Slashdot Mirror
Scientific American Reviews 'Simputer' PDA
Bill Kendrick writes "The 'Simputer' (Simple, Inexpensive, Multilingual Computer), a Linux-based PDA developed by the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, and released a few weeks ago, has been reviewed by Scientific American, and they seem to like it!"
Does it have IR ports so i can trade my pokemon with friends?
Hand held computers are for kids, and adults who choose to let their jobs intrude into their personal life more than it has to.
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
Because the device can convert text to speech, it can help teach villagers how to read the local language, Kannada.
:)
I can read Kannadian too - I'm from Kannada. It's kinda cold, but hardly a third world country...
(ok, that was bad, moderators feel free to bury this one
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
Is it going to be avaliable to the american markets? When? I'm interesting in any links/info people have thanx.
Simputer? I thought that wasn't due out for a few weeks. I was in the beta program, it was really buggy, I hope they fixed the problems
At first I thought this article was about Sims using Computers. Go figure, 2 Sims articles in one day?!
GIR: I'm going to sing the Doom song now. Doom doom doom doom doom doom de-doom doom doom doom doom doom doom...
but the final paragraph of the article sums it up perfecly:
Perhaps the greatest obstacle for the Simputer, though, is cost. Will people in developing countries be able to justify the expenditure of $250 on a device that may be helpful but is not essential? When so many communities in the Third World still lack clean drinking water and adequate medical facilities, are computers really a priority?
I'd love to see this take off seeing how it's used for education (somewhat). Leaving out handwriting-recognition does not make much sence....
AAA batteries cost more than AA batteries, and provide a lot less juice.
Stupid design flaw, right off the top.
Solar panels and a ni-cad power pack would be cheaper in the mid-term, and environmentally much more friendly. There's more ... just read the article.
"So useful and easy, even bin Laden says it's #1!"
How much you wanna bet he's reading his hate emails?
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
Taco: Did you here? We got an interveiw with Dee!
timothy: Dee? Dee who?
Taco: Deez nuts!!!1
timothy: Dude, that shit stopped being funny the 300th time you did it.
I don't see how this is good for third world countries. It costs $250? I can get a 100-200 mhz computer at a garage sale for less than $5.
Q: Can I create a Beowulf cluster using many Simputers?
/.er; in which case you know the answer!
A: You must be a
Its about time someone recognized the Beowulf Clustering needs of Slashdotters!
Good to see that the Simpsons are branching out into technology. I also hear they are coming out with their own game console, the Simbox.
If you go by that screenshot, that thing must have 1280 resolution. You gotta love people who Photoshop screen mockups of web pages onto PDAs.
"Follow your Bliss." -- Joseph Campbell
In addition, the Simputer has a program called Tapatap that displays a three-by-three grid; you can input a letter or number by tapping on the squares of the grid in a particular sequence.
Welcome to interface hell.
Seriously, this idea probably won't fly. As they say in the article, mobile phones will be much more practical and cheaper, and given the user interface description (ok, only half the story, but anyway), much easier to use. There is little that this device could do that someone couldn't accomplish with a phone (except for, perhaps, teaching literacy, but can't you do that with picture books or cassette tapes or something cheaper?)
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
The computer in the pic is showing a color screen at a high resolution. hmmm.
.sig?
The text says black and white only.
What is a
Bet this
$250!? For a poverty-stricken Indian farmer? You have got to be kidding me! Some make this much in six months! I don't think I'd starve for six months to get a "Simputer." It seems to me that it would be smarter for the village to buy a cheap-o computer of two. You can get an okay computer with a monitor for $500 ("okay" is a relative term, but what are a whole bunch of internet-challenged Indians going to do with a 3.06GHz computer? All they need is a simple Pentium II and a 15" monitor)...arguable five times as good as the "Simputer." And regarding power: why not sell a solar adapter?
I still question the validity of this device as we are talking about places where they are barely able to survive much less learn how to im their friends the next village over. I think this is a good first step, but is it in the right direction? I wonder if there are more efficient ways these resources could be used. Such as a non mobile device? Why does it have to be mobile, makes it easier to steal or lose. I aplaud thier efforts however as this is more of what the world needs, that and an internation space committe/agency.
What is IML(Information Markup Language)? First I've heard of it. Why not XML?
"Put together by the Simputer Trust, a nonprofit organization based in Bangalore, India. This year Encore Software, a Bangalore company that licensed the technology from the trust (not to be confused with the California software company of the same name), plans to sell thousands of the handheld devices, capping an effort that began in 1998."
American paternalism?
Quote:
developed by the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India
In your rush to blame the US for all the ills of the world, you have neglected to notice this small detail...
While I'll agree US foriegn policy needs an enema, I don't see what it has to do with the Simputer either.
Images used in document: Indian man with child holding Simputer, Close-up Picture of Simputer
Images Courtesy of ENCORE SOFTWARE LTD
Article Mirror
The article:
It doesn't look like much. A drab, gray piece of plastic, about five inches long and three inches wide. A black-and-white screen, three inches by two inches, showing a few simple snippets of text. And yet this nondescript little computer may hold the key to bringing information technology to Third World countries.
The device is known as the Simputer. I recently got a chance to evaluate one of the preproduction models that have been put together by the Simputer Trust, a nonprofit organization based in Bangalore, India. This year Encore Software, a Bangalore company that licensed the technology from the trust (not to be confused with the California software company of the same name), plans to sell thousands of the handheld devices, capping an effort that began in 1998.
Simputer stands for " simple, inexpensive, multilingual computer." It was designed to meet the needs of rural villagers in countries such as India, Malaysia, Nigeria and Indonesia. Many of these potential users are illiterate and have never even seen a computer before. Loaded with some elementary software, the Simputer will sell for about $250 (or $300 for a model with a color screen). That's a sizable chunk of the yearly per capita income in many developing nations. But the Simputer's proponents argue that a single device could enable an entire village to access the Internet, perform transactions, keep track of agricultural prices and educate its children. Says Shreyas Patel, a consultant to Encore who has been setting up pilot tests of the Simputer in East Africa: " This will bring computing power to isolated communities. It can have an enormous impact."
The Simputer was conceived by a team of computer scientists at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. To make the machine cheap enough to sell in poor regions, the developers kept the hardware requirements to a minimum. The Simputer's microprocessor is an Intel Strong-ARM chip, which is known for its low power consumption. The device will have as much as 64 megabytes of random-access memory and 32 megabytes of flash memory, as well as a modem that can connect to a telephone line. And the computer runs on the Linux operating system, which is available free of charge.
Like the Palm, the Visor and other personal digital assistants (PDAs), the Simputer has a touch-sensitive screen. You use a stylus to tap on icons and to input information. The device doesn't have a keyboard or handwriting-recognition software, but in certain applications the user can select letters or numbers from a software-generated keyboard that pops up on the screen. In addition, the Simputer has a program called Tapatap that displays a three-by-three grid; you can input a letter or number by tapping on the squares of the grid in a particular sequence. Although this method is easier than hunting and pecking on a software keyboard, it is still somewhat laborious, so the Simputer's applications have been carefully designed to minimize the need for tapping in text.
But how will illiterate people be able to use the Simputer if they can't read the directions on the screen? There are two answers. One is the simplicity of the device's interface: because each display page shows only a few possible commands, even illiterate users should be able to learn by trial and error the purpose of the icons and buttons on each page. The second answer is software that can turn text into speech. The Simputer holds a database of phonemes-- basic linguistic sounds-- and from these it can generate an audio representation of any word as long as it is spelled phonetically and in characters from the Roman alphabet. It will work for various Indian languages, including Hindi, Kannada and Tamil, allowing the Simputer to read the text aloud on its tiny built-in speakers. The Simputer Trust says the software will be made available in other languages as well, depending on where the device is used.
I was unable to test this function on my preproduction model, which lacked the text-to-speech program. I can confirm, however, that the Simputer is remarkably easy to use. Its screen is free of the annoying graphical clutter that most of us are accustomed to seeing on our PCs. Below the screen are seven small buttons, one an on-off switch and the rest for use with certain embedded applications such as the Tapatap program. I found that I did not need to bother with the buttons very often, because the design of the software made it easier to use the stylus.
The Simputer also has a slot for " smart" cards, a feature that its makers see as crucial. Because the device lacks a hard drive, smart cards will act as the device's portable storage units. In this way, many people will be able to share a single Simputer without having to share their private information with one another. The cards will cost between $1 and $3 apiece and will hold four to eight kilobytes of data-- not very much by commercial standards but enough to carry some basic information for each user. " We envisage that a village might club together to buy one," notes Shashank Garg, vice president for product development at Encore. A farmer in India, for example, could use the Simputer to find out the latest prices for cotton, allowing him to strike a better deal when selling his crop. The next day one of his neighbors could use the same device to examine government property records, eliminating the need to make a difficult journey to the city.
The Simputer Trust believes the range of applications will prove compelling. But the device does have some drawbacks. It's slow, taking about 15 seconds to boot up and often needing several seconds to digest the information that the user inputs. And the Simputer sometimes crashes when it is left idle for a while, making it necessary to reboot the machine. Also, powering the device may be a daunting task in areas that do not have a reliable electricity supply. Although the Simputer can run on three AAA batteries, it can operate for only a few hours before draining them. And in the developing world, even batteries are expensive and hard to come by.
Fortunately, Simputer users may be able to draw on muscle power instead. A decade ago English inventor Trevor G. Baylis created the Freeplay radio, which is powered by turning a crank that winds up a spring inside the machine. As the spring unwinds, it turns a shaft that runs a small electric generator. Freeplay Energy Group, the company that now sells these radios, recently produced a similar charger that can power a mobile phone. In a demonstration this year some energetic hand-cranking yielded enough energy to run an Apple laptop for a few minutes. With a few adaptations, devices such as these could charge up the Simputer.
But the Simputer may not be the best tool for bringing information to the world's poorest nations. Because most people in developing countries have no access to fixed telephone lines, many mobile-phone operators are setting up networks in those areas. Mobile phones are cheaper than the Simputer, and the most advanced models can send text messages and access the Internet. Communities choosing between the devices may find a mobile phone more immediately attractive for keeping in touch with the outside world and conducting business.
Perhaps the greatest obstacle for the Simputer, though, is cost. Will people in developing countries be able to justify the expenditure of $250 on a device that may be helpful but is not essential? When so many communities in the Third World still lack clean drinking water and adequate medical facilities, are computers really a priority? Posters note: I am karma capped
I agree whole heartedly with m.lemur. Elsewhere in the article it was mentioned that this was about half the yearly income of one person in the country it was targeted to. Now ask yourself would you spend, oh about, 25k on what amounts to a PDA?
This doesn't even have a chance. Unless of course a village gets some kind of grant funding.
It is not enough to succeed, others must fail. - Gore Vidal
Q: What is your business plan?
A: 1)Make Simputers.
2) Sell it to people with hardly any money.
3)???
4) Profit!
yep...they love slashdot.
nbfn
for developing "niche" applications, aimed for specific ltasks. I don't believe Simputer alone does any magic - but it is the corner stone for providing the exact tool for exact needs - such as for creating an application for increasing milk productivity. You would not guess how complicated (and important) issue something like that can be. There are zillions of cases like this which could be solved with very simple (and intentionally very simple) applications. Before, it was just impossible to have that application reach those in need.
The only application the article suggests that sounds compelling is information access. Getting a land line or wireless access at affordable rates to remote areas means someone has to shell out big bucks for infrastructure, the cost of which most likely far exceeds the cost of the device.
The device is known as the Simputer. I recently got a chance to evaluate one of the preproduction models that have been put together by the Simputer Trust, a nonprofit organization based in Bangalore, India. This year Encore Software, a Bangalore company that licensed the technology from the trust (not to be confused with the California software company of the same name), plans to sell thousands of the handheld devices, capping an effort that began in 1998.
Simputer stands for " simple, inexpensive, multilingual computer." It was designed to meet the needs of rural villagers in countries such as India, Malaysia, Nigeria and Indonesia. Many of these potential users are illiterate and have never even seen a computer before. Loaded with some elementary software, the Simputer will sell for about $250 (or $300 for a model with a color screen). That's a sizable chunk of the yearly per capita income in many developing nations. But the Simputer's proponents argue that a single device could enable an entire village to access the Internet, perform transactions, keep track of agricultural prices and educate its children. Says Shreyas Patel, a consultant to Encore who has been setting up pilot tests of the Simputer in East Africa: " This will bring computing power to isolated communities. It can have an enormous impact."
The Simputer was conceived by a team of computer scientists at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. To make the machine cheap enough to sell in poor regions, the developers kept the hardware requirements to a minimum. The Simputer's microprocessor is an Intel Strong-ARM chip, which is known for its low power consumption. The device will have as much as 64 megabytes of random-access memory and 32 megabytes of flash memory, as well as a modem that can connect to a telephone line. And the computer runs on the Linux operating system, which is available free of charge.
Like the Palm, the Visor and other personal digital assistants (PDAs), the Simputer has a touch-sensitive screen. You use a stylus to tap on icons and to input information. The device doesn't have a keyboard or handwriting-recognition software, but in certain applications the user can select letters or numbers from a software-generated keyboard that pops up on the screen. In addition, the Simputer has a program called Tapatap that displays a three-by-three grid; you can input a letter or number by tapping on the squares of the grid in a particular sequence. Although this method is easier than hunting and pecking on a software keyboard, it is still somewhat laborious, so the Simputer's applications have been carefully designed to minimize the need for tapping in text.
But how will illiterate people be able to use the Simputer if they can't read the directions on the screen? There are two answers. One is the simplicity of the device's interface: because each display page shows only a few possible commands, even illiterate users should be able to learn by trial and error the purpose of the icons and buttons on each page. The second answer is software that can turn text into speech. The Simputer holds a database of phonemes-- basic linguistic sounds-- and from these it can generate an audio representation of any word as long as it is spelled phonetically and in characters from the Roman alphabet. It will work for various Indian languages, including Hindi, Kannada and Tamil, allowing the Simputer to read the text aloud on its tiny built-in speakers. The Simputer Trust says the software will be made available in other languages as well, depending on where the device is used.
I was unable to test this function on my preproduction model, which lacked the text-to-speech program. I can confirm, however, that the Simputer is remarkably easy to use. Its screen is free of the annoying graphical clutter that most of us are accustomed to seeing on our PCs. Below the screen are seven small buttons, one an on-off switch and the rest for use with certain embedded applications such as the Tapatap program. I found that I did not need to bother with the buttons very often, because the design of the software made it easier to use the stylus.
The Simputer also has a slot for " smart" cards, a feature that its makers see as crucial. Because the device lacks a hard drive, smart cards will act as the device's portable storage units. In this way, many people will be able to share a single Simputer without having to share their private information with one another. The cards will cost between $1 and $3 apiece and will hold four to eight kilobytes of data-- not very much by commercial standards but enough to carry some basic information for each user. " We envisage that a village might club together to buy one," notes Shashank Garg, vice president for product development at Encore. A farmer in India, for example, could use the Simputer to find out the latest prices for cotton, allowing him to strike a better deal when selling his crop. The next day one of his neighbors could use the same device to examine government property records, eliminating the need to make a difficult journey to the city.
The Simputer Trust believes the range of applications will prove compelling. But the device does have some drawbacks. It's slow, taking about 15 seconds to boot up and often needing several seconds to digest the information that the user inputs. And the Simputer sometimes crashes when it is left idle for a while, making it necessary to reboot the machine. Also, powering the device may be a daunting task in areas that do not have a reliable electricity supply. Although the Simputer can run on three AAA batteries, it can operate for only a few hours before draining them. And in the developing world, even batteries are expensive and hard to come by.
Fortunately, Simputer users may be able to draw on muscle power instead. A decade ago English inventor Trevor G. Baylis created the Freeplay radio, which is powered by turning a crank that winds up a spring inside the machine. As the spring unwinds, it turns a shaft that runs a small electric generator. Freeplay Energy Group, the company that now sells these radios, recently produced a similar charger that can power a mobile phone. In a demonstration this year some energetic hand-cranking yielded enough energy to run an Apple laptop for a few minutes. With a few adaptations, devices such as these could charge up the Simputer.
But the Simputer may not be the best tool for bringing information to the world's poorest nations. Because most people in developing countries have no access to fixed telephone lines, many mobile-phone operators are setting up networks in those areas. Mobile phones are cheaper than the Simputer, and the most advanced models can send text messages and access the Internet. Communities choosing between the devices may find a mobile phone more immediately attractive for keeping in touch with the outside world and conducting business.
Perhaps the greatest obstacle for the Simputer, though, is cost. Will people in developing countries be able to justify the expenditure of $250 on a device that may be helpful but is not essential? When so many communities in the Third World still lack clean drinking water and adequate medical facilities, are computers really a priority?
The only reason I keep my Windows partition is so I can mount it like the bitch that it is.
This is not a troll just a question, but I fail to see a real advantage of this on the last PDA from Dell. Which does cost the same price if my memory serves Well.
The Indian Paysan with not really care if it rans Linux or not, the most important factor is the price.
Though they may seem like cheap, obsolete devices made for third worlders, these could open up new opportunities for them -- how many people went from the love of ancient early 1980s computers into lucrative computer careers? Don't laugh at these simple devices -- one man's trash is another man's treasure.
If these PDAs turn more of the Indian population from people to be (yes, sadly) exploited for manual labor into a skilled labor force, it would greatly banish poverty and help build a viable middle class in the third-world country.
I originally assumed the 'P' in PDA to stand for personal, but then my visor user's manual said it was portable, but this article has made me question my beliefs once again by calling it personal.
Scientific American Reviews 'Simputer' PDA
India Officially Launches Simputer
Simputer Runs Into Problems
Get Ready For The Simputer
Handhelds for the Blind?
Slashback: Brilliance, Delay, Simputer
Slashback: Space, Smallness, Pigeons
Simple Inexpensive Mobile Computer: The Simputer
The thing will run on 3 triple A batteries.
So in 5 years we will see that (if) the Simputer is a success in getting these people online (which is so much more inmportant than making sure they can eat) - it wont really matter all that much because they will all be sick by the billions of AAA betteries that litter their water supplies, farming fields, streams etc...
I just dont think that getting poor people online is really that important. I mean the article says that a farmer can use the device to check the latest prices on cotton, allowing him to strike a better deal on selling his crops. I just dont really see this happening. I really see his cotton fields being worthless after some time due to all the battery acid leaked into the ground.
Did any of you read about the pollution that computer parts are causing in poor chinese villages? You think third world villages a really aware or concerned with the dangers high tech litter has?
This is exciting technology. Every couple of months, it seems like we're moving closer to the day when I can carry a computer around with me wherever I go. In the long run, especially as it is portrayed in the many science fiction novels I read, humanity has nothing to lose and everything to gain from making computers more ubiquitous.
Something that occurs to me is that making decisions based on long term outcome can have unforseen, or undesirable, effects in the short term. Industrialization has been beneficial to everyone, but a few generations lived in filth and poverty when it was first introduced. Which doesn't mean that we shouldn't have industrialized in the early 19th century, just that maybe we should have thought about it a little more beforehand. Yeah, I know, 20/20 hindsight and all that.
I don't think there's really any danger to the people of India from this device. I do, however, fear that we may be putting ourselves at risk by permitting them to use this technology. India has always been unstable, and with both it and Pakistan in possession of nucular weapons, it might be better to keep powerful computers out of their hands. They shouldn't be denied access to them, but that access should probably be better monitored by the international community. For all intensive purposes, they pose a threat to our very nation. We need to make sure we don't allow the events of 911 to transpire again.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
In Soviet Russia 'Simputer' PDA reviews Scientific American!
eat shit pesants
Many of these potential users are illiterate...
Spend the money for a literacy program in the first place.
as a 'soverign mediocroty' they clearly qualify as 4th world!
For more info:
http://www.Simputerland.com
Now with Jack-in-the-Box antenae balls on the stylus! Whoops, wrong sim article.
250-300? for that thing? WHY? This is such a dumb idea.
More over, if you are illiterate and poverty stricken, how do they expect you to pay for this?
Middle class i could understand, but the middle class might was well get a DELL or Ipaq.. much better for less
looks more like a national pride thing than anything else. Sort of saying.. yeah.. we can make PDAs too! tisk. pretty sad if you ask me.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
A bunch of habibs want to make a lower cost pda for their fellow habibs. And why do we care?
Seems like this answers a real direct need...except for the markets contact, I'm not sure what the simputer offers.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Used Palms go for $20-$50 on eBay. You could get possibly 10 Palm PDAs for the price of one of these. So can anyone tell me why this is better than flooding the country with a bunch of old and obsolete Palms?
India isn't some backwater, hick country. India is a vibrant technologically advanced world power. Almost 20% of Microsoft employees are of Indian descent, and that number holds across the industry. They have some of the best Mathematics schools in the world whose students outperform MIT and CalTech in international competitions every year. They have subsidized university for anyone who wants to go with extra scholarships for those who want to study the sciences. They have done well with their difficult soil and terrain using modern farming techniques and have made the desert blossom (a far cry from the barren wasteland of Pakistan, across the border).
Maybe if you left your house for a minute you'd notice that there is a whole world out there that isn't stuck in some Discovery Channel nature reserve. They don't live in mud huts and they don't scavenge for food. People across the world shop at supermarkets and have refrigeration and electricity. Just because you think they "need" this kind of hand-me-down crap to learn how to "purify water, how to diagnose simple ailments" doesn't make you a good person. It makes you an ignorant person. It marks you as one who hasn't taken the time to learn about other cultures and countries. And that is sad.
You're right. My point was that, in a remote location, rechargeables should be the ONLY option. Not throw-aways. And not for a target audience that has a family income of $5 per day.
There are two companies selling Simputer -
(1) PicoPeta:
Simputer Development Kits (http://www.picopeta.com/products/simdek.php)
Products & Services (http://www.picopeta.com/products/index.php)
Simputer Development Kits PicoPeta's Simputer Development Kits are all that you would need to develop applications for the Simputer platform. Kits have the following components, and are available in three handy packages:
Components of the Simputer Development Kits (download as PDF)
1. Simputer units (with accessories - power supply, battery, bag, user manual, cover, stylus, serial cable)(specifications)
2. SmartCards
3. PC-based Dev. Tools
SimPCync (data transfer)
Snaps (PC-side graphical display)
Malacca (IML interace)
Layout Manager for IML
Flite (Text-to-speech in English)
PicoPeta Flash Cooker (loads OS)
Package Manager
Linux Distribution (includes Perl, TCL/Tk, MySQL)
Cross Compilation Tools (C/C++ toolchain, Arm libraries)
4. Simputer-side Software
Malacca (IML interace)
MySQL for Simputer
SQLite for the StrongArm
Perl for the StrongArm
TCL/Tk for the StrongArm
FileSync
Printer driver
Dhvani (Text-to-speech engine)
Tap-a-tap (soft keyboard)
Package Manager
5. Simputer Applications
Spreadsheet
Notepad
Scientific Calculator
Image Viewer
MP3 player
Web browser
Address Book
6. Developer Documentation (code samples, how-tos, tricks & tips)
7. Technical Support for one month (email and instant messaging)
You could also download the above information as a PDF file.
Denominations
Simputer Development Kits are available in the following denominations:
Platinum: 10 Simputers, 20 SmartCards, 10 licenses for software (pricing: Rs. 190,000 in India, US $4,599 overseas)
Gold: 5 Simputers, 10 SmartCards, 5 licenses for software (pricing: Rs. 98,000 in India, US $2,499 overseas)
Silver: 2 Simputers, 5 SmartCards, 2 licenses for software (pricing: Rs. 49,000 in India, US $1,299 overseas)
Who should buy Simputer Development Kits?
The short answer is, "anyone interested in developing software for a cutting-edge handheld computer."
The long aswer:
Software companies whose clients require mobile computing solutions based on SmartCards, Text-to-speech, a high degree of mobility, simplicity, computing power or Linux (Technical Advantages)
Engineering Colleges and other educational institutions who want their students to learn Embedded Systems, Linux, Handheld programming, Pervasive computing, Simple-to-use interfaces and non-Engligh interfaces in a hands-on manner
Corporates who want to empower their road warriors with a full-featured mobile computer (Business Advantages)
Use the Simputer Development Kits to conduct pilot projects in your company / at your client's organiation. In a typical case, a company may use 3 Simputers for development and testing say, a Sales Force Automation Application, while deploying 7 Simputers on the field (ie, with various user groups).
How to buy Simputer Development Kits Please contact us for details of payment, terms, delivery period etc.
(2)Encore Software Ltd :
http://www.simputerland.com
http://www.ncoretech.com/simputer/index.html
REPLY TO MY MESSAGE FROM CEO of Encore Technologies(S) Pte Ltd :
> Hi, Thanks for all the views and anxieties expressed vis a vis the Simputer and Sharp Zaurus. I would like to give a view to the world from an Encore Simputer perspective. 1. Sharp Zaurus or indeed any other PDA approaches the market from a product perspective. Simputer is a platform and we approach the market for Encore Simputer as being a customizable platform for industry vertical applications. We will provide the Simputer in various form factors - pocket sized, larger screen, embedded device etc. 2. We offer the Simputer along with a industry/enterprise specific solution as a dedicated, total offering. Not as an off-the-shelf product. 3. We are building a common platform for all our partners to leverage each others' strengths and offer their solutions globally. For example, at our recently conducted partner meet in Singapore, our partner who has developed and is currently implementing a solution for utility meter reading in India has demonstrated the solution to the rest of the partner community in meet representing 10 other countries. This solution attracted interest for Egypt, Mauritius, South Africa and Eastern Europe markets from where the other partners that were here hail from. One of the partners from UK has a solution for Insurance agents that has attracted interest in India. The number of such possibilities is limitless. In contrast, Software developers building solutions on the Sharp and other such devices have to fight among themselves as well as with the product developer to make a market. 4. A product's destiny in the market is determined by several factors - timing, pricing, specifications/features, as well as application/implementation. We do not have a drawback on any of these aspects. There could be an overlap in some specifications with Zaurus or other such products but that is in no way a threat to the Simputer and its potential or mission. 5. Members of the community who are committed to building solutions and businesses based on the Simputer should visit http://www.simputerland.com our partner portal and consider joining our partner program.
Best regards
Ravi Desiraju
CEO, Encore Technologies(S) Pte Ltd
From the slashback article: "We are a poor country. We cannot develop operating systems and platforms on our own."
Hmm, seems like they are doing ok in this instance.
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. - Tennessee Williams
...now multi-national sims will have something to carry with them on their virtual picket line
The preferred spelling of the word is "woot" or "w00t"
try to keep that in mind during future trolling
1. Why not just buy a Dell? It'd be more powerful and cost only a little more.
By making a miniature computer of very low cost, the users can keep personal data on smart-cards and share one Simputer amongst many users. Thus the cost can be spread around. This could also be done with a laptop, but the power consumption and cost of a laptop much higher than this Simputer would be.
2. Why not just spend the money on picture books for literacy, or better farming tools, or condoms, or hand-soap?
Because the root causes of illiteracy, starvation, overpopulation, and unsanitary living are often educational. This one device, unlike picture books, could be used to teach literacy at many levels, as well as other languages and subjects (such as effective farming.) Throwing condoms at a population is useless without some sexual education / health propaganda. Unsanitary living is the same way -- many of the diseases caught by not doing a post-shit soap handwashing can be eliminated by washing one's hands in ash, which is free. Again, this problem is educational and/or propagandistic.
3. Why does it run on AAA batteries? Yecch!
The batteries can be rechargable. For usability and transportability, the Simputer should be small.
4. Why not just get a cell phone?
This thing has fairly high specs for a hand-held, and its cost will likely be defrayed by non-profit and governmental organizations. The design needs of cell phones go in a different direction -- they're targeted towards hip Japanese schoolgirls and soulless American yuppies. The Simputer is meant for communal use by the very poor (and remember, the design is pretty much open, so the problem-domain-targeted features can be upgraded). Also, where's the flash card slot on these cell phones? These machines need to be usable as a machine shared by a large group of people.
5. Why is it so expensive?
Again, shared computer amongst a poor group. They all chip in for the machine and their own smart card. This design -- and few others, I posit -- meet the needs of this problem domain.
Did I cover everything? What other reasons do folks have?
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
Noble intention BUT it would be better to develop similar applications for cheap and available cellphones!
This sounds like it was made to try to soak up some of that dot.com money by offering a pr friendly way for people/corps to donate their money. You donate to the non-profit, get a tax break, or you can buy up a buncha simputers and ship them off to india and broken or used as dishes or something. Encore, the company that licenses its os to the non-profit probably makes a big profit. Its all about PR and someone capitalizing on a perceived need "third world computer literacy" that someone cared about for a minute or two.
Because, sometimes they just have to touch the stove.
-YY1
Change your job field !!!
US To Move 3.3 M Jobs Offshore By 2015: Forrester
Altogether 3.3 million US jobs in the services sector and $136 billion in wages are expected to move offshore to countries like India, Russia, China and the Philippines by 2015 according to a recent report of research and consulting firm Forrester Research. The report adds that the IT industry will lead the initial overseas exodus . The study says that this offshore model will impact service companies in a variety of ways, especially in terms of factors like project management skills which will determine the winners and losers. The report explains that a key input into financial performance and shareholder return will be a company's ability to manage remote services providers. The report states that the strong performance of firms like GE, that have heavily invested in outsourcing, sets them apart on Wall Street. The report explains that like the shift in manufacturing jobs in the last half of the 20th century, the huge cost advantage of low-wage countries like India, South Africa, and the Philippines will drive the diaspora of services jobs. Forrester believes that the economics of business will increasingly favour the use of overseas staff. Some of the key drivers are cheaper labour rates since the cost of an entry level programmer in China is 30-50 per cent lower than one in Tokyo, London or Chicago. The savings are similar for accounting, customer service and legal staff as well. Then there is low-cost bandwidth - the manifold increase in capacity as a result of new undersea cables and the deregulation of telecommunications in the US, Europe, and Asia mean that firms can ship huge volumes of scanned documents overseas for processing. The other driver is standardised business applications since all the money sunk into software like SAP and Siebel forced companies to standardise and document their business processes, thereby making it easier to hand them off. Finally, e-mail and collaborative tools like instant messaging and shared whiteboards running over Internet links make it easier for clients to stay in contact with the services outsourcer thus lowering project management overheads. The report adds that successful outsourcing chief information officers will vie for chief operating officer posts. By the end of the decade, adds the report, executive stature will be measured by the size of the outsourcing contracts that they manage, not the number of employees. Businesses will need a multilayered offshore strategy since over the next 10 to 20 years, there will be a tiering of the services industry similar to what has been observed in manufacturing. Simple, base-level back office payroll and data entry will go to "rock-bottom-wage" countries like Vietnam and Uruguay over time and countries like India will move up the chain and take on more complex software and product development services . As a result, firms will have to take a portfolio approach and not rely on a single vendor or country to receive maximum cost savings. The report adds that there is already a growing base of companies that are shifting a range of IT, back-office, customer service, and sales operations offshore to cut their costs by up to 50 per cent. Recent announcements, across a range of offshore services in a mix of different industries, typify the shift that is afoot. Software development firms like Oracle and i2 Technologies for example have joined the growing ranks of Fortune 1000 firms that are moving software development to low-cost centres like India and the Philippines. The movement of offshore services will have implications on business and public policies. IT and services will become the preferred economic development engine, as call centres and processing centres shift from rural America to Africa, South America and Asia. Governments will jockey for International Monetary Fund money to boost telecom and services-enabling infrastructure.
According to the article, the simputer sometimes crashes if left idle for a while... I mean, c'mon, guys...
Either way -- they should check out dasher for text input... much better than the methods described. There was a slashdot story about it a while back...
This whole deal strikes me as remarkably similar to the idea Randy and the guys at Epiphyte had in one of the best books EVER, The Cryptonomicon. What's next? Will they start a vault? And where's the hidden gold!?
Vivek Kulkarni, Information secretary of Karnataka, India: "We are a poor country. We cannot develop operating systems and platforms on our own." lol
After all, which would you rather have, a computer, or the ability to read?
Of course what you seem to have forgotten is that a computer is a great way of getting reading teaching out to areas of the world where there is very little or no existing educational infrastructure, and improving it where it does exist. If the computers have internet access, all the better, because then the student can communicate with teachers elsewhere. Sure, it's perhaps not as good as having a real, physical teacher there in the village, but it's a hell of a lot cheaper.
My nephew (age 4) learnt to read almost entirely using a computer, and he probably learnt earlier than he would have done without it, simply because the computer was always available to teach him (unlike his parents or nursery teachers). If it works for my nephew I don't see why it can't work for rural Indians - both children and adults.
1: How fast will it fill up my fun meter? 2: Can it set me on fire or does that require a Beowulf cluster? 3: Does it give me any skill points? 4: How fast will it lower my social meter? 5: Does it have The Sims preinstalled?
Not noteable, IMO a rubbish article.
In Neal Stephenson's "Diamond Age" an intelligent, interactive book powered by mongo nanotech falls into the hands of a young, semi-literate, white-trash girl who, through it's influence at a formative and inately inquisitive phase of her development, blossoms into an intelligent, informed, inquiring woman of near limitless perspicacity. Then there was some other stuff about humanity and blah blah blah and basically a whole bunch of crap which doesn't entirely support my argument, which is that if one or two of these things is made available in every poor, remote village in a third world country, and if curious youngters who don't have access to formal education gain access to them, and if the youngsters are able to connect them to the net using the single crappy phone line that runs into their village then suddenly they have a whole world of information at their fingertips. Over time this could have an enourmous affect on the rural populations of poor countries.
A simple example - nothing good is cheap in second hand shops in little country towns anymore because, despite physical isolation, the shop keeper can look up any curious thing that comes their way on e-bay and find there's come schlep out there who's willing to pay a packet for [insert name of weird collectable something here]
Apply the same logic to global crop prices and suddenly these people will have clear evidence of how badly they are being shafted by global capitalism. Whether or not they can do anything about it is a separate question, but knowledge and information may help to get the ball rolling.
Now wash your hands.
* The schematics, pdf and ORCAD(.dsn) files for the complete schematics of the Simputer
* Bill of materials in .xls and .pdf formats
* The layout and pcb details in PADS2000 format
I think this is the best thing about this product. They released these under the Simputer General Public License (SGPL). This means that any small companies, or better yet, universities can create their own version of the Simputer and perhaps improve upon it, even at the PCB level. Perhaps even downsize the PCB even more. Because they've provided schematics in OrCAD format, it makes it very easy to edit the design from the ground up, and spin your own new design. Having the bill-of-materials is great too, because you can see exactly which parts they used. This is TOTALLY NEW in the hardware business as far as I know. I have heard of OpenCores but that is different. I think this is a step in the right direction. When I was doing hardware on the job I used to always find myself and other at the company repeating old designs and designing PCBs for stupid things that could easily have been open-sourced by someone along the way. Like RS-232 to RS-485 converters. We found it cheaper to just spin our own PCBs than to buy these all packaged up, but it took a month just to do the schematics, PCBs, and then get the damn thing working.
My question is though, what is the motivation from the company's perspective to release their hardware designs as open source?
Specs for Microtel PC with 15-inch monitor:
The specs of the Microtel PC are so much better, and the price so similar, that I wonder whether a desktop form factor would have been a better design choice. Obviously, the Microtel PC is not portable, but according to the article the computer would be used to "access the Internet, perform transactions, keep track of agricultural prices, and educate children". I don't think portability is a must for those functions.
The only real advantage that the Simputer provides is a built-in text-to-speech feature, but this could be added to the Microtel for free.
I'm not saying that aid agencies should be buying PCs from Wal-Mart and shipping them off to developing countries, but I do think the developers of the Simputer should have put their efforts into producing a similar desktop computer for the villages of, for example, sub-Saharan Africa. The smallest of these villages have no electricity, but many often do, as I learned from my recent experience in the Peace Corps. Thus the benefit of the Simputer's rechargeable batteries isn't really a huge advantage. And if, as the article claims, these villagers want to access the Internet, they're going to need a source of electricity for that anyway.
Even if the Simputer had hardware just as powerful as a desktop PC, there is still the problem of software. Most software today simply cannot run on a 240x320 display. All of these educational and business-transaction programs that the article talked about would have to be redesigned especially for the Simputer. On the other hand, a desktop computer with a full-size monitor opens up the entire world of existing applications. Also, by learning how to use standard desktop computers (and standard software like word processors and spreadsheets), the user is doing more than just calculating the price of his crop. He's picking up an additional skill - computer literacy - that can be applied elsewhere. That's something I tried to accomplish during my Peace Corps service.
But then, that's the real problem, isn't it? Not computer literacy but basic literacy. Providing a Simputer to developing countries is treating the symptoms of the disease, not the cause. These folks need jobs, skills, and education, not processing power. In the village where I worked as a Peace Corps volunteer, the average teacher's salary was around $75 per month. For the price of one Simputer, a village could hire someone to teach reading skills to an entire class for four months.
The Simputer may be a good idea for a few select cases, but overall I think it's a misguided effort.
Trevor
You can get a Dell Axim A5 for $199 and a lot more PocketPC hardware for less than $300. Of course, the PocketPC software sucks, but porting the Simputer software environment to such hardware shouldn't be too hard. The new low-end iPaq might be another good target and might be supported fairly soon by handhelds.org.
This isn't one of the best acronyms i've seen recently (but it's far from the worst). I'm assuming it breaks down as Simputer: Simple Inexpensive Multilingual comPUTER? If they wanted to call it Simputer, why do a halfass job of backsolving the acronym? If they wanted to use a name which was an acronym for a descriptive title (probably a bad idea 'cause acronyms don't translate well), then call it SIMC (or change the name to Powerful Inexpensive Multilingual Portable).
Information is the most major human resource- even food and shelter are dependent on the ability to know where food can be found and how to build shelters using available materials. Everyone is disempowered by lack of information, whether it is an Indian peasant about to be screwed on harvest prices because he hasn't heard about the shortages, or the employee who doesn't know that the CEO is gambling away the company. A device like the simputer could be used to transport information from a PC in a village with electricity to one without, and transport information and queries back again. The disadvantage of radio is that it supplies generic information and the output is not searchable - villagers cannot spend all their time listening to radio hoping for important information.
I suspect that the key to the success of something like the simputer will the delivery systems that grow up around it, which are likely to be human powered.
When printed books first appeared, they were fabulously expensive (Roger Bacon, in his great buying spree, managed to find 24 books for his college library) but their value was so enormous that before long the idea spread throughout Europe. A book is transportable persistent storage, and a printed book has some guarantee of authenticity (you can see if it has been modified). The simputer is persistent storage and the grain dealer or the government official is unlikely to be able to modify the contents.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
The idea is geeky ofcourse, but would a Linux based PDA really be useful like a Palm based one ?
I can't understand why would anyone buy a Linux based PDA. Plam OS has a huge base of software while Linux PDAs hardly has any.
