope for. Certainly you can look at it this way - IT IS A START!

Finally

[abhikhurana]

So finally the simputer has been launched. But that doesn't mean it works flawlessly. Until about 2 months ago, they had some problems with their text to speech software, dhvani, and they were planning to go for a closed source solution from another indian company.
Now for some of teh concerns raised in the article, as usual about average India salary and stuff like that. The aim of the project is not that every peasent should own a Simputer of his own. In India, in villages u have small committees which are elceted by the villagers, and these committes are allocated some budget by the government. So the idea is that every committee buys one Simputer and then the villagers can simply use thier own compact flash card if atall required. I mean its use was forseen in making weather prediction services and agricultural help availaible to the farmers. For that you dont need ur compact flash. If you want advanced services, then u can buy one, but then compact flash cards are not all that expensive.
As far as the Indian middle class is concerned, currently they account for around 40% of the population. Not all of them will feel the need of buying something like this, but they very well can. That is 400 million people.
I am just waiting for a review now. Maybe I will get one in December and write one myself. I enjoy working on stronARM and I think it will be interesting to hack this thing.

The features do not really matter...

[jukal]

Although the featureload of the Simputer is quite convinving, the main point is that this is now obviously the first truly open hardware project to have actually entered the martket. Let's see if it opens the floodgates....In the future, however, the featureload might be even more impressive as the open HW approach surely enables fast and cost-effective development.

Please tell that to Malaysia

[Taco Cowboy]

Your message's title "IT doesn't replace education" is indeed very striking, considering that the government of Malaysia - a fifth-rate country, mind you - is on the path of REPLACING education with IT.

Specifically, the Prime Minister of Malaysia has commented on several accounts that,

"The teachers are mere facilitators. The main point
is the computers, where the students learn from. The
teachers just _help_ out if any problem arises."

Dunno what will happen to the children in fifth rate countries such as Malaysia.

Simputer/Literacy

[Omkar]

An issue that's been raised here is the uselessness of the Simputer to an illiterate population. Couldn't the Simputer use its text/speech capabilities to teach people to read? This would eliminate two huge problems with one stroke.

keep making fun of India REALITY CHECK

[Meorah]

After all, that's where all your jobs are going... might as well have a few laughs before you find yourself back in college either getting a masters in CS or another BS in Mgmt or Finance.

http://www.bigates.com/html/Pdf's/Benefits%20of%20 the%20company%20you%20keep.pdf

I can't believe how many of you goofs actually think India is some 3rd world country. Just because they have a very large proportion of farmers and field labor who live off their own sweat and blood doesn't mean there aren't a ton of wealthy people, especially in the cities.

In addition, did any of you einsteins think that perhaps they'll be selling this device in Europe (where it was unveiled), Asia, or god-forbid, N. America? Yeah, I'm sure all the poor people in the good ole U S of A will have to take out a 3rd mortgage to get their hands on one of these badboys... what with spending their life savings building beowulf clusters and all...