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State Of The Simputer
2br02b writes "Readers might recall the Simputer (Simple, Inexpensive, Multilingual Computer) whose story Slashdot has been following over the past few years, including its release in October 2002 and most recently the Scientific American article in November. Rediff.com has an informative overview on the status of what was introduced as a low-cost computer for the poor to be sold for under Rs 10000 ($200). Of the two companies that have been given licences, one has yet to put the product on the market while the other is only looking at bulk sales at prices from Rs 12000 to Rs 20000 ($400). Only between 1500 and 2000 Simputers are out on the market."
HOw about we concentrate on basic human needs like food, clean, running water and shelter before we go doling out handhelds to people?
I'm not at all against technology education and maximizing its use wherever possible, but there truly are some things that must take priority here.
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I guess 200-400$ aren't that little for a poor Indian. Apart from that fact that I have to wonder whatfor people living in some fuckin slum need a computer!
So now pricing it up there with laptops and high end handhelds will get it selling? Wasn't the whole point of the simputer as computing for the masses and not the uber-rich? (Yes kiddies, you are considered Uber rich to 4/5ths the worlds' population.)
Another great idea tanked by a bunch of PHB's
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
isn't there a better way to provide computing technology to the third-world masses? perhaps someone should start a program for donating old, outdated computers for the good of poorer nations. (if there isn't already one)
In the reverse of many of the comments on here, who wouldn't want a less expensive computer, provided it still did the functions they need? I agree that gamers need the latest hardware, etc. but shouldn't these machines first go to replace the expensive desktops here in the U.S., and perhaps some of our excess food supply could go over there? A poor person would probably prefer numerous free lunches to a free laptop.
stuff |
To be so close to having a computer accessible by all. It is hard to estimate what the implications could have been if everyone, every where had access to a computer. But of course the inventors yet again failed to factor in corporate greed.
If you don't stop reading this right now you owe me $1,000. Send check or money order too...
An idea like this sounds fantastic - but is riddled with potential problems.
If they produce something with low capabilities, but a low, low price, then they will be accused of producing underpowered rubbish.
As soon as you start to increase the potential of the platform, the costs start to rise until you have an elitist product that the intended market cannot afford.
There *may* be a happy medium somewhere, but the edvil is in the details of finding it. In the consumerist marketplace we have in the West, production prices are already pushed as low as possible. Squeezing out extra pennies in production is almost impossible. The potential is there though to reduce prices through the marketing and adminitration side of things (pay no fat-cat salaries to the sales & management departments), but then again the product quickly becomes unfashionable and therefore undesirable.
I would love to see such a product to succeed, but it's a hell of an uphill stuggle!
A little planning goes a long way...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I guess 200-400$ aren't that little for a poor Indian. Apart from that fact that I have to wonder whatfor people living in some **** slum need a computer!
I'm not sure how it works in India, but it is probably (please correct me if I'm wrong) similar to the Philippines where the average college graduate makes about $300 / month.
If you assume that the average college graduate in the US makes $3k - $4k / month, then a fair comparison would be a $3500 computer in the U.S. to a $300 computer in the Philippines (or perhaps, India). From an expense point of view, it is likely to be affordable (although certainly a luxury).
But to imagine that these people do not wish to communicate, learn and reach out to the world through the Internet is fairly ignorant. In my experience with families from the third world, a computer (and even a broadband connection, which can be had for pennies on our dollars) is more desirable than a telephone or television.
My conclusion? The simputer may not fit the bill, but the need and economics are right on.
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
>people were interchanging polarities while inserting batteries and battery contacts were coming loose due to rough handling.
The UI interface better be really really simple.
And yes I think this is a dumb idea. Just give them old desktop computers. There is no reason for portability to be simple, inexpensive or multilingual.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
You could argue that the poor could use these cheap computers to help them get food, water etc.
... computers, they could use them to improve there farming and harvest more food or to make a better profit selling their harvest.
For example: If you give poor farmers in Africa, India,
This is much better than just giving them food. Computers could help solve THE PROBLEM instead of just curing the symptoms.
However, there are many other problems:
- Lot's of poor people can't read/write.
- If they can read/write, can they often can't read/write English
- in some poor countries there is a power shortage
- Who will educate all these people on how to use computers?
They're called "books". They've been around for hundreds of centuries, they have been translated and localised into every laungauage conceivable, they have documented almost every achivement known to man, and they run without batteries.
Technology for technolgies sake. What a load of rubbish.
Considering the fact that 16% of the planet doesn't even make $400 a year , this is still ridiculously expensive.
I seem to remember, when the Simputer first hit the backpages of IT newspaper supplements, that the point of the simputer was to provide a set of designs that could be produced cheaply, the idea being that this production would then be available to anyone with the right resources/motivation, rather than just those who wanted to sell it for profit to geeky businessmen. When I signed onto the Simputer mailing list, there was a lot of talk about this, and the method in which a charge would only be entailed for mass-producers - everybody else, wanting to produce less than a certain number of units, was free to take the designs (and the software, IIRC) and use them.
Casting an eye over the Simputer site reveals an interesting addition - the SGPL, or Simputer General Public License. There are then TWO separate licenses (the SDML and the, uh, SDML to manufacture it. Alas, I have no time at the moment to work out precisely what the differences are, though judging by the title ("Simputer" versus "Simputerised"), this is something to do with which components you intend to use.
Nevertheless, it would seem that the original intention to roll out a technology for the common good has slipped a little, though the reasons for this I can only speculate on, and would be wrong to do so... Alas, I think that the most practical way to achieve the original goals, to promote the use of communication technologies (as this is the essential bit) in the same way that radio technology spread, is to make it truly owned by nobody, veritably public domain. To achieve it alongside commercial interests means something usually has to give on one side or the other.
On a different note, perhaps the EU could gleam some advice on patents from the SGPL too...
>>They can use the computers to learn about ways of improving their farming...
So what's wrong with a photocopied pamphlet or even a book? Hundreds, perhaps thousands of booklets could be printed for the cost of one of these computers.
If the goal is the distribution of information, this is the wrong tool for the job.
I have seen all the previous responses - provide them food, not computers.. provide them clothing and health facilities .. not computers.. blah blah blah..
But obviously who ever was posting it didnt have even the vaguest idea about India or for that matter any third world over populated nation.
Firstly, this is not for personal ownership. I dont think that marketing people in India expect to sell $400 product to Bhole Ram (equivalent of Joe Consumer) who earns $500 annually. This product would be for collective use - like those internet cafes- most people in developed countries use internet cafes(if at all) because they cannot lug their pc/laptop around. But its a different story in developing countries - people use them because they cant afford to buy a pc and have regular internet connection. So it makes perfect sense for a village governing body to buy one of these and provide some kind of access scheme to the villagers to use it. Why a simputer? why not a pc? firstly cost.. secondly size... last but not the least usability and maintanance.
Cellphone networks are easier to get access to than regular phone lines in india and it makes perfect sense to make provision for wireless internet access in the simputer.
Now I want to address the "why computers to the hungry?" part. Its about information dissemenation.
1. Natural disasters - floods, cyclones, forest fires.. earth quakes.
2. accidents...
3. pestilences and animal diseases.
4. Information about governance
Time and again the above have proved to be major problems in India and they took large toll because of the lack of information. In a 1977 storm surge 20k people died in coastal Andhra villages and the reason is that they never knew about the impending cyclone.
plant and animal pestilences usually sweep across the nation.. nothing much can be done about it if people are not informed in advance.
proper medical care never reaches accident victims in villages because the nearest phone is 20 miles away and the nearest doctor is 50 miles away.
Redtape is a way of life in India. If you dont know the rules of the red tape, you are so screwed. poor uninformed villagers are the ones who usually fall prey to these practises.
Now - coming to the hungry and starving part of things, people in one part of the country can die of starvation without any help reaching them - only due to the lack of information.
yes - there are millions of people under the poverty line in India. many of them can get only 1 meal a day with difficulty.. the only way to empower these people is by providing them access to information and letting them decide what they want to with their own lives.
now all you booers and nay sayers can take ur crock and shove it... u know where.
they got no food.. why give them clothes? they got no clothes.. why give them houses? they got no houses.. why freedom of speech?... you all are mary antoinettes...
There are, of course, many reasons why it flopped, but here's one reason why it flopped in my household:- the Spectrum + had to fight for TV space along with daily soaps, news and cartoons, among other things. You know which ones won over.
More than mere navel gazing.