Can anyone who has a Linux PDA share with us his experience with it. How useful is the thing ?
I'm wondering how much it will cost when any other company produced more of these things. Wont the manufacturing costs drop when they made 100.000 handheld devices instead of those 1.000?
Perhaps such initiatives may result in a general open hardware thing in the future. Surely there are some hobbyists around here who are able to use this schematic for their own pleasure, even adding features to it.
they cost around 60 euros/bucks on ebay (including shipping) .
First of all I am somehow shocked by the racism and total lack of cultural perspective often shown here. Words like "Habib" and "dothead" remind me of the Sihk who was killed at his gas station in the US after 9/11 last year. Firstly, most Indians (not all but most) are Hindu. Secondly, lumping millions if not billions of people into one basket is below the level of even some of the more sickening trolls on this forum. Thirdly (and please don't take this as anti-American, because it's not meant that way), It often seems that people here compare items like this from their own social and economic perspectives. For the target audience, most of whom have never seen a computer before, arguments about the processor speed etc and other commercial systems, such as Dell's PDA or a Palm are not exactly useful. No one in this device's target audience can afford commercial WinCE or Palm software. For a village in India or CAR (Central African Republic) that has to club together to buy a device like plus a hand generator or a small solar cell, $20 for some software to do text to speech In Their Language (since the ability to read english is strangely not universal) is a lot of money in an area where the per capita annual income is about $400.
While the gist of the idea is an axcellent one, I agree completely with the SA article in that mobile phones will probably fit these people's needs better. Wireless communication is already more widespread in Africa than landlines and most mobile phones based on the symbian platform offer localised languages and extremely easy to use interfaces as well as the ability to load Java applications which can do extra tasks needed by these people.
It's very cheap and easy to teach people to read, all it takes is manpower, and that's an abundant resource in India. English is the main language of commerce and government in India, and overall literacy is 52%, not bad for an agrarian system. Instead of buying this obscenely expensive, battery-hungry computer, illiterate people would be better off clubbing together to pay for a teacher. If they then want a small computer they could do better on price and appropriateness.
Saying poor people don't need telephones is like saying they don't need roads because you can't eat roads. But how can you get vaccines to remote areas without decent roads, and how can people access local markets?
What really poor people need is some way of making a decent living, not food aid - except in an emergency. Cell phones are spreading rapidly in South Asia right now among surprisingly poor people. Thea aren't individually owned, either groups buy them or they are bought by very small entrepreneurs as pay phones, often supported by micro lending.
Poor people sometimes save for weeks or months to make a single phone call. This is mentioned in passing in the sciam article. It may seem abstract, but it's reality in poor countries.
I bragged about my Karma at a job interview but I didn't get the job.
Comparing PCs to Simputer is a waste of effort. How often have you seen a PC in a village in a third world country? What about a mobile? See the point? A PC, from it's basic hardware (and software!) design, is much harder to support than simple compact device like a Simputer. Simple heat and humidity would kill a modern PC in nothing flat, let alone the case I diagnosed in a third world country... ants living in the hard disk. That said, it's still too expensive.
Yeah. Percolation of information into the villages is good and all, but I live in India and fail to see why they didn't target their platform at a standard desktop PC.
Without doubt, a second-hand desktop could be purchased for the same price in India. Don't see how illiterate farmers would be coaxed to squint at a palm-sized b&w screen with arcane symbols. Nor do I see how one simputer per village is going to make people literate.
There are already initiatives for a Tamil and a Hindi linux distro - clearly, coupled with inexpensive desktops, these can take computer literacy a long way. I would still be skeptical about these delivering the three R's to the illiterate.
At any rate, the internet still is not something that a villager has access to. Even at cities, internet usage (via dial-up) costs 80 cents an hour. In villages, typically $2 an hour. And a typical middle class family pulls in $400 every month. A poor man earns only $40 a month.
In summary, I'd say: yes, the greatest handicap of the Indian peasant is lack of information. But the simputer is a remarkably bad solution.
Lots. I lived in a developing country (Ghana, West Africa) for over two years, and every town and village I went to that had electricity also had computers. And besides, if a village doesn't have electricity, surely you'd agree that getting some would be a higher priority than getting a Simputer?
A PC, from it's basic hardware (and software!) design, is much harder to support than simple compact device like a Simputer.
I disagree entirely. The Simputer hardware is a custom design, so what happens if, for instance, the screen gets a crack? You'd have to replace the entire unit. If a PC's monitor breaks down, you can easily find a replacement. That's the advantage of commodity hardware.
As for software, I don't see how the Simputer's custom operating system and applications would be easier to support. If something goes wrong, there's no one around familiar enough with the software to diagnose the problem. Meanwhile, there are loads of IT people - and yes, there are IT people in developing countries - who have experience and training in the repair and maintainance of Windows-based PCs.
Simple heat and humidity would kill a modern PC in nothing flat
I agree that a handheld computer with no hard drive, fan, or other moving parts is more reliable, but that's true in any environment. For what it's worth, I brought a laptop with me to Ghana, and with the exception of a hard drive failure (which easily could have happened anywhere else over the course of two years), it worked perfectly.
That said, it's still too expensive.
Did you read my post? A full-blown PC with monitor is only $20 more than a Simputer.
Trevor
"Seven years and six months!" Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully.
"An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you'd asked MY advice, I'd have
said 'Leave off at seven' -- but it's too late now."
"I never ask advice about growing," Alice said indignantly.
"Too proud?" the other enquired.
Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. "I mean,"
she said, "that one can't help growing older."
"ONE can't, perhaps," said Humpty Dumpty; "but TWO can. With
proper assistance, you might have left off at seven."
-- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking-Glass"
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