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Simputer Available?
Anonymous Coward writes "The Simputer (marketed by PicoPeta, the inventors and manufactured by the Defence Electronics PSU - BEL) has a website now and is available for sale (including outside India). Some pics can be found at the picture gallery. This story has been discussed a few times before here at /. here, here and here. Of particular note are some of the features, notably the device goes beyond the typical handheld/PDA and has some brand new innovations. For instance, it uses accelerometers to sense motion and this is used to give commands to the computer (for instance, to zoom a picture, you just have to move the Simputer towards you and to turn a page, you flick it like you would turn a page for a book. Also has an integrated smart card reader plus writer, very useful for several business applications."
Simputer is planning to outsource the tech support to America because it's cheaper. I bet people in India won't be happy about that.
Although I don't have the problem yet, many old folks have problems focusing at certain distances.. this causes them to move paper or a PDA back and forth.. which would zoom/shrink. They aren't necessarily zooming, so much as finding a focal point... this might lead to some serious over-correction as you try and find a usable size and focal point. hope you can turn it off.
meh
Accelerometers sense motion to zoom, eh?
They had BETTER have an option to turn that off, or else it sure would make using it on a bus interesting.
accelerometers. seems like an over-engineered solution to trivial problems, and it's easy to imagine it being more annoying than useful e.g. when looking something up while walking.
look at the modern mobile phones e.g. Sony Ericsson P900 5-way jog-wheel, that's an excellent example of innovation - very simple and very effective.
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Nothing to see here
Simputer.com is now back up. No need for the google cache.
Nothing to see here
Price is on the frontpage (right hand side) in rupees (9950 to be precise)
From the Google cache:
What is a Simputer?
Bridging the Great Digital Divide
The Simputer is a low cost portable alternative to PCs, by which the benefits of IT can reach the common man.
It has a special role in the third world because it ensures that illiteracy is no longer a barrier to handling a computer.
The key to bridging the digital divide is to have shared devices that permit truly simple and natural user interfaces based on sight, touch and audio.
The Simputer meets these demands through a browser for the Information Markup Language (IML). IML has been created to provide a uniform experience to users and to allow rapid development of solutions on any platform.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
not that i'm trolling or anything, but does it??
Whether you think this should be a patentable idea or not, using accelerometers to scroll a PDA display has been patented. I wonder if Simputer will be getting a "cease and desist" letter in the mail. Of course it's possible that they have already licensed it from the patent holder.
Patent number 6,466,198:
"View navigation and magnification of a hand-held device with a display"
The patent holder is called Innoventions
I've never heard a "looks like the site was running on a (whatever hardware we're talking about)" joke before!
Too much teh funny!
...well, it's mostly /.'ed, but i saw the first shot of the hot girl using it as an mp3 player and i don't care what it is, i neeed it.
i need the hot chicks. Come on, this is slashdot, you were thinking it too.
Congratulations to Amida, you made it. There are some Linux PDAs, which where announced, but never became available for sale. See this survey about Linux on PDAs.
webserver! Buckled to it's knees with only 20 /. comments....
sounds like an answer to a question nobody asked. Or is it just me?
I tried to contact the simputer folk on 3 different occasions to license the design to no responce. For being an "open" platform, the docs and schematics are similarly locked-down making it impossible to even do a review.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Why is this the right type of computer for India? What is wrong with desktop PC's? We all know that a laptop costs way more then a desktop, and a tablet PC costs way more than that. This simputer sounds alot more like a tablet PC than a desktop, so I would guess it's cost would be similar.
Shouldn't the overriding factor for underdeveloped countries be the cost? Not portability and gee-whiz features like zooming by acceleratometers?
to zoom in you move the simputer closer to you ..
...
...
... how convenient.
you can rotate the display by holding the simputer and twisting your wrist
if you toss the simputer directly above you its homing technology will cause it to fall back down towards you
and it will automatically shut itself down once the battery is dead
I know few people read the articles, but why don't people read the articles before they complain about the article's percieved lack of information?
Try the buy link. Or just compare models.
And next time, make sure you read the article and not just the Google Cache when somebody says a website was updated.
The ______ Agenda
$222 USD or $182 EUR.
If this technology will be simple, intuitive, and worthwhile, maybe it will persuade me to use it.
Since this is an open-source project, I wonder if it will suffer from the kind of awful feature-itis that a lot of OSS projects have... and the interface will go downhill.
This does not simpute. Simputer will return after deciding your punishment.
mitch
wow... already site is swamped... going to google cache
Shoot! I was hoping that this was finally going to fill all my "The Sims" playing needs!
Independent of the applications' use of accelerometers, this would be the perfect candidate for the controller in a roaming home robot. Using the accelerometer you could significantly improve on its navigation capabilities. I just ran across a book on this last weekend The Ultimate Palm Robot , by Kevin Mukhar and Dave Johnson. And now I find the perfect controller for it, too. Coincidence or Kismet?
to the Engineer, the glass is neither half full nor half empty. Its just two times too big.
The FAQ says about 9000 rupees. Doesn't seem like that great a deal personally...
"Also has an integrated smart card reader plus writer, very useful for several business applications."
:D
Great, now I can unloop my HU cards on the go!
... the femputer? When can I get one of those?
I hereby propose one: the comment. A comment is the unit measurement of how fast a server can be swept over by the Mongol-Tartars. Used to describe how quickly something gets slashdotted, though not limited to slashdot itself. Eventual spread to other areas is encouraged. See also: FWICE!
example:
"Man, that was only like 10 comments before my AMD Palomino core with no heatsink melted the motherboard."
pretty crappy accelerometer costs 25 - 40$
You can get a 2-axis Analog Devices accelerometer kit for $19.50 for the Mark III mini-sumo robot at The Mark III Store (scroll down a page to the "Accelerometer Kit"). There's a handful of discrete components, and this is essentially a retail price, so figure $15.
The part is actually a MEMS device, so figure 1) a manufacturer can probably buy it at half that price in volume, and 2) there are cheaper non-MEMS devices available on the market.
to the Engineer, the glass is neither half full nor half empty. Its just two times too big.
because you're a fatty. Fats. And your website is attrocious.
yea, i don't even think i've played that much zelda!!!
bluetooth certainly adds cost to the computer, but i wonder why such technology wasn't built in, or capabilities for it added--card slot of some sort. if i recall correctly the cost was supposed to come in around 4-5 hundred dollars, which isn't bad at all. i'd love to see a review of the software--and hardware. it looks pretty polished.
Since their site is overwhelmed with hits, thought I should start this thread. This is good for research in India. We have all known that India is now a major player in the outsourcing market. With many other institutes also setting up R&D units in India, India's contribution to the world of research and technology will increase. This project came out of IISc - Indian Institute of Science , Bangalore and is a major step forward in the research to commercial movement in India, an area which the USA has mastered and is really good at.
INR 9000 is approx $200.
The feature may have some interesting effects, with the optical zoom interacting with the on-screen zoom.
But as someone mentioned, a jolt on a bus could appear to jiggle the view window over an unmoving "document" -- the same could be done with the Z-axis, so a jolt toward you could reduce the image so as to keep the apparent size the same. (not that the screen has enough resolution to make the reduction optically perfect)
However, motion sickness is caused when the visual movement does not match that of the inner ear. I wonder how an unmoving object would be interpreted; maybe those with head-worn displays have some experience. (The reaction apparently is because many poisons cause visual distortions, so the resulting nausea is intended to trigger vomiting and remove any poisonous material which is still in the stomach.)
sadly im not trolling. I wish i was though.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
For those who can't access the site because it is /.ed or do not want to read the site in the ususal /. tradition, here is a summary of major features ...you get the idea)
1. Runs Linux
2. Can connect to Internet though a regular phone line or CDMA cellphone
3. Has 2 USB ports built in
4. Has a inbuilt voice recorder
5. Aslo works as a MP3 and movie player(combine with the USB storage and
6. Has lots of inbuilt apps including internet browser, email, accounting and a panchanga ( Indian calender system used to figure out auspicious inauspicious days) etc.
7. Can wrie in multiple languages using a "bhasha" notebook software inbuilt and a special keyboard.
8. Gesture input using a inbuilt accelerometer
Other benefits
http://amidasimputer.com/benefits/
And you can buy it from here:
http://www.amidasimputer.com/buy
a little video camera connected to an custom image processing ASIC seems like an over-engineered solution to a trivial problem. But, it reduces the parts count and maintence, and one day I suspect it'll soon be cheaper to manufacture than mechanical mice.
Accelerometers may sound spiffy today, but in reality, it's just a special process applied to the chips & can be made in bulk. The lack of dust openings and the ability to integrate into other chips may also make it cheaper in the long run.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Why is it that roughly 80% of the initial posts involve some sort of derision of this product? It is a computer built in India and its made to be simple yet slashdotters automatically start associating it as something cheap or stupid. Grow up people. Indians have just as much a right as anyone else to pioneer in the field of technology and they did not fucking make fun of you idiots during the dot-com bubble so don't bash their innovations.
No I am not from India. I live in North America and I am a starving coder also. I just have respect for development of technology no matter where it is made.
Ya know I saw a Leapster at a local big box store. It can do color and decent sound via Flash 5 and uses normal batteries. Plus the Leapster costs less then half of the price of the Simputer.
When the Simputer was first announced it was a great idea, cheap portable computing. Now I can get alomst the same thing as a toy.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
I find it very funny that people want to use MySQL anywhere, when most of the /. effect victims fall prey to it. Even /. itself...
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
For instance, it uses accelerometers to sense motion and this is used to give commands to the computer ...
Great for sex-toy mods!
-kgj
What does it smell curry when I burn a CD with this thing?
6. Q: When will the Simputer be available?
A: If all goes well, by March 2002 you should be able to buy one of them.
I guess all didn't go, "well."
but still no link or explanation; you are being pointlessly obfuscatory
of course, providing a link woudl just magically make my statement wrong or right? I speak not fom some damn site i have seen but from my own expereinces. The death toll i speak of is this. AI has sided with the maoists. /. who couldn't care less.
If you want to know more, find it yourself. I feel no obligation to explain myself to some one on
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
if their aim is to reach the poorer sections of indian society, Rs. 9950 or $240 is wayyyy too much... that would be the monthly salary of a lower middle class family in India. In the rural areas, it would be simply unaffordable. And it doesn't seem to be all that different in cost compared to the Dell PDAs...
The high cost is probably because they have to import all the electronics into India - the chips, tft display etc which are likely the highest cost components in the whole device. Now if India had its own semiconductor industry like China does, it would have been much cheaper. Unfortunately, India does not.
One-handed photo enlargement, huh? one-handed next-pic viewing? very nice...
Oh wait, did I say pic? I meant page. ya, page.
Might be a "jerky" experience though...
Can you imagine using this contraption in a car or on a train? Hit a bump, and the damn thing starts zooming in and out, flip through pages, and all sorts of crap.. take it on a roller coaster and it'll format the hard drive on the loop de loop.
By the time you get to considering purchasing the Amida 4200 it behooves you to start looking into an iPAQ or some other handheld.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
Score:-1, Offtopic
OK, all of you moderators get in line. Time for a Breathalyzer test!
That comment seemed pretty relevant to me. Stay off the Chronic.
And that housewife ain't too bad looking either!
'Good news everyone, there're already websites with full scripts of Futurama episodes.'
I thought I was the only geek who appreciated Futurama so much to collect all DVDs. Thanks for enlighten me. Obligatory bittorrent.for the mentioned episode. A pitty that there won't be any more seasons.
...one with everything on it, and one with everything but anchovies.
Since the site is getting /.ed (just got this error- Warning: Too many connections in /var/amidasimp/includes/connectdb.php on line 4 Cannot Connect to MySQL), I decided to copy and paste from my browser cache:
Why Amida? - Innovations
Power and Simplicity Built-in
The Amida Simputer was built on the premise that a computer is more useful when if it is easy-to-use. To achieve that simplicity however, our engineers have toiled hard. And, introduced a number of innovations, so that you (the user) can have the most versatile, most mobile personal computer in the world. Here are the top ten innovations:
Doodle n' Mail: Amida allows you to scribble on any screen using a stylus, and email it. is the world's first instance of any computer (handheld or otherwise) permitting annotation on every screen
Flip Flip Motion Sensor: Amida is the world's first and only computer that responds to your gestures - eg. you can turn the pages of an e-book with a flick of your wrist
Indian Languages: The Amida Simputer allows you to work and play in the language of your choice
Amida Chikki: Easy way to carry programs, music, movies, pictures...
Connectivity: Amida is the world's first handheld computer to have two USB slots (master and slave. Helps it work well with a range of other devices - Reliance CDMA phones (for Internet connectivity), PCs, digital cameras etc.
Pocket Hercules: The Amida Simputer combines portability and power in a manner that no other handheld in the world does. Check out the specs
Simplicity: The Amida Simputer includes a number of innovations that makes computing simple and enjoyable. If you want to work (and play) with consummate ease, then the world's easiest-to-use computer is for you!
Auto Updates: If you need to update your Amida Software, all you have to do is, open an application called Package Manager, connect to the Internet and tap "Update" - no "Install Managers", no visits to showrooms!
SmartCard Reader / Writer: The Simputer is the world's first computer to have an integrated SmartCard readr / writer. Use it for identification, sharing and security
Personalize: Amida lets you transform its appearance to suit your unique tastes and needs
Amida as coffee-maker: No, Amida does not do this. Not yet, anyway!
