Slashdot Mirror
India Hopes to Make $10 Laptops a Reality
sas-dot writes "We all know Nicholas Negroponte's $100 OLPC. India, which was a potential market, rejected it. India's Human Resources Development ministry's idea to make laptops at $10 is firmly taking shape with two designs already in and public sector undertaking Semiconductor Complex evincing interest to be a part of the project. So far, the cost of one laptop, after factoring in labor charges, is coming to $47 but the ministry feels the price will come down dramatically considering the fact that the demand would be for one million laptops."
A computer that can access Wikipedia and receive and send some mails, even only in black & white, even with only a text display, is still worth more than 10$. If they manage to do this, this could really be an impressive breakthrough in India's educative programs.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
The $100 laptop was always a bit strange in that recognizing that current color displays were too short lived and too power hungry for the third world they decided to spend years inventing a new color screen technology instead of going with the long perfected, cheap (and much lower cost and power) reflective black and white LCD displays.
They obsessed over "electric paper" because they thought it "looked like paper". What nerds!!! Who gives a damn? Black and white reflective LCDs lower resolution, but they have very high contrast and are very readable. But not cool enough for trust fund kids and Negroponte's upper crust crowd.
I understand that children may be more enthusiastic to have color toys with sound and everything, but from the point of view of really poor places having three or four times as many machines is better. It's better to have something than nothing.
Watch "Born Into Brothels", and see just how much India is trying to do for the poor and unpriveliged. I could be wrong, but I think that India is the country with the starkest difference between the amount of wealth and the amount of adject poverty.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Interestingly, you didn't comment on the laptop != education part at all.
If your research is really limited to press releases then I'm not surprised you are so ignorant. Sorry, but if your reading skills were more pronounced (or your reasoning less disingenuous), you would have seen that "limited to press releases" was referring to your suggestion for "research", not really allowing inferences to my actual research.
actually, why not.
e-paper with touch-sensitive layer on top of it. and connection to the net, yes....
The money to be made from users of the cut-down Windows would likely be negligible compared to the profit made from locking in a society to Windows.
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"That's also what people have said about the OLPC when it was announced."
Not true, at least not by people knowing something of IT/computers. By the time they proposed their OLPC project, there were already desktops on the market selling at $199 with better specifications (and a HD of 30GB) - though without screen, granted, but a 7,5 inch screen is not very expensive. It is fully in the realm of the possible to create a laptop with less good specifications for $145, and indeed, with mass-production even just under $100. It is impossible, however, to go below the marginal costs of a product (and still remain in business), which, for the OLPC, can be estimated to be around $80-$90 (thus; even with large volumes). The moment they will say that such an OLPC-device with the current specs will be sold for less then 80 bucks, I will call that an impossibilty too, and rightfully so. The only way that would be possible is if *completely* new, dirt cheap production-methods and materials are used, which is doubtful to happen in the next two years (which is the timeframe of the OLPC to be mass-produced and the indian-made one to be developed).
While it is always dangerous to predict long term technological development, especially in IT, I am willing to wager that anything produced for $10 in two years time, will not be worth the name 'laptop'. At most, it will be a worthless PDA-like device, with abhorent specs, probably worse than what I described in my former post - and even then the batteries won't be included. Let's not forget India already tried to make a home-made 'dirt-cheap' computer for $100...and it flopped miserably. And now they're going to make one for $10? Yeah right.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Yeah, god forbid they actually try and go around building their own tools, or *gasp* even maybe gain some experience in the field!! ZOMG! what are they thinking?? I mean, after all its INDIA, right? like they live in huts and are just now discovering 'electricity'!
"Made in Japan" didn't mean much for quality right after WW2 either, you know. Look at them now. That doesn't mean India is going to pull it off, but sure as hell they should try, and that would be FAR more helpful for poor indian kids and their families than the laptops themselves.
"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
Ever used computer with less than megabyte of ram? I have.
Ever used computer with less than megabyte of persistent storage? I have.
Now lets talk about silicon costs.
Putting few megabytes of ram, all periphelia controllers and tiny CPU, and some flash [non-compatible, designed locally to avoid IP issues], could be put on 3$ chip.
Thats right, computer as powerfull as early 90's computer could be build in single really cheap chip.
No it won't run quake 2. Perhaps you could port first quake for it though.
©God
Airbus is a prime example
"We're going to make the biggest, fastest, dreamiest jet in the world, and it'll be the cheapest jet money can buy!!!!!"
"Oh, by the way, oh pretty please can we have $5 billion in free money to build it with? Thanks citizens of Europe!!!"
Same thing used to happen here in Argentina (in some parts it still does), and that is IMO a even more of a reason to foster technological development in the country. The more you depend on imports for hi-tech tools which are more and more important each day, the harder it'd be for the local economy and general welfare to improve in a global capitalist society. Electronics produced in India (or in Argentina) may currently suck, but unless we push to help the local industry develop in that area, it will keep sucking.
Having kids get cheap PCs is great, but not nearly as much as having them produced in your own country, where many kids will benefit from the laptops, and many many other will benefit from their parent's jobs required to build them , etc.
Now, about the confidence in government.. well, that's a constant in 3rd world countries.. don't think for a second that I doubt my country's government is any different. However, one can't just say "they're all thieves and that's that". Sometimes (maybe in cases like this one) their interests run parallel to those of the people (win-win), and that can be encouraged, aside from obviously trying to actually do something, anything you can, no matter how little it is, to improve the situation.
Some of my friends ran off to europe or the us during the 2001 crisis to get better jobs, or to 'save' themselves. I've been offered jobs in europe and the us, but I didn't want to take them, because I didn't want to live better in another country, I want to be able to live better in THIS one.
"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
Yes, but that's what they cost here in the US already.
Still though, if they are open minded with this thing, $10 *might* be acheivable. I'm talking about going with a non-x86 chip; whatever cheapo processor they can find. Believe me, once upon a time I surfed the web, checked email, wrote papers, and generated spreadsheets just fine on a 486 25mhz and 4MB of ram - using a full GUI. Previous to that the Amiga's and other computers were doing the same on less hardware than that.
Custom code the OS (in assembler if you have to), realize that you're targeting people who have never used a computer and as such they won't find it "too slow", and you can do some amazing things on hardware that would be considered "obsolete" by our spoiled populace. As a matter of fact, give it a cheap, low-res mono-LCD display (kinda like a graphing calculator but a bit larger - at least 8") and put a text-based OS on there. Still give it networking, and put Lynx and Mutt on there. I guarantee kids will learn from it and be grateful.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain