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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.
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!
What do you mean? With computers they can get food, water, and medicine over the internet!
$200 can feed Sally Struthers for one day. Send what you can.
Yes, we need to hit ALL of the third world countries. :-)
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
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)
E.g. a farmer could learn himself the latest new techniques for increasing the amount of crops...
As soon as I read that I had a vision of farmers trying quite unconventional techniques for effect more than for production and a blog with lots of stories about crop modding. Time to search for that backyard tesla coil that guy made...
as a 'soverign mediocroty' they clearly qualify as 4th world!