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Scientific American Reviews 'Simputer' PDA

Posted by timothy on from the at-long-last dept.

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!"

2 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. screen res by rendermouse · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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
  2. Interface by IIRCAFAIKIANAL · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.