The Indian Info-Rickshaws

DoomDoom writes "CNN is running a story on how the Indian government is delivering health and educational services on a WiFi equipped rickshaw to the poorest of its citizens. It's a poetical union of a typical third world product with high-tech! Do you still think computing is unnecssary for the poorest of the poor?"

Comments

Re:necessity

[andy1307]

especially free pr0n, which is only available on the internet.

cost

[t_allardyce]

What always amazes me is how governments in other countries manage to get IT projects finished with tiny budgets. Here in the UK or in the US the rickshaws would have cost 100s of thousands each and a small fortune to run. Look at eVoting for example - i've heard prices of $10000 per machine! WTF costs $10000 to stick an unsecure crappy computer in a box and put some strung together voting software on it? India they do it with some custom build hardware and it costs nothing!

Government initiatives

[usefool]

It's good to see the Indian government is taking the initiatives to bring modern technology to within reach of the rural community.

In the article, it mentions many Indian villages are poorly wired, telephone lines can go dead for weeks at a time, making wireless technology the most reliable Web connection.

However, what it takes is a willing government to find an alternative, rather than giving promises to improve telephone lines.

Re:Hard Life

[shokk]

It took a business trip to India in early 2001 to help me appreciate how good I have it. Then again, India is still striving for space programs, nukes, and armed parity with the Paks, so everyone's blowing a lot of money that could be used to lift up others. But then, that's the same old story, so nothing's new. Some won a genetic lottery, some lived just to die for a headline. 5 billion years from now when the sun blows it all to dust no one will be around to judge it all.