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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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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
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
...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.
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
This does not simpute. Simputer will return after deciding your punishment.
mitch
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.
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.
It would seem from the FAQ that it doesn't run anything else!
/.er, you already know whether or not it can be used to create a Beowulf cluster!
Actually, they want to release the hardware specs under a GLP type license.
And apparently, as you are a
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. - Blake
Yes
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.
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.)
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
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?
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."
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.
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!