I don't know if this thing will survive (I've got an Adgenda VR3 and a Vtech Helios lying around here somewhere) but it looks like a great product. I really like the "paper" thing they have. I wish I had $300 (plus shipping, etc.) to get one of them. Unfortunately I'll be lucky if I can pay rent next month.
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
It is a joke as Digital did the itsy back in mid 90's, which used accelometer. The patent was filed in 2000. Loads of prior art.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If I didn't care, I would not have asked.
/. couldn't care less, why bother at all?
For the record, this is not unlike AI: they consistently refuse to see war as a violation of human rights.
If you can't even sway a person like me who is reasonnably well informed and open minded, what the heck do you hope to accomplish with your sig? If you assume people on
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
Yes, it does stand for Simple + Computer.
From AI
...
"We are appealing to the CPN (Maoist) to uphold minimum humanitarian standards as contained in Article 3, common to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 which prohibits violence to life and person, the taking of hostages and the summary executions of those not actively engaged in the conflict, including those placed hors de combat by detention."
just what are you raving about ?? I don't think AI is above reproach; but I'm curious what you think they have done which is so unjust that it has actually - by itself apparently from your sig - led to the deaths of 9000
Bingo, thats what it is coming out, an over-engineered solution that is trying to find a problem.
We Indians call it Resume-building-exercise. Its when people working on a funded project, try to stuff every possible cool technology into the project, just to enhance their own resume, for future jobs.
They have a new language, IMLY
a new browser for that language.
Smart cards readers, USB, and now motion control?
This handheld is going out of hand.
All that was required was a small device with local language or picture based UI. With dial-up facility. Most of the people in villages are not educated, even educated people read very little or very slowly. The situation is improving rapidly, but it will take a generation.
The initial kit of Simputer was quoted to me at 36000 INR (approx 800 USD) this is a price of high-end PDA or a entry level laptop.
From this January, LAPTOP imports to India are duty free. Any person traveling abroad can bring back a laptop with him, in every visit. The local prices of laptops are also down, as a result of this. Entry level laptops from Acer are available at 30000 INR. PCs are obviously cheaper.
I am afraid simputer is going to be another vaporware.
shake it up and to get a feature to work. I do that with any malfunctioning handheld device.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Hey Im hetro!
http://amidasimputer.com/gallery/
Absolutely beautiful! Unbelievably flat front side,
with unreal curves along the back and sides. Very
very attractive.
I'm moving to India! Then I'll be all for outsourcing with my new, erm, Amida... using hottie...
Unless I missed it, the SIM-better-than-a-com-PUTER is missing a few capabilities i.e. 32MB storage + 64MB RAM is pretty low for a PDA these days, particularly when also being used for MP3. - I didn't find anything about flash expansion - Shouldn't they consider using a micro-disc such as those provided on certain high-end MP3 Jukeboxes supporting 1GB of data? Connectivity - Looks like it's all through wires (USB/Serial) to each device, or Ir, what about: - Bluetooth - Wifi No support for MS applications like Word and Excel, or I assume opensource equivelants. Being a new operating system, we now have to wait for the wealth of utilities/applications we use everyday on our PDA's to be ported i.e. I use mym PDA for astronomy apps.
look at http://www.simputer.org [simputer.org]
Exactly. The ADXL202 is $10.20 for q 100-499, in the LCC package, and should go down futher for higher quantities.
Their angular motion sensors are a bit pricier ($33/q100) and in a different package (BGA.. grr).
"'Tis great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults, greater to tell him his." --Poor Richard's Almanac
here is the relevant clause: the rationale emphasizes that GPL and SGPL are similar in spirit.
For instance, it uses accelerometers to sense motion and this is used to give commands to the computer (for instance, to zoom a picture, you just have to move the Simputer towards you and to turn a page, you flick it like you would turn a page for a book.
Does this remind anyone else of the radios in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? It'll be guessing at everything that happens as an input, and be completely unuseable.
It might be a useless toy for you, but keep in mind that the Simputer was designed specifically for India, not for Europe or the first world.
India has widespread CDMA coverage (and also GSM coverage).
Bluetooth and infrared are nice if your PDA needs to talk to other computers/other electric gadgets. The target audience (villagers in rural India) are not likely to have any electronic goods other than maybe a TV or radio.
Wifi is neat if you're a few hundred feet (at most) from a wireless access point,and useless otherwise. Most of the third world is not a few hundred feet from a wireless access point.
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~joyojeet/Simputer-CP .doc
It stands for Simple Inexpensive Multilingual (Mobile) Computer We did a study at UC Berkeley on the SIMputer interface: http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~joyojeet/Simputer-CP .